Hitchcocks Forum

Hi folks, I thought I would do a quick tighten of my drive chain yesterday. Well about 3 hours later I gave up. Every time I tightened up the lock nut the brakes start to bind or something in the hub is stopping the wheel spinning freely. This is my 2007 iron barrel 350 which I have owned from new so I have tightened the chain lots of times. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes and other times ages because as you all probably know the snail cam on the non drive side can be a sod to keep in position when tightening but I have never had this problem before. The internals were cleaned up and greased in Jan as this winter has been a bike slayer so I don't think it is a lack of grease or crap in the drum problem but I didn't look. I did press the pedal to reset the drums also (hard and bent the lever in the process.. grrr) Any ideas? Thanks.

It sounds as if the wheel is being tightened out of alignment. I don't think the snail cams are particularly accurate and you may have to adjust them with one notch difference to each other.Also after turning the cams push the wheel forward to fully engage the notches and hold whilst tightening. Tighten the brake hub/sprocket nut before the spindle nut. The whole set up is not the finest example of precision engineering.

Not sure if I am seeing this from the right angle, but did you slacken the brakes off before starting and then readjust after? Otherwise moving the wheel would sort of half put the brakes on already?
Good luck, Chris

Rusty, as per Frank re wheel alignment, tightening with the wheel not square to the brake plate will cause binding..

Also check the tyre isn't catching on the swingarm or chain guard.. Just to run through the order... Hand tighten the stub axle nut and adjust the snails for chain tension (1.5 inches on the stand) and alignment front wheel and swingarm.. Now tighten the stub axle nut..

Spin the wheel and hit the rear brake, hold this position with the brake lever and with your third hand tighten the brake plate anchor nut…

Now tighten the castle nut and spin wheel before replacing split pin…. Readjust the brake rod for correct movement of lever.. If things still bind we will go further and look at bearings… gwilly.

Being an Ancient Old Beggar there's a limit to the time I can spend on my knees fiddling with brakes. That is if I want to be able to get back up again. I gave up on the snail cams and fitted the threaded adjusters from Mr. Hitchcock. Made a world of difference.

Tell you what makes a difference Jim, next time you get a new carpet in the lounge/bedroom... Put the old one on the garage floor, If its concrete makes a hell of a difference even if only standing on it for a few hours...

thanks fellas, i think I am doing everything correctly but the wheel is not spinning the minute I make any attempt at tightening the axle nut even when I apply gentle pressure and I must have tried every available snail cam notch combination yesterday. As for today I am giving her a good clean up to give myself better working conditions. I will try again tomorrow. As for today I think a beer and a bit of rugby is on the cards, I don't want to dedicate the whole of my weekend to the bullet. Will report back.

Did you forget the axle spacer?

I remember when I tightened my chain early last autumn. To keep the axle in place on the snail cam, I used a t-bar from a box spanner through the axle and tied it with a baggage strap (with a ratchet tightener) to the right hand foot peg. That way, I could keep tension on that side of the axle to hold it in place against the cam while I tightened the opposing castle nut.. Once it was tight, I simply removed the strap and t-bar. Job done.


Hope this could help...

After a couple of pints at lunchtime and watching england beat wales in the rugby I thought I would have another go at this. Same approach as yesterday and it worked straight away. I did nothing different except tightening the brake plate anchor before I did the final tighten all round. I can only really put this down to being in a better more relaxed mood than on saturday and maybe that is the key to doing a job well. Thanks for the advice as always and I would like to apologise to my bike for threatening to replace it with a new yamaha mt-07 at my most fed up yesterday.