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Hello from Maine. New guy, here.

2K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  WxN 
#1 ·
2002, 919, 7200 miles. Just purchased. I've put 100 miles on it so far. I have the "out of adjustment too soon" 1500-block production swingarm, at the end of its limit... 17t / 43 need to make it 112 link. Or go 17/44 - maybe both?? Forks are raised 7.5mm (24.5)° nice little Givi A770 windshield fairing. Corbin seat- though prefer stocker.. So far, so good, as far as exhaust smell.
 
#3 ·
Thank you, Sir. I will certainly enjoy. I have had my eye on the venerable 919 for over a decade now. This one showed up with no damage, and low miles- 15 minutes from home. (A rare treat in Downeast Maine. 4 hours, one way, is more common)... I was looking for a 04+ for the suspension, but for the condition, thought I'd take a chance. The soft suspension is actually welcome on the roads around here. They are laughable. I'm just cruising around so... it serves me well enough for now. Safe travels to you as well!
 
#6 ·
Short riding seasons and lots of storage. It spent a lot of it's life on the center stand, under cover, in a heated garage. The fella who sold it bought it new and used it to commute in town to work and went for an occasional longer loop somewhere. It is very clean... With the exception of the chain and sprockets... they were caked in crud. I cleaned them up and they looked good and felt good. No rust. There are some surface imperfections on a few of the outside plates, but I can see reflections of my garage in the links as I spin the wheel. It spins with no resistance. Ten links measure 6.250 on the button. Sprockets look nice very square and not worn to speak of. But... a quick glance at the chain length gauge says the chain needs to be replaced and the adjusters are ~2 threads from buried.
I assumed, dangerous, and probably wrong, that with my serial number, 609, being early in production number it was just one of the 112 link candidates. If that is even a thing... there seemed to be some speculation in some other posts.. I jumped to that conclusion when I found the front sprocket to be a 17 already. It is hard to measure the freeplay when it makes contact with the swingarm. It seems to do so easily though. Granted, I am not on the bike when checking. Is that required? It is on the side stand though. It seems like the chain is too good to "need replacing". And if I did- another 114 would put me right where I am now as this one measures spot on.
 
#7 ·
You can't really go by the gauge on the swing arm adjustment, IMO. You need to look at the chain itself. I just did the 520 17/44 conversion and I had the choice of long or short, by one link. I picked short and it seems to have worked out fine.

Here's one way of checking the condition of the chain: Pull the chain at the 3:00 position on the rear sprocket. That show you how much wear you have on just a few links. Notice how much movement there is in just ONE link in this video? Also note how you can see the base of the sprocket when it's pulled. This was my chain before the new chain.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTyfzblvsEI[/ame]


As far as gears go, I went 17/44 and it makes 1st gear smoother, but you notice the loss of torque all thru the gears. I'm going down to 16 on the front. It really depends on your riding style, I tend to be aggressive.
 
#10 ·
Glad to help, that's why we're all here. I've had many problems this year alone as I've done over 11,000 miles this year. New chain/sprocket, brakes, tires, clutch, cable and nearly destroyed my bike over a stuck thermostat.

I really didn't know how to check the chain, but the 3:00 pull test removes all but a few links and so you see the effect on just a few links.

There's a number of posts on cleaning. When I removed the chain, I did the "swing arm bolt swap". This makes it easy to remove that cover piece so that you can remove the chain and soak it. Soaking the chain in kerosene seems to be a preferred way of cleaning it.

The swing arm bolt swap is basically raising the bike, removing the nut/bolt at the pivot point of the swing arm, and then pushing the bolt thru the other way. This allows you to remove the nut and a few other bolts so that the cover part comes off of the left side. Once the cover is off the left side, you can remove the chain as one piece and clean/soak/lube it and scrub sprockets. You can also have a shop set a new chain when you need one if you don't want to set your own chain. If you do the swap, some fresh lube on the bolt is a good idea.
 
#11 ·
John, Welcome to the group. You'll find lots of good reference here and lots of helpful folks to bounce questions off.
With such low miles your chain may have lots of miles left in it and it looks pretty good. I also have an early 2002 and I found when I tried a 17 tooth front sprocket that the change to the larger sprocket took up all of what seemed to be a chain at it's adjustment limits. If your chain seems to be at the adjustment limits then maybe you have the original 16 tooth front. (I actually didn't like the 17T front and went back to a 16T.) Most folks agree that the chain should be adjusted at the high end of it's play and per the manual's methods.

Enjoy your new bike! I think they are "keepers"!
 
#13 · (Edited)
John, Welcome to the group. You'll find lots of good reference here and lots of helpful folks to bounce questions off...

Enjoy your new bike! I think they are "keepers"!
Thank you and I could not agree more. Keepers indeed.

So, as an early 02 owner, how many links did you find worked best for you? Do you run out of adjustment early with 114? 16/43 or 17/44 or.. I did a short 30 mile gps run today with 17/43 and found the speedo AND odo agree with the gps.. seemed too good to be true, so I hope to do a nice even 100 mile sometime soon.
 
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