How to Change Motorcycle Chain and Sprockets

One of the most neglected areas of a motorcycle is also the most used and abused. It's your motorcycle's chain and sprockets. Today I'm going to teach you guys how to change both. Because I'm tired of you guys showing up to two-wheel Tuesdays with chains as loose as your grandma's titties. So pay attention you ******* morons. So what determines if you actually need a new chain and sprocket or not? One of the most obvious things is if the chain is extremely loose and your chain tensioner is all the way back the f**k up. You can also try to look for broken o-rings all over the chain and sometimes you can pull this back and if you can see daylight, you're treading on ice my friend. Surface rust doesn't determine a bad chain. If you do a lot of rain riding, your chain's gonna rust and you're just gonna have to clean it and lube it more often. If the sprocket teeth look like crackhead teeth, it's time for new sprockets. My general rule is if I have to change the chain, I'm gonna go ahead and change the sprockets. Before you do anything, I want you to go ahead and count the links on the chain by hand and if your sprockets aren't marked with how many teeth like this, go ahead and count the sprocket teeth by hand as well. My chain link's supposed to be 110 links, so let's go ahead and count that out. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 94, 95, 96, 8, 9, 110, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. We got the right sizes, let's go. First things first, put the motorcycle in gear. Loosen this front sprocket nut. Set that nut aside. There's a ton of gunk in there, I don't know if you guys could see that. That's all pretty much just old Loctite. Alright, next up we're gonna loosen all these sprocket nuts. Okay, so next I take my chain breaker. See this pin right here in the middle? This is what pushes the pin out of the chain. There's a groove on the inside where you stick the middle of the chain link. Rather than trying to explain it, I'm just gonna demonstrate it. You line it up and then try to get it right in the center, just like that. Now we're gonna tighten this, which will push that pin all the way across the other side. Okay, now we can take the chain apart, just like that. Okay, so these are just normal O-ring chains and what I'm putting on is an X-ring chain. There's a big difference that I'll show you guys in a few. Okay, I don't know if you guys could see that, but there's a huge difference between just a regular O-ring chain and an X-ring chain. The X-ring pretty much has crevices that traps all the grease in different places, versus the X-ring which traps the grease in one spot. Alright, so a lot of you guys were giving crap about cleaning my chain with brake cleaner. You're telling me that the O-rings are gonna get messed up. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is take these O-rings and let them sleep in a bath of brake cleaner. Just like that. And I'll show you that nothing will happen to it. We'll check this at the end of the video. Alright guys, now you can pull off the chain. Oh, still in gear. Just like so. That's a 525 chain and I'm doing a 520 conversion. Okay, so we're gonna weigh the stock chain. 69.9 ounces. 69. Now we're gonna weigh the new chain. 60.5 ounces. So it's about... I don't know, but I'll put it on the screen. Alright, now we're gonna remove the rear wheel. Okay. Alright, now we're gonna remove the rear wheel. Just like that. Now we can remove the sprocket. While I'm here, I'm gonna go ahead and try to clean up this rear wheel with some brake cleaner. You guys know I love brake cleaner if anything should. It doesn't have to be perfect because it's gonna get really dirty again anyway. Alright, let's go ahead and take these sprocket nuts off. Throw these in here with the O-rings so that way we can get them cleaned up. They should just pop right off like that. Bam. Take this thing off. Okay, we'll go ahead and weigh this. What's that say, Joel? What do we got? 24.8 ounces. 24.8. Okay, we'll weigh the new one. I can already feel how light this one is. Okay. 7.9 ounces. Okay, that's a lot. It's adding up. Three times lighter. Okay, do a quick inspection of this. Just to make sure there's no debris or anything in there that needs to come out or be cleaned. Get the underside of this. Kind of wipe it down, clean it up a little bit. It doesn't have to be perfect. Okay, so rear wheels have a cush drive inside the sprockets. They're usually some kind of rubber to help absorb shock when you're hitting the throttle on the sprocket. On this one, the cush drives are in here. Most cush drives are different depending on the wheel. But basically, this sits in here like this. And that rubber piece on the outside is what absorbs all that impact, especially on this motorcycle. Hope that explains it. So you're going to inspect all these nuts to make sure there's no cracks or anything