Hi Folks, wanted to report a cautionary note about Spring-Clip Links on
bike chains. After returning home from my usual ride on the 250 Ninja,
I happened to glance at the rear chain and lo-and-behold, the little
spring clip on the Connecting Link was gone. This is a 520 Tsubaki
Omega O-ring chain, which is the finest and longest wearing I've found.
The Connecting Link was the one they send in the new chain package, the
spring clip very carefully fitted and definitely correctly in place.
The chain has 3700 miles on it and only been adjusted once. The
sideplate of the Link, which is a light press fit in assembly, is firmly
in place, so no harm was done. But in time, without the spring clip, it
might have come off, which would be BAD.
I KNOW, Kawasaki says to take the rear fork off and replace your chain
with the endless OEM chain. Not likely, for me anyway.
I KNOW, the Rivet Type Connecting Link is available, and offered by
Tsubaki along with the chain, and in the past I have used this, but it
is more trouble to assemble, so this time I figured, what the heck, this
is just road use, I'm gonna use the spring clip Link.
THE LESSON is, I guess I'll have to forget the Spring Clip Type
Connecting Link, and just use the Rivet Type from now on.
It's hard for us old greybeard bikers to accept the need for this, since
back in the '50s and '60s we ran our 1000cc Vincents and everything else
with Renold chains with OEM spring-clip connecting links, and never a
problem. The Vincent factory shipped all their road bikes out that way,
and nobody had a problem. Of course the chains wore out in maybe 5000
miles. And it was the standard lore in those days that a serious racing
bike needed a rivet-type connecting link.
Ardun Bill
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