Replacing chain with new sprockets question

[Water Warrior 2]

Good pics BB. Your bike is really too clean to be ridden as much as you actually do.

[burkbuilds]

Thanks WW, I'm definitely an amateur photog with a cheap camera, but I appreciate the compliment. The bike only looks somewhat clean because I wiped it off a little before I started snapping and the final pics I had spent some time polishing a little although not to any extreme. This bike is a workhorse for me, I do enjoy riding it, it's a really good bike, but I work it hard, it doesn't get a break if it's cold or rainy and it certainly has it's share of nicks and scratches and it's not even a year old yet.

By the way, I just got off of another forum where a guy bought a used 500 with 12,000 miles on it and he had to have the chain and both sprockets replaced due to excessive wear before he took it home from the dealers. A little oil and cleaning seems to make a lot of difference in that department huh?

[blaine]

My chain has 17000kms on it.Its only been adjusted twice.Clean and lube every 1000kms with kerosene and P.J. Chain wax.

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by burkbuilds

Thanks WW, I'm definitely an amateur photog with a cheap camera, but I appreciate the compliment. The bike only looks somewhat clean because I wiped it off a little before I started snapping and the final pics I had spent some time polishing a little although not to any extreme. This bike is a workhorse for me, I do enjoy riding it, it's a really good bike, but I work it hard, it doesn't get a break if it's cold or rainy and it certainly has it's share of nicks and scratches and it's not even a year old yet.

By the way, I just got off of another forum where a guy bought a used 500 with 12,000 miles on it and he had to have the chain and both sprockets replaced due to excessive wear before he took it home from the dealers. A little oil and cleaning seems to make a lot of difference in that department huh?

A little TLC goes a long way. Dealers and the aftermarket folks just love riders who forget to go that extra little bit.

[mrlmd1]

Nice job, a fair amount of work, but you may accomplish what you set out to do, so all is good.
In your first pic, see all that crud that accumulates on the guard in front of the sprocket? All that stuff gets flung off by the spinning chain, picked up from the road with an oil-based chain lube, and that stuff gets onto the chain and is causing wear between the chain and sprockets due to it's friction and abrasiveness. I never see anything like that with the Teflon spray lube - nothing sticks to the chain, it's always clean on the surface and makes cleaning and lubing that much easier and IMO should make the whole system last longer.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by burkbuilds

This bike is a workhorse for me ............ it doesn't get a break if it's cold or rainy

:plus1:

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

Nice job, a fair amount of work, but you may accomplish what you set out to do, so all is good.
In your first pic, see all that crud that accumulates on the guard in front of the sprocket? All that stuff gets flung off by the spinning chain, picked up from the road with an oil-based chain lube, and that stuff gets onto the chain and is causing wear between the chain and sprockets due to it's friction and abrasiveness. I never see anything like that with the Teflon spray lube - nothing sticks to the chain, it's always clean on the surface and makes cleaning and lubing that much easier and IMO should make the whole system last longer.

I still found a little build up of Teflon but not near as much as a regular chain lube. The first time pulling the front sprocket cover(using chain lube then)was almost a life altering experience. What a dirty sticky mess. I had to clean the sprocket cover in kerosene to be able to even handle it when re-installing it. I like BB's idea of the Loobman chain luber. The life of chain and sprockets are greatly increased and more than make up for the price of the Loobman chain luber. Another thing on the wishlist for the Vstrom.

[burkbuilds]

Hey WW, so far I really think the loobman chain luber is going to work out great. I just squeeze the bottle a couple of times right before I take off and the lube hits the chain a few minutes later and slowly disperses onto the sprocket (both sides) where it gets down onto both sides of the chain right where the o-rings live and all the friction takes place. This seems to use the lube much more efficiently than the way I was doing it before and I don't seem to get much noticeable "sling off" on the wheel.

By the way, switching the rear sprocket over to the 40 tooth seems to have made an incredible increase in my highway mpg's. Before, with the 17 front and 42 rear I was averaging around 51 mpg's at 70 mph highway. After switching the rear sprocket out to the 40 tooth, although the ratio only dropped by 5%, it seems to have dropped me into a more fuel efficient rpm range for this engine. I got over 61 mpg's on my trip down to Atlanta Monday. (Pure highway miles, I filled up next to the interstate and then filled up again once I got to Atlanta just to see how it did). I'll be interested to see if that holds up long term or if it was some sort of fluke, but I've been riding that stretch twice a week for over six months now and I've never done better than 55 mpg's before at that speed. I've only gotten 60 once before and that was riding between 60-65 mph. I'll let you know how it does on the return trip later this week, although that will include my around town mileage during the week so it won't be an exact comparison to the pure highway mileage. I've found a Chevron just South of Dalton Ga that sells gas without the ethanol and I've found that if I top off once I get here, I can make it back to that station on my way home, which keeps my ethanol content less than 5% at most. I talked with the owner a few weeks back and he told me that he's in the closest county north of Atlanta that is not in the EPA's failed air standard, which requires those stations to use the ethanol in their fuel. There are several stations near my home in Rossville, that carry non-ethanol and I always buy that for my bike, cars, trucks, and lawn equipment and my mom's jet ski's. The smaller engines especially seem to be hard to start and don't run smoothly on gas with ethanol. We kept taking the jet ski's in to get them "fixed" unti we figured that out and switched to pure gas, no problems now. I almost pulled my arm out of socket trying to start lawnmowers, weedeaters, and blowers on that darn stuff, curses on the legislatures and the EPA!

[Water Warrior 2]

BB, sounds like you might have found a sweet spot in the torque curve to attain greater mileage. Do you have any thoughts on around town riding yet ? Probably a little less shifting I would imagine.

[burkbuilds]

Well, so far I haven't really noticed a big difference, I guess a 5% drop in rpms just is not very significant in and out of traffic. I certainly haven't noticed anything different about taking off from a stop, and I really haven't noticed that I'm shifting any more or less, except maybe at around 45-50 mph now I don't feel the need to shift from 5th to 6th, so I guess that is a little different. Before I found myself going into 6th gear at about that speed probably just from "feel" or sound more than anything, it just seemed like it was ready to shift up and now I don't hit 6th until I'm up to highway speeds around 55mph or so. I've always felt like this bike could take another gear once you got up to about 70 mph and that was one reason I did not hesitate to try the 40 tooth rear sprocket. As you pointed out, I probably just found a better torque curve for mpg when I dropped to the 40 tooth. I talked with another rider who has a 500 out in the flatlands out west and he tells me he gets mid 60's using the 17/42 set up, but no hills to climb out there. It is very hilly here in Northwest Georgia and I'd be pushing it to drop any more in my gear ratio than I have now. I also noticed that with the smaller diameter rear sprocket, I had to adjust the rear wheel back pretty far to take up the slack, so if I went any more I'd probably have to have a link removed from the chain or I wouldn't be able to set the slack properly.