Reinforcing the Chain Guard

After my chain guard got tired and decided to take a rest somewhere out on the road, I worked at getting a replacement from the factory under the new management. I was about to wire the money, when Tony offered to sell me his old one, which had failed at the usual place at the front mounting flange. He had welded it back together, but then moved on to a new replacement. I decided I should reinforce it to prevent the same failure again, and decided to add a couple of gussets. These pictures show them. I can't install it yet, because I still need to order some rubber well nuts for the rear mount. Mine are wherever the chain guard went. My plan is to use the well nuts at the rear, but to bolt the front solid, as it was originally mounted. I think it should be stiff enough now to resist breaking, and keeping the rubber nut at the rear should reduce the bending stress on the front. Time will tell how well it works.

The only real problem I found was in trying to paint over the powder coat. I just couldn't get it to blend visually. Fortunately, that area isn't very visible when it's on the bike.







Ken

Nicely done. I'm impressed you were able to get a clean bead way inside that rear gusset joint!

acadian said:

Nicely done. I'm impressed you were able to get a clean bead way inside that rear gusset joint!

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Actually, I welded the gussets from the outside, not the inside. The inside bead is the original repair that Tony did.

Ken

My chain guard was held on by two stainless allen headed bolts with washers. I put the bolts back in the swingarm so they were ready for fitting the CF guard and noted at the time that the threads had copper grease on them. Stuart at the factory fitted the CF guard and commented that when I get the chance I should clean off the copper grease and loctite them (as suggested by Tony) and was very surprised when I said that I didn't grease the bolts, the build team must have. Different practices between build and service, or a case of picking up the wrong tube at time of build?

MxMartin said:

My chain guard was held on by two stainless allen headed bolts with washers. I put the bolts back in the swingarm so they were ready for fitting the CF guard and noted at the time that the threads had copper grease on them. Stuart at the factory fitted the CF guard and commented that when I get the chance I should clean off the copper grease and loctite them (as suggested by Tony) and was very surprised when I said that I didn't grease the bolts, the build team must have. Different practices between build and service, or a case of picking up the wrong tube at time of build?

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Thanks for the input, Martin. I only removed the chain guard once prior to it falling off, when I was fitting a new mudguard. My memory says that the rear screw went into a rubber well nut that fit into the hole in the swingarm, and that it seemed pretty loose. But that could be a faulty memory. After the guard came off, all that was left in the swingarm at the rear mount location was a 3/8" (10 mm?) hole in the swingarm. I'm assuming that the well nut (or rivet nut, or?) is either lying inside the swingarm, or out on the road somewhere. But, I haven't been able to source a 6 mm well nut that fits that hole, so maybe it had a rivet nut instead. In any case, I have to come up with some sort of nut there for the socket head screw to fit into. Unfortunately, the service manual parts breakdowns do not show any details of the rear mount except the screw and washer. The drawing of the swingarm does show something that looks like a nut insert (metal or rubber?), but it's not in the parts list. My current plan is to install a 6 mm rivet nut in the existing hole. I may try to come up with a way to fit some rubber in the mounting, but probably not. I think that with the new gussets, it should be ok just bolted solidly to the swingarm. Waiting on the rivet nuts now, so should have it back together some time this week.

Ken

MxMartin said:

My chain guard was held on by two stainless allen headed bolts with washers. I put the bolts back in the swingarm so they were ready for fitting the CF guard and noted at the time that the threads had copper grease on them. Stuart at the factory fitted the CF guard and commented that when I get the chance I should clean off the copper grease and loctite them (as suggested by Tony) and was very surprised when I said that I didn't grease the bolts, the build team must have. Different practices between build and service, or a case of picking up the wrong tube at time of build?

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Our bikes were built at similar times Mark, mine had copper slip on many fasteners. I just think we got lucky with a conscientious mechanic.

Fast Eddie said:

mine has copper slip....

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Freudian slip? Or had copper slip

MxMartin said:

Freudian slip? Or had copper slip

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Already corrected !

Fast Eddie said:

Already corrected !

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Drats, thought maybe for a moment you still had black beauty tucked away behind a false wall in your shed

How did you know about the false wall...?

Don‘t bloody tell the Missus... !