She's Loose

[Fullmetal]

I was recently hearing strange sounds coming from the Kat at speed. Sitting and idling/revving sounded fine, but as it was in motion, squeaking and rattling sounds came from somewhere under me. It seemed like it made more noise decelerating than it did accelerating...

I was pretty much baffled till I started to notice that the sound was coming from the left side of the bike. After a couple short rides, I took a look at the chain. It was so loose that it was actually scraping against the swingarm to produce a metal on metal sound. The chain had so much play in it that I could push it up far enough from the bottom to hit the swingarm as well.

I tightened it up and lubed it with some chain wax, and now I'm good to go. I just have no idea how this happened. How could my chain become THAT loose?

[steves]

Chains become loose, and wear out over time.

[Fullmetal]

Hahaha I suppose my post makes it seem like I don't know chains regularly become looser over time, but my point was that it became VERY loose VERY quickly. I check everything on my bike about once a month (fluid levels, tire pressure, lights and indicators, chain and sprockets, brake pads, etc.). So I know it wasn't like that a month ago. I'm just kinda scratching my head wondering what changed this month that did that to my chain.

[HS2020]

Change in riding style? Could be a number of things. have you had your tire off recently? Could not have tighten it up all the way.

[steves]

If the chain is old, or high mileage, or cheap... it may just be and the end of it's useful life.

[Fullmetal]

Bike has 14000 miles on it. I don't know if it is the stock chain or not, but the teeth on the sprockets look ok to me. Would it be possible for the chain to wear out before the sprockets? Usually it seems like people get a new chain/sprocket set after the teeth on the sprocket show excess wear. I can't say I've heard of someone changing out their chain/sprockets because the chain was bad.

[steves]

Chains do wear out. I got close to 15k on the bandit's chain. At the end... I would have to adjusted like 3x's per day. The sprockets looked okay.

If it's an endless chain (no master link) it's probably stock.

[Enjay386]

Lol thought maybe you and the girl broke up by the title of this thread.

[Fullmetal]

Well Steves, I suppose I'll just have to keep a close eye on it and see what it does for the next little while.

And yeah Enjay... I've had a lot of confusing threads today.

[scottynoface]

Yeah make sure you keep an eye on it. Once chains pass the point of too much wear, they stretch out almost immediately after being adjusted no matter what you do. Look at my garage pic for proof

[Fullmetal]

Well, it's been a while, so I thought I'd update on CHAIN WATCH 2010.

I tightened it up again about two weeks ago during a regular check up before a trip to Alabama (about 450 mi round trip). I set it to 1'' of play.

After my trip, the darn thing is loose again... Tightened it again today. Looks like it's time to invest in a new one. Anyone seen any good deals on chains lately?