Fitting a chain and sprockets....

What a pain in the arse!!

I got a good price on a chain and sprockets, and figured i'd fit them tonight. What I thought was going to be a 20 minute job took all night, and I still haven't finished.

First off, took the back wheel off and put the rear sprocket on. Too easy... waaaaay too easy. The calm before the storm!

Got the angle grinder out and cut the old chain off. 1 x old chain in the bin.

Remove the front sprocket cover, went to take the front sprocket off and... holy shit, that's a BIG NUT!!! OK, umm... vice grips? Nope. Hmm.. OK. A quick message to Mark and he tells me his dad has a socket that should do the trick. He lives about 2 minutes away so around I go.

I pick up the mammoth socket, get it home and... shit, the nut just wont budge! Who the hell put this on? The Hulk??

After a considerable amount of time I give up. I'll leave the old one on until I can find someone with a rattle gun. Besides, Mario tells me that the chain is supposed to stay on whilst trying to remove the nut. I doubt that would have made any difference with this sucker...

Right, timefor the new chain. Take the new one out of the packet, wrap it around the sprockets, work out which one I need to cut it down to. Grab the angle grinder (at 9:30 in the evening... sorry neighbours!) and cut away. Grind the pins down (no, I don't have a chain tool) and pop them out.

Grab the new link piece, put it in, and... For those that don't know, one side of the link has 2 rods (the rollers) attached to it. There is a flat plate that snicks over the rods at the other end and the plate gets pushed on until two little groves are showing for the circlip to clip onto.

The plate will not go onto the rods far enough for the groove to show. I try pliers, vice grips, a hammer and screwdriver. The bastard plate just will not go on.

After rooting around trying to make it fit I decide to cut a plate off of the excess links I had cut off earlier. Out with the angle grinder again, cut the plate off, and what do you know, it fits perfectly. The holes in the freakin plate that came with the link piece aren't big enough. No amount of reasonable force was ever going to get it on properly. *sigh*

OK, so, now that I have a piece that fits, I put it together. Out with the circlip and... FARK!!! The circlip WILL NOT go on. This is starting to become a joke. In the end I force the bastard on with a pair of pliers, a hammer and two screwdrivers. In the process I squeeze a small amount of skin on my finger in between the pliers, jump around and yell and swear alot. Two blood blisters coming right up.

Finally the bike is back together and I realise I should have cut one more link out of the chain. For fucks sake! Anyway, it's staying the way it is until it gets serviced next weekend.

Not a job I will bother trying again...

ouch you poor bastard, sounds like a comedy of errors similar to my fitting my new muffers.

Oh and why i think the old chain was supposed to stay on was so that they could apply the foot brake to the rear wheel and use the chain & rear sprocket to take the torque of the undoing of the "big mofo" nut rather than risking putting those stresses onto the gearbox & engine. That's at least how i took it at least.


Poor bastard *again*

Why did you need to shorten the new chain n e way?
Not a good idea on a road bike to have a broken chain meaning a joiner IMO, you can get pro tools to join chains properly btw.
But in my recent history of posting about chains I just should shut the fuk up as my ideas are not good for bikes.

u farked that up right & proper...
correct procedure for fitting chain & sprockets..
1. call jamie & get him to borrow chain joiner from guy he works with.
2.bring bike to our place.
3.bring beer.
4.use my rattle gun & compressor to loosen the front sprocket before cutting chain off-that way u can use brake as mike said.
5.refill stubby holder.
6.remove rear wheel
7.swear a lil...just for the hell of it.
8.grinder to chain link-thats the go...wake up neighbours if need be!
9.roll a ciggie & puff one down
10.change cd as ur sick of this one..
11.swap over rear sprocket
12.put into place front sprocket-tighten as much as possible by hand
13.lay chain around sprockets-cut off excess
14.use chain joiner to join chain easily.
15.tighten front sprocket with rattler
adjust cahin/rear wheel.
16.refill stubby holder again.
17.sit round admiring ur latest work.
18.hope u havent farked nething up & uve tightened everything...

now i kno this post is a lil non serious, but after we did jamies chain the hard way (like jase did his), we had a go at mine. we did mine in abt 30min all up-with all the right tools etc...
hth

But in my recent history of posting about chains I just should shut the fuk up as my ideas are not good for bikes.

for some reason i thought of "Sticks'n'stones can break my bones, but whips and chains excite me", fuck knows why

*looks at nekas post*
That might explain why i paid a bloke to fit a new chain to my old bike.
Cheers.

Its lots easier the second time you do it and i have a little tool to push the plate over the pins and it takes 2 minutes to do but you have to have the right tool.

you can remove the front sproket with a bigarse breaker bar and a peice of water pipe but you probably already know this.

nekas technique sounds about right.

you can remove the front sproket with a bigarse breaker bar and a peice of water pipe but you probably already know this.

my previous experiences mean.....
I now have a selection of BIG sockets from about
25mm up to 42mm and a rattle gun for the compressor
PLUS
a 750mm long breaker bar with a ½' drive connector on the end
for stubborn MOFOs
and
with that combo I have never since had a problem getting that nut off
(or the big balancer bolts on car engines or the big nut on diff pinions)

multiplication of your torque (power of the push) is the aim of the game

Mick @ MTM Goodna(QLD Tyre God) did my last set of sprockets & chain. He has a big roll of RK Chain and a nice selection of sprockets. Does a good deal just like the tyres.

you always need:
"the right tools for the job"
as my wise ol dad used to say (he didn't have any tools, so never did any tool-related work!)......
but of course you always try to "bush-mechanic" it.... ruin shit and pay more $$$$$ and time to fix the stressful situation... how many times have we all done this?!
thx for sharing tho... i will NEVER try this operation on my own now!!
cheers!

having done this job several times all i can do is echo yankee's wise comments.

right tools make the job easy, last time tim and I did it we took 1.5 hrs from start to finish including changing the front sprocket.

why didnt you get jamie to help...........

The first time I changed the front sprocket on my zx7r I had similar problems.
A breaker bar, a wooden post through the rear wheel and the misses on the rear brake to stop it turning couldn't get it off. I ended up busting the socket.
I hired a rattle gun, cost $25 and was of in 2 minutes.

I now have a rattle gun....

Don't forget to flatten the pins on the chain link to make sure it doesn't come off, I don't trust the circlip on its own..

The first time I changed the front sprocket on my zx7r I had similar problems.
A breaker bar, a wooden post through the rear wheel and the misses on the rear brake to stop it turning couldn't get it off. I ended up busting the socket.
I hired a rattle gun, cost $25 and was of in 2 minutes.

I now have a rattle gun....

Don't forget to flatten the pins on the chain link to make sure it doesn't come off, I don't trust the circlip on its own..

another advantage of the chain tool....no more circlips......they are not good on litre bikes

for some reason i thought of "Sticks'n'stones can break my bones, but whips and chains excite me", fuck knows why

I have been hit by a whip and a chain but neither excite me.

Last edited by Jonno on Mon May 16, 2005 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hmm I have 2 new sprockets, a new chain, a new link, a compressor, a grinder, blah, blah... I don't have a chain tool...

I think I'll get one before I change mine...