I’ve got an extreme tight spot on my chain that has seemingly come out of no where.
Bent axle and crank have been ruled out, tried different chains and sprockets and still am getting it.
One thing I’ve noticed is none of my sprockets fit on the sprocket carrier as tightly/snug as they used to. When I put one on (without tightening), it’s somewhat loose. There’s probably 0.5mm of play and I’m thinking that might be the problem.
Is it normal for sprocket carriers to wear out like that? It’s only 10 months old. Before I go buying a new one I’m just curious if anyone else has run into this problem or if it could be that I’m missing something else.
It looks like it might be slightly bent. Tried two different relatively new sprockets and the gap opened and closed on both as you can see in the pics.
Can’t upload videos, but the sprocket sits loose on the carrier. There’s a small amount of movement up and down which wasn’t happening before. It was always a very tight fit.
By process of elimination this seems like it has to be causing the tight spot.
Do you use 3 or 6 bolts? When you tighten the bolts do you crank one tight and move on to the next or get them all snug, then tighten them in a pattern similar to lug nuts?
Carriers bend all the time in my opinion, and esp if you drop a wheel or spin or ???..It’s a wear item I replace at least once a year because it seems like no matter what after a couple of runs they start to deform and only get worse from there.
Think about it you have a hard mounted engine and hard mounted carrier / sprocket attached to a frame that’s designed to flex in-between. Granted the amount of flex between those two locations is not where the frame’s really meant to have a ton of movement but it’s still not an ideal solution.
Kart republic has a floating sprocket carrier that looks really impressive but it’s very expensive and I haven’t justified it yet. I found the standard KR carrier to be the best balance of value and longevity, followed by the generic no-name one that comet / mondo and other sell. the OTK carriers are complete garbage and half of them seemed to be out of true from new for me.
Tight spots in the chain can come from a few different things. I’ve installed new chains and gotten a tight spot right away. Seems to come from pushing the pins in and out when the chain is assembled. This is for a non master link chain. The assembly can be pressed together too tightly and creates a bind. These usually go away after running the kart a little. when I get one of these I’ll partially tighten the bolts on the rear sprocket and then run the kart on the stand for a few seconds. This seems to let the sprocket “center up” on the rear hub. Some times you can get a bind if the sprocket is banged on the ground while running. You have to be running a large rear sprocket to do this. Another way is a new chain on a worn from sprocket. Chains are usually very consistent as manufactured - but not perfect. The small front sprocket has a very hard time dealing with chain variations and they end up feeling like a bind. Replacing the front sprocket seems to be the only answer then.
