Damaged Balancer Chain Sprocket in KLR 650 Engine

damaged balancer chain sprocket in klr 650 engine, closeup, crankshaft, damaged sprocket, doohickey, kawasaki, klr 650, mechanic, motorcycle engine, sprocket teeth, worn sprocket
◀ swipe or tap left / right ▶
◀ use left / right keys ▶

Damaged Balancer Chain Sprocket in KLR 650 Engine

 Download JPG image

Damaged balancer chain sprocket on the crankshaft of my KLR 650 Motorbike.

The damage to the balancer chain sprocket was most likely caused by a loose balancer chain, which was caused by the failure of the balancer chain tensioner system (I found that both the "doohickey" and the tensioner spring were broken, which is a common failure in the KLR 650 engines).

The bad news is that replacing this sprocket (a part that costs less than $40) involves taking the engine off the bike and splitting the case open (i.e. basically taking the entire engine apart). That's a 20 hours job at least.

By comparison, changing a valve is a breather.

Even worse: on the newer KLR 650 models (post '97, i think), this sprocket is integral part of the crankshaft, and it cannot even be ordered as a spare part.

All this work to change a small sprocket! What did the Kawasaki engineers think about when they designed it? it would have been simple to design it so that this sprocket could be replaced easily!

Date & GPS location
Photo taken on April 26, 2012
SOMA, San Francisco County county, California, United States
▼ Display maps with photo location

[an error occurred while processing this directive]