Terrible chain maintenance almost ends in disaster
Experienced mechanic Chris Self was shocked by the state of this chain
‘When we wheeled it in you could hear it crunching’
When riders are hit hard in the wallet, a lesson is often learned. But the owner of a Lexmoto XTR125 failed to learn that lesson when he had to buy a new engine after running out of oil. Chris Self, who runs his own dealership in Ipswich, feared the worst when he saw the Chinese 125 arrive back in his workshop. He explained: “This time he was coming in for a new chain adjuster, but we soon spotted that there was a bigger problem with the chain itself and that the adjuster was just collateral damage.
“The chain had already come off its sprockets once and when we moved the bike into the workshop you could hear the links crunching.” When Chris took a closer look at the damaged chain, he was amazed that the owner had even managed to ride it to the shop. Budget parts often aren’t the best quality but, judging by the build-up of crud and rust along its length, this chain had been given a hard life. Chris added: “The rollers on several link pins had split and fallen out and on one link both of them had disappeared. That had allowed the outside link sideplate to slide across on its pins so it was on the inside of the chain run. “Although I had a GSX-R1000 in once with one roller missing
I’d never seen two on the same link before. It meant the chain went from being tensioned about right to having 4-5 inches of free play. It was scary that it had been ridden like this. He did say it had been hard to change gear and that it was a bit noisy!” His wallet wasn’t hit as hard as it had been for the engine change, as it only cost £82 all in, but it could have been a whole lot worse if the chain had skipped its sprockets again and jammed the back wheel. Chris concluded: “He was lucky on this occasion and let’s hope the lesson has now been learned!”