Drive Sprocket End Float

[re5guy]

Hello everybody,

Working on my bike at the moment, I noticed that the chain drive sprocket (gear box end) has about 16th of an inch end float ie you can pull the sprocket in and out even with the nut and everything tight.

Having removed the gearbox casing the only thing that I can see that would stop this from happening is that if the main bearing in the gearbox case was restrained from moving.

There is no signs of any bearing lock ie locktight, the bearing is not a tight fit in the outer case, only a light push fit. It would have been nice to see a circlip retaining this bearing rather than a just an interferance push fit or the use of bearing lock.

Has anybody else come across this?

Guy

[ziggystardust]

Is it the correct Suzuki RE5 sprocket?

[wayne]

I take it that you mean the whole shaft moves in and out, not just the sprocket ?

I've just rebuilt a gearbox with all new bearings etc so I just thought I'd check and maybe have good news for you.

Unfortunately, my sprocket has no float at all so it seems there is a problem but I didn't rebuild mine with any loctite on the bearing surfaces.

There are a lot of washers along that shaft. Has the gearbox been pulled apart in the past ?

Wayne

[re5guy]

Thank you both for your response. Yes, it's the shaft that moves with endfloat.

The gear box doesn't look as though it's been stripped before the same as the rest of the engine. I ran the bike last year and did about 1000 miles with no major problems.

Looking at the slight amount of wear on the gears everything seems to line up.

When I removed the sprocket when starting to clean everything up I didn't notice the end float, but it must have been there. I've only took the cover off the gear box to clean out any oil sludge and to look inside, so no spaces have been lost or removed. Having looked at the parts list there doesn't seem anything to add.

Very strange I know! I will investigate further, but my thoughts are the bearing should have been loctighted in the gear box case. If the bearing doesn't move, and use the spacer which fits through the oil seal at the rear of the sprocket there would be no endfloat when the sprocket is tightened up.