Quick question about bike chain adjustment

forgot my book on honda hornet at home, can somebody please tell me:

1 What honda hornet chain tension should be set at when the chain is adjusted?

2 What tools would I need to get to adjust my chain?

Thanks

The optimum chain tension is between 30 and 40mm slack (with no-one on the bike).

ok, thank you

27mm spanner/socket for rear bolt (going by my CBF500), 14mm and 12mm spanners for rear locking nuts on the chain adjusters. Did my bike yesterday! And yes, around 3-4cm slack with no one on the bike, although mine is a touch tighter than than.

i cant even check if my chain is slack on not cause i did measurements with my mate holding the bike straight and they came back as ok. and then i measured with it on it’s side and the was a lot more free play. i have a hunch that its slack without even having a measuring tape, because when it goes up it almost touches swingarm, surely that’s a cause for concern right? it’s ok when pushing down though. basically when the chain is pushed up it measures 20mm when pushed down about 70mm

yeah that’s normal. cos the weight is on the side stand, not just on the 2 wheels then.

take it to omc ask them to help you

ok well i’m off to halfords to buy tools, i don’t have a stand, so god help me i get this right

You should have everything you need under the seat in the toolkit, unless you’ve lost that. The axle bolt on the Hornet is 24 mm.
In the toolkit, it’s the ring spanner. You should also have a little extender bar and the tool to adjust the rear shock. The three pieces together give you enough leverage to loosen the bolt.

12 and 14 mm spanners should be in there as well.

So before you hurt yourself and sorry if this is patronising but

  1. http://www.kawiforums.com/two-wheeled-discussion/177953-another-squid-how-not-clean-your-chain-nsfw.html

  2. The chain should not be drum tight, in fact if you’re doing it on the side stand then it probably wants to be a little looser than you might think because 3

  3. When you sit on it the chain tightens up due to the swingarm moving so you need to compensate for this.

  4. If you can pull the chain off the rear sprocket it’s far too loose.

  5. Ensure that adjustment is done equally on both sides of the swingarm.

my bike is a used bike, and from what i can remember i took the tools out…or maybe not i’ll go an check right now. just spoke to my motorcycle mate and he said my chain must be f*cked if it’s touching swing arm when i push it up. so i just done a sissy thing and rung up a bike shop so they could adjust it for me, fingers crossed it wont take too long as i’ve got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. if it does take too long then i will have only myself to blame for not using my day productively…

ok yes the tools were there looks like i didn’t move them anywhere afterall, will be asking at the shop tomorrow if tools i’ve got are all the ones that will do the chain, thanks everyone

Anna if your chain is that fucked and you’ve been riding around on it like that, expect the shop to try and sell you a new chain and sprockets. No garage should be charging more than half an hour’s labour for that entire job, and tbh if they’re just adjusting the chain I’d only give them £15 max (I’d kinda expect it for free if I was buying something else, it’s that trivial a job).

its not that hard to adjust a chain

if your really sad I use trammel gauges to measure the distance from the swinging arm to the rear spindle

& it worked after a rather large unit used my bike yesterday with no complainants

I heard that :stuck_out_tongue:

Pop over to the workshop at the weekend and I’ll adjust your chain for biscuits :wink: