Alignment issues and causes??

kepner

Member
The chain on kart seems to frequently have a tighter and loser condition when rotating axle. By this I mean, while slowly rotating axle, and looking at top side of chain as it rotates, it is tighter, loser, tighter, loser. Common causes?? Staring around at chain, rear sprocket angle, and clutch sprocket axle, I am not convinced all the angles are equal. No laser alignment tools here or other fancy chain alignment tools. Any suggestions? Thank you.
 
Sometimes sprocket halves can be slighly misaligned after the nuts are tightened.
I like to leave nuts slightly loose. Tighten chain and secure motot mount. While rotating axle, snug up sprocket nuts.
This can help.
As far as alignment, a good eye can spot some.
Make sure clutch gear looks straight with rear sprocket. Alignment can be changed some by loosening bolts that secure engine to mount. Once you are confident you are as straight as you can be, tighten these bolts.
Now, snug chain like you would race it.
Loosen sprocket hub from axle. If you slide hub left and right, you will notice chain gets tighter. Make note or mark axle at the extremes. Center hub between marks.
Sprocket sbould be aligned pretty well. Chain should be loosest in this position. May need to adjust tension.

Good luck
 
Is not new chain, but new enough I think with no roll offs-- hasn't come off but I have sometimes felt rough chain feel at drop of green flag. It does act like rear sprocket essentially lifts a little as axle turns, which seems to be sprocket or axle perhaps slightly moving (slight bend maybe). I put fixed wire real close to axle near sprocket hub, and saw "slight" variation as axle rotated. It was slight and I wasn't really expecting any axle bend issue inside rear bearings as I see none outside rear bearings. But also bought kart used some time ago and is axle that came with it.

Would just "slight" axle bend, say 32nd of an inch movement change at rear gear hub be enough to cause decent tight, lose on chain?
 
Misalignment shouldn't make the chain go loose/tight if all the parts are straight.

I would put a new/known good sprocket on (as described above) and see if it still does it. One bent tooth would also do what you describe

Then I would push the motor as far forward as you can and see if spinning the axle pulls it back or binds up. If it pulls once per axle rotation the axle is bent. Long shot but might be rear bearings shot or loose.
 
I had the exact same issue this past weekend at the track....turned out to be a bent/warped CHAIN

Replaced the chain, no more issues

Seems when putting the chain on and off, if the chain is on the rear gear, and u have to force it around and onto the clutch, it may have a tendency to bend the chain...either that, or when sitting the kart down on the floor of the trailer with no motor bolted on, the chain got under the kart.

As mentioned above, check alignment, matching of gear halves...but the chain was our issue....once we rolled it backward, slightly past the point it was kinking, u could see the top of the chain twisted to the left
 
Not mentioned anywhere I've seen on this post but I've seen it and done it myself was if you use a chain break and when you put your chain back together you over tighten and smash the chain and it cause a bind ...if you mark the tight spot then look carefully you may see the link that doesn't move freely
 
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