So before I started riding this season, I cleaned my chain with WD-40 with 'synthetic chain-guard' something i picked up from a dealership pretty often. Anyway, ive been wanting to tighten my chain but:

1. When I press down on the chain to measure the tension it's within normal ranges.
2. When I press up on the chain there are inches of slack.

I've ridden decently hard at least 4 times in the past month, but it's always been like that. Still rides the same which is great, or what I think is great. I only bought the bike a couple months back so I haven't tightened the chain before

It's got a 520 sprocket/chain conversion. Also, when Itake the chain gaurd offthe chain looks straight as can be...What gives?! Thanks!

 

I was under the impression you measure chain slack by pulling down on it and pushing it up. The distance from down to up is the slack. If its just sitting there its going to hang down so you would have more up than down.

 

+1 with what CajunCBR said.

The manual says that you measure slack from the pushing up on the chain to pushing down on the chain. It sounds like you should tighten your chian up.

 

that makes sense, thanks! So, in the Clymer manual and owners manual where it says to measure the distance between when you push down and when you pull up, even though (i think the owners' manual's) illustration shows an equal distance between pulling up and pushing down, it may be that only 25% of your measurement is pushing down while 75% is pulling up?

How does that fare when you tighten it--would it be ok for there to be just about no slack pushing down but an inch pulling up?

Sorry for the (dumb?) questions, never needed to tighten a chain before until now. Thanks again

 

You dont have to worry about anything but slack in the middle of the chain, wich is a distance from the position of the chain when its hanging off (with center stand off and you on the bike) to the maximum top point it reaches when you pull it up. Just make sure this slack(travel distance) is as in the manual and you are flying it.
Dont make anything more complex by trying to force the chain down(probablyit might gojust a small bit beiond the point of normal hanging down), because its gonna give you nothing you need to know for adjusting the chain. It doesnt have to be 100% exact.
I usualy just pull it upwith one finger(with out measuring anything with anything)and use my eyes to tell me if slack is ok....
Jesus, just after reading what i wrote and i think i just made everythingsound so much more complicated then it really is..
Oh, and make sure you adjust the other side of the back wheel exactly same way as the first side, because you dont want to be riding with wheels not been aligned corectly[:@]
Sorry bro...English isn't my 1st language...

 

nah its def a huge help! thanks again.

 

The F3's should have one half inch, to five-eights of an inch of overall travel from rest position - measured from the center distance between the two sprockets.

Simple simple process that takes about 10 minutes with a buddy.

 

my chain is now tighter than another man's anoos

Thanks again for everyone's help!

 

How tight did you put it? Meaning when you push up on it how much slack do you have?

 

I would say around finger up and half finger pushing down...Give or take

It was disgustingly loose before, now that I understand more about the drive chain, I'm surprised something catastrophic didn't happen. I feel bad I made my baby perform in such pain. I just took it for a test spin and it is unbelievably smoother...