Broke_Dirty_FZ1
Well-Known Member
I have seen a few questions about noise coming from the front sprocket area and decided to show what was causing mine.
I have actually had a few bikes and have never heard one make the grumbling, clicking noise that this bike was making when I bought it. I figured it was the chain/sprocket so I used that to get the price down on the bike a little more. From the looks of it, Yamaha designed that rubber like piece into the front sprockets of these bikes. Probably as some kind of vibration damping measure. Because of it, as the sprocket and chain wears down, the outer links of the chain start digging into the rubber pieces and that is what makes that horrible noise. Since I have never seen those rubber pieces before, I imagine you don't normally detect this kind of wear unless you actually take your sprocket cover off and look for it.
As you can see from the pics, the front sprocket was quite hooked and I will also be posting pictures of the chain when I can get a better camera. I would like to show the side to side play the rollers had, and if I can capture it with the camera, I would also like to show how much axial play the rollers had on the pins themselves. Let me just say, that in 11 years of riding and working on my own bikes, I have never seen a chain worn this bad.
Basically, this chain must have been seriously neglected as the bike only has about 16,000 miles on it. In relation to the chain and front sprocket, the rear sprocket actually looks to be in perfect shape. So I think the PO tried masking the problem, or taking the cheap route by only replacing the rear sprocket at some point in time. But then again, a couple of the nuts did require some fairly serious heat to get them off, so maybe it is the original.
I have actually had a few bikes and have never heard one make the grumbling, clicking noise that this bike was making when I bought it. I figured it was the chain/sprocket so I used that to get the price down on the bike a little more. From the looks of it, Yamaha designed that rubber like piece into the front sprockets of these bikes. Probably as some kind of vibration damping measure. Because of it, as the sprocket and chain wears down, the outer links of the chain start digging into the rubber pieces and that is what makes that horrible noise. Since I have never seen those rubber pieces before, I imagine you don't normally detect this kind of wear unless you actually take your sprocket cover off and look for it.
As you can see from the pics, the front sprocket was quite hooked and I will also be posting pictures of the chain when I can get a better camera. I would like to show the side to side play the rollers had, and if I can capture it with the camera, I would also like to show how much axial play the rollers had on the pins themselves. Let me just say, that in 11 years of riding and working on my own bikes, I have never seen a chain worn this bad.
Basically, this chain must have been seriously neglected as the bike only has about 16,000 miles on it. In relation to the chain and front sprocket, the rear sprocket actually looks to be in perfect shape. So I think the PO tried masking the problem, or taking the cheap route by only replacing the rear sprocket at some point in time. But then again, a couple of the nuts did require some fairly serious heat to get them off, so maybe it is the original.
