Basic Motorcycle Maintenance: Chain maintenance

When you buy a motorcycle, either used or brand new, the first thing to look and to worry for is the chain.

What do you have to look?

First thing is to look is if the chain is lubed or not, this can be done easily by just touching it.

Second thing is to look if the chain is tense enough or not, this can vary on almost every bike, make sure you check the owner’s motorcycle manual either on the physical copy or on the internet, it's very important to have it.

On a brand new motorcycle this is usually done before you collect the bike at your motorshop. But it wouldn't harm if you just take a quick look into it, most of the dealers are happy to do it for you and it only takes them around 5 minutes.

If you are buying a previous owned motorcycle, this is one of the first things you should look. Besides of looking at the lube or not and the tension another important fact to look is how much usage the chain has left. This is easy to check, all chained motorcycle will have marks near the back sprocket, each motorcycle is different, but most of them look like this:

If the lines marker is close to the forward part of the motorcycle it shows that chain is near the end of its life. This means you could negotiate price for the bike, since a new kit costs around $150 - $250 dollars or more if you change it at the shop.

So how do we tense and lubricate the chain?

To lubricate we have to do a single consideration, if our bike is lucky enough to have a center side stand, all we have to do is put it on the center stand and then just roll over the wheel with our hand while we spray it with some lube. Don't exceed the lube or it will just pour over the front sprocket or even the wheel. Once it's done we are good to go. If the bike doesn't have a center stand we might have to buy a motorcycle stand, this might be worth the price since we are going to need it for more basic maintenance operations. If you don't want or can't afford a bike stand the other option is to support our motorcycle on the side stand, lift it up, hold it that way and make someone roll the wheel and start lubing. This is a dangerous method and should be done only by someone with enough experience on maintenance of the bike. DO NOT attempt this if you are not sure! Your best option if you don't have a center stand is just to go to your fav motodiam and let them do the work. They might or might not charge you for this basic operation. Remember to lube the bike chain every 800 km or so. Check your owner’s manual, they might recommend more or less kilometers.

Here’s a youtube Video on how to clean and lubricate your chain.

For adjusting the motorcycle tension, this might be trickier, each motorcycle has its own process, but all of them are similar in procedure, again, check your owner’s manual to get into detail.

First of all, use, again a center stand or the bike stand. After this, loose the nut securing the rear axle.

Second, adjust the chain tension by tighten the axle nuts, you have to do it in a uniform way, on left and right side, so that the rear tire is aligned, this can be seen when the markers mentioned are on the same line. Make sure you tighten according to owner’s manual.

Third, tight the rear axle again. Make sure it's tight enough

Done!

Let's hope you have enjoy this mini tutorial on how to adjust and tighten a motorcycle chain. Remember this is a general guide of a how to do it, details on your motorcycle may vary, so make sure you use your owner’s manual.

Here’s a youtube Video on how to tighten your chain