Anyone removed this?

[oldfast007]

A word of caution...

While doing my chain maintenance today, I decided to remove the front sprocket cover for a more complete cleaning. WOW, The junk in there was bad !! Even removed a small rock that was wedged in there( not touching anything, thank God) high up in the left.
I had to remove the top portion of the shift linkage and the shift lever pivot bolt, wasn't hard at all.

Just wondering how many of us remove/inspect/ clean this area each time we do chain maintenance?? or at all?

If you do it regularly, great. If not, you should!

I must do better going forward:spank:

 

[jtarkany]

I have not, but I will start. Thanks for the tip :thumbup:.

 

[Motogiro]

Good find and yes it is a good idea to check this out.


Yup! Cleaned mine last week....

 

[CrazyBiker]

No need to remove the shift linkage. The sprocket cover slides below it nicely. Yes, there is a lot of junk in there and is a PITA to clean it at every chain lubing but a must do at every service. I use grunge brush.

 

[mxgolf]

Thanks for the tip. You are quite right. It's like a funnel and sucks all kinds of junk. I'm about due to check that out. :thumbup:

 

[Sawblade]

I wipe it out every other chain cleaning.

 

[DefyInertia]

I've taken mine off a few times and it was always pretty nasty each time. You can wiggle the cover off without touching the shift linkage, FYI. Three allen head bolts and that's it. The cover itself usually needs a good cleaning with WD-40 as well.

 

[champion221elite]

I'm going to clean mine out tomorrow!

 

[smokenu]

thanks for the great tip.

 

[Stumbles06]

Yup, I took it off when I did my last oil change... lotsa gunk in there. All depends on what chain-lube you use too. Since going to Bel-Ray lube, not so much builds up in there any more.

 

[Boneman]

Crap...now I'm sacred to take mine off. Never have before.....been 4 years....this could be uber nasty!

 

[Deleted member 2349]

Crap...now I'm sacred to take mine off. Never have before.....been 4 years....this could be uber nasty!

Yeah after I got my bike the chain was nasty from previous owner and never crossed my mind to take the cover off...this is gonna SUCK!

 

[buccs40oz]

it does get pretty nasty in there. i took mine off for the sprocket change. WOW i will clean it more often

 

[champion221elite]

I just cleaned mine today and boy am I glad I did it. It only took 10 minutes to clean the cover and sprocket area.

This will become one of my normal maintenance chores.

 

[CCHOUSEKY]

Wow...yeah, I was like Boneman and bullofspadez. I've never taken this cover off to clean in there. This thread made me think I should do it...so I did. It wasn't as bad as I envisioned, but it was still NASTY!

The cover:

Underneath the cover...yuck:

And yes, I know...I need to clean the chain more thoroughly...lol. I usually do a better job of cleaning it, but I screwed up a couple of weeks ago and forgot to lube it after washing the bike. I didn't realize it until a couple of days later when I started to notice some rust on the chain. I had a group ride the next day and had to do a quick cleaning and lube job on it, plus I was doing it after dark and the only light I had was the security light on the side of my building! I'll be spending a bit of time on it this week...

 

[bcityroller]

Wow...yeah, I was like Boneman and bullofspadez. I've never taken this cover off to clean in there. This thread made me think I should do it...so I did. It wasn't as bad as I envisioned, but it was still NASTY!

Same here on my 04 - and the pictures are pretty consistent with what I found. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would - especially considering when I bought the bike used the first filter and the side stand switch plug were caked with crap from the previous owner which cleaned and never thought about again until this thread.

 

[CrazyBiker]

That stuff there is so sticky and mixed with metal, rust, chain gunk and what not. What did you guys use to dissolve and loosen the crap there? I used brake cleaner and bean clean but it just seemed to take infinite brush scrapes to remove all of it.

 

[champion221elite]

I used a kerosene soaked rag to wipe the debris from that area.

 

[dean2287]

Good tip, thanks. Here's how mine looked after 9000km.

 

[xj750_Pete]

I remember I took mines off at around 4,000 and it was a mess. I used a plastic sraper to remove most of the gunk and the rest with brake cleaner and a rag. This was done before I discovered the Du Pont Teflon lubricant that many have been raving about. Before this I used the Maxima chain lube and eventhough they advertise its "anti-fling" properties, it still flung all over. With the Du Pont, there is hardly any fling-off whatsoever and should help keep the cover stay cleaner longer.