Hey guys, I'll trey to keep this as brief as possible!!
I've owned my Fazer 600 for about 8 years now, I don't get out on it nearly as much as I'd like, too many other things going on, but I try to keep her in good health.
My bike was running fine, but when I put her away for the winter the year before last, I made the mistake of thinking that WD-40 would be just the thing to keep the rust away over the winter
. The chain went rather rusty and the links went rather tight, so.......
About this time last year I asked a very reputable local bike garage to do a full chain and sprocket set change on my bike. I bought the full chain, front and rear sprocket set from Wemoto.
A good quality X ring DID chain, Sunstar front sprocket, and I don't know who makes the rear one, possibly Sunstar as well. When I got the bike back, I immediately noticed that I could hear a noise coming from the drive system. The best way I can describe the noise is this. As speed increases, from anything above 25-30 MPH, the noise of an electric train pulling away from a station can be heard, the faster I go, the more the noise increases, if I back off the throttle, the noise dies down, but does not completely go away.
I did a bit of research, and concluded that the noise must be due to the lack of any sort of transmission vibe absorption on the sunstar front sprocket, and that maybe it just needed running in to sort it out. I did a few hundred miles on it, but the noise did my head in, and only go very marginally better. To top it all off, after having done 200 miles on it, I was surprised to find that one day, quite a few miles from home, my rear brake caliper fell off during a ride out and was dragging along the road, whacking into the rear wheel while it was being only connected to the bike by the brake line. I limped it home and put away for the winter after I got some new bolts to replace the missing ones.
I can only assume that when the garage fitted the chain and sprocket set, they loosened off the rear caliper to make it easier to fit the rear wheel back in again, and then forgot to re-tighten the two bolts, which must have been hanging by a a thread (or rather threadlock) for some 200 mile before falling out. I did phone and speak to the Garage thast fitted the parts, but since it took me about 2 months to get round to covering those 200 miles, they basically assumed I was "at it" and were not prepared to help, despite the fact they could have fecking killed me!!
I took the bike for it's MOT a few weks ago and it passed fine, but the noise has not miraculously gone away (no surprises there) so I took it to a mate of mine who has been reparing bikes for many years in the hope he would be able to figure it out. I left it with him and he has ridden my bike, but he says he's never heard anything like it. We tried fitting another front sprocket with a vibe suppression ring on it to see if that would help, but it has made no difference what so ever, BUT he has discovered some rather troubling behaviour.
With the bike on the main stand, rear wheel in the air, if you put it into gear and let the rear wheel turn with the engine just ticking over on idle the rear swing arm chatters for side to side like you would not believe (in a twisting movement) and the whole bike dances around on the main stand
My friend thinks that the issue might be a gearbox problem, but only because he is at a loss to what the cause the problem actually is. The rear wheel is not in any way buckled, nor is the rear disc, everything runs straight and true. The swing arm vibrations go away apparently if the get the revs up high enough, but the whole swing arm chattering like that on the main stand is really scarey TBH.
Can anyone shed any light on what the hell has happened to my poor bike? How the hell can changig the chain and sprockets cause such freaky problems????
My thanks in advance to anyone that can help me to sort this out!!
Cheers!!
WTFnow!!