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[Nettshubby]

Due to what I thought was a noisy engine, after curing a cylinder head oil weep, I decided to check the primary chain tension. Tight as a bowstring!
Took cover off and found it was fitted with a rubber faced adjuster. I know our hosts sell one, but I don't know if my 2003 has one as standard.
Anyway, I tried to slacken off the adjuster, but there wasn't enough adjustment left, and I had to cut about 2mm off the threaded boss on the slipper to allow the adjuster to move further up and give a bit of slack in the chain. Oh, and cut a similar amount off the adjuster thread.
Hope I caught it soon enough to stop knackering the main and gearbox bearings!
When I had bolted everything back on, I had a nut left over! Everything was bolted back in place, and after taking the cover back off, the only place I could see for the 5/16 nut was as a locknut on the adjuster pivot.
A quick check in the parts book on this site confirmed that's where it went.
Glad
I hadn't filled chaincase before having to removing it again!
Ray.

[ChrisD]

Nettshubby, I too wanted to resolve the banging in the chaincase and also found the Hitchcocks rubber-headed bolt was too long. So I did what another helpful bulleteer had suggested and placed a section of plastic hosepipe over the head of the poriginal bolt and kept the official rubber bolt for when the chain had stretched even further. Some 10,000km later all is still well with the initial section of scrap plastic hosepipe. This won't help you now but maybe someone else can be saved by an essentially free fix.

[Beezabryan]

Chains do not stretch, they wear. A chain in an oil bath will vitually last for ever. The exception is with some Indian chains, as fitted to our 1992 machine for instance, are poor quality and the rollers can break up

[simon]

To be fair the effect is the same. Whether it's because of wear or stretch (which steel is quite capable of doing