Spot the epic cush drive failure!
125’s cush drive had disintegrated
The owner of this 2015 Yamaha YZF-R125 is a semi-regular customer at Zenith Motorcycles in north London. Mechanic Bernie Roe told us: “She is on a budget and gets it into us when she can. During that last service we spotted there was a millimetre or two play in the cush drive rubbers, but we didn’t replace them then, either because they weren’t in stock or her funds were low.” Cush drive rubbers look like slices of cake and fit into the wheel hub on the chain side, then the rear sprocket carrier fits into them. They cushion shocks to the system when you open and shut the throttle. But those few millimetres had grown to several centimetres in a few weeks and there was now 75-80 degrees of rotation between the sprocket and the hub. Bernie added: “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years. I mean, we used to use a bit of inner tube to take up the slack on our bikes when we were kids. But these had completely disintegrated and I wondered whether some sort of caustic cleaner had contaminated them. “Every time she opened the throttle it must have jolted like the bike was a locomotive taking up the slack pulling a load of wagons.” Checking for play is easy to do when you adjust your chain. Put the bike in first gear with the engine off, let the clutch out and see if you can rock the wheel back and forth. “She said it was awful, but there was no other damage and she was out the door for £45. Then about 30 minutes later she rang us and said ‘I love my bike again’,” grinned Bernie.