TOPIC:

You are a man of many talents Kawboy- this is quite the write up- clear and concise language with the ability to make the point clear and obvious. Great work.
A few years ago there was an e-bay seller who had cam chains on e-bay - claiming they were oem, so I bought one. But due to the rather daunting task of having to strip the engine down to the crankshaft to remove the old chain, I decided to leave it. And now with 80,000km's on the engine there still doesn't seem any need to replace it. And all the discussions on the old forum, this topic never came up.
So why do you think it is necessary to replace it ?

Relevent facts: D.I.D SCR-0409/0412 SDH SILENT CHAIN

This chain has no master link - one continuous piece.
The manual on page 172 states " endless type chain with no master link is used."
There are 79 links.

tackelhappy wrote: So why do you think it is necessary to replace it ?.

Stretch is the easiest way to measure the wear on a chain and predict when the chain will break. Kawasaki have determined that you can run the chain safely until the stretch on the chain goes to 1.9mm over 20 links (128,9mm service limit - original 127mm length of 20 links) Doing the math 1.9mm/20 links is .095mm per link or .0037" of stretch per link. So lets round it off to 4 thou per link.

What wore? The plates rotate on the pin so either the bore holes in the plate got bigger or the pin diameter got smaller and if the hardness of the plates and the pins are similar they both wore to some degree.

What are the consequences of running with a slightly longer chain? 2 things, every time a link plate engages with a tooth because the chain is longer the plate of the chain will now slide down the face of the tooth which will increase wear and you can see this on the teeth of the camshafts just like the notching of the teeth on the nylon gear. Have a look at the resales on EBay. They all show this wear I'm talking about (in the pics). The more the chain grows in length, the more aggressive this wear gets.
The other consequence of running with a wore chain is that it retards the timing of the cams. You'd have to take some measurements which would involve a dial gauge to determine top dead center of the crank and a degree wheel to check the cam shaft position, but you'd probably find the exhaust cam retarded by (and this is a guess here) possibly 5-7 degrees and the intake cam by even more maybe 6-8 degrees since the distance from the drive gear to the intake cam gear is the distance of the drive gear to the exhaust cam gear plus the 17 links between the 2 cam gears.
Also, the more slop in the chain the more opportunities there are for vibration. Remember that this drive system is not a continuous steady load on the chain like there is on a chain drive motorcycle between the wheel on the road and the transmission output gear but more of a cyclic load due to the fact that the cam lobes need to be pulled to the top of their peak then snap over as the cam lobe down ramp allows the valve to close at a given rate. This loading and unloading gets really jerky due to some lobes loading up as others are unloading. Just try rotating a cam by its self and you can see what I'm talking about.

All the chain manufacturers have master links or rather connecting links available. They can be tricky to install properly. There is a tool required to peen the pins. Some that are available are $30 and others are $150 dollars. All that's important is that the pin gets peened such that the side clearance is reasonably tight and not too tight. As you start to peen the pin you're yielding the steel of the pin and there's a bit of feel to this. Think of trying to push a car across the parking lot. You lean on the car increasing your force on the car until it starts to move, then once it starts to move you apply constant pressure on it till it get to where you want it. Same thing happens when you yield steel. You're applying increasing amounts of force until it yields and moves.

Just as an added note, I found on the chain that I removed from my KZ, on around or about every 5th link, the side plate had a VERY slight etching (could have been a laser etch)of the capital letter "M" which suggests to me that Morse manufactured that particular chain.

Way above my pay grade but an interesting read.

Interesting Kawboy, the factory replacement part would have come joined as an endless chain. My experience with chains like this come from timing chains on American V-8's. They had no tensioner our idler gears and were about twice the the thickness. For some around 100,000 or so miles they had to be replaced as the would wear to the point of slipping a cog on the timing gears. They were all sold as endless chains with a new gear set. I've never seen a plate link chain that want joined before.

Post some pics when you get your replacement.

From the German z13 site

I've often stopped by the German site to look for parts but I've found their prices seem to be high for the most part and a lot of that can be attributed to the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar difference. So no fault of theirs for that problem.
I would also tend to trust their source for the chain rather than just buy one of off EBay. I've got no idea where "Forseti" chains are made neither the K&L chains.

I managed to find a source for the Morse chain and the only way I could buy it was through my local Kawasaki dealer. The supplier was M.C. Distribution and they will only sell through their distributors. For the record the chain is a 82RH2015 -158




This is the chain laying on the table above the chain I removed from the engine. I measured the stretch on the chain and it was within the service limit but the side flex in the chain worried me, so I acquired a new one along with the master link. As you can see in the pic, the new chain has a lot of side flex as well. Must be the design of the chain, so I've learned something here and really didn't need to replace the chain. Still, it's a good exercise for me.





Just waiting for the chain breaker/riveting tool to come in. KZA13 included a pic of a chain tool which would have cost $217 Canadian plus shipping from Germany. This one was an EBay purchase including shipping for $54 Canadian. Should have it in a week.