I have 13,280 miles on my '01 F4i - but I just bought it last fall. Upon cleaning / degunking and close inspection of my chain I'm seeing some slight rust staining and some missing o-rings. During my cleaning I also noticed that some links remained slightly kinked off the sprocket instead of the whole chain hanging smooth. My rear sprocket looks just fine - no visible wear. The axel blocks are nowhere near the 'replace' markings and I checked the chain slack (1.25") was within Honda specs.

My concern is mostly around these outright missing o-rings.

Time for a new chain/sprocket set?

 

Absolutely. Here's a nice article on MC chains: LINK. That rust color on your chain is probably not rust (read 1/2 way down).

 

Missing orings = replace

 

Incognito - great article, thanks for the link. My rust coloring is actually on the roller, not so much on the side plates like that picture. Guess I need to replace the set. (It will give me piece of mind with the new bike anyway)

Thanks for the input guys!

 

Wow haha didn't expect the missing o-rings. Change is a must now. I hear its better to change chain and sprockets at the same time.

 

You heard correctly, not changing the chain and sprockets will cause excessive wear on both chain and sprockets, regardless of whichever was changed. It's your call if you want to retain stock or go with the 520 conversion.

Stock chain is 525 O-ring or X-ring chain 108 Links
Stock sprockets: 525 Front 16 Teeth, 525 Rear 46 Teeth.

I recommend stick with stock setup.

 

i got a stock setup for you if you want it! lol just pm me or soemthign
personally i run a 520. mainly bc its cheaper and it lasts as long and its just as strong.
but either way youll be good.

 

vangill is your 525 chain brand new? o-ring? x-ring? brand?

 

How much should a dealer charge for a new stock chain and replacement?

 

I'm in the process of changing out my sprocket and chains...so I took a quick drive down to the dealership to get an idea on parts + labor. I can't remember what price the sales rep said...all I remember was my outside response to the price was me saying "mmmh, little more than I thought..." but inside i was " HOLY MACKEREL IS HE KIDDING ME@#*!!!"

So I ended up shopping online and buying the parts. And I'll do the change myself...with some help from the service manual and lil guidance from my online famz at cbrforum...it should be a relatively easy job.

If you gonna let the dealership do the change for you, I would say still buy the parts online, and then let them do the installation...which should still save you the cost of whatever their mark-up is for the parts...