like that. These seem to be in pretty good condition. And just put them back. They don't need to be squeaky clean because this area is a really dirty part of the motorcycle anyway. But make sure those are all flush. These should not be able to twist. The new sprocket should go right in. Perfect. We're going to add a little bit of Loctite to each one of these studs. I like the blue stuff. It doesn't really need it because these nuts are lock nuts. They lock in place. You see that lock locking ring right there? We're just going to get these started and then we'll torque them down. Torque specs of these nuts are 50 Newton meters or 36-ish foot pounds of torque. I'm going to go 37. Okay, here we go. Perfect. There we go. Now we can do this front sprocket. All right, now you can pull out your front sprocket and we'll weigh this real quick. 10.2 ounces. All right, now we'll do the new one. 7.7 ounces. Two ounces savings? Three. Three? Every ounce counts, right? All right, you see all that gunk in there? We're going to try to clean this up before we put the sprocket on. This is also a good time to clean out this chain guide right here. See all that ---- right there? That is all old wax. Put your sprocket back in. Make sure it's the right side. One side is thicker than the other. This thicker side, for me, goes on the inside. Add some Loctite to your bolt and that goes in just like that. What's that? Now can you put the wheel back? Yes. Yes, we can. So I cleaned up my spindle, my axle, whatever you want to call it, and I added some grease to it just like that. They don't need much. Now we're going to put it back like so. Come on, sucker, get in there. Bam. Not the other side. Hey, you got it. Oh man, Julian. That's what man's does. All right, grab a towel. We're going to get some of this surface wax off using our brake cleaner. Like this. And we're just going to try to wipe down as much of this as possible because they over wax this from the factory because they don't want it to rust, obviously. Now we're going to run this sprocket through like that. Yes. You're doing it. Yes. And you did it. Yay. You did it. Perfect. Now you can connect the chain. I'm going to take this axle block off so that way we can reach the chain. This, that. Okay, so this is the grease that they provide you for the O-rings. So you want to grease up those O-rings really good. Bam, just like that. Inside that little baggie. Mix that around like that. Get those things all lubed up, schloobsed up. There you go. Take your master link. In it goes. This slides through the back of this like that. Bam. The other side of it. And that's why we had to slide this thing. Come on. Okay, so what I'm going to do, I'm just going to release this like that. That's not a bad idea. It is. It's fine. Okay. Okay, ready? Just like that. Now we can get this back on. You did it. Bam. Now we get the other two O-rings that are all greased up. Bam, just like that. Now we put this thing on. Now we got to press this on first. It's like this. Okay. Perfecto. Now you take the press. Take our press. Okay, see these holes right here? That'll push those through these holes right there. It needs to protrude. We put it on the wrong one, bro. We put it on the wrong one. That was the one we're supposed to do. We did that one. Okay. Round two, round two, round two, round two. We're only human here at Adobo Moto. You're not robots. No, we're robots. Okay, so we're going to rivet the chain now. This is your anvil. It goes on the back of this side. And basically, this little thing is going to flare it. See that right there? That little pin is going to flare it. We have to flare one at a time. Put that in there just like that. Wiggle it around. Make sure it's good. Boom, perfect. Now we're going to tighten it up. For this specific chain, it says 5.5 to 5.8 millimeters in diameter. Okay, we're going to back up and then we're going to measure. Two, three, four, five. I mean, it's pretty close. It's pretty close. Okay, let's make sure it's not too tight. Make sure that still moves freely. Yeah, looks good. There it is. Fully riveted to spec. Okay, spray some brake cleaner again on your towel and try to get more of that junk out. Just so we don't get a lot of flinging on our tires. Okay, so I haven't really messed with the chain tension. You saw how loose it was in the beginning. Look at it now. That's pretty damn perfect. We're going to tighten this up. All right, so those o-rings are still soaking in that brake cleaner. Let's pull this out. Not even... Yeah, I can't sense any melting that you guys are claiming. I used to use kerosene just like you guys to clean the gunk off of my chain, but nowadays I prefer brake cleaner. It works way better than kerosene, smells better to me, and it does not melt the o-rings, you ding-dongs. Check it out. Way cleaner, way lighter. My goodness gracious. Look at that. Gee whiz, boys. Hell yeah, that gold looks beautiful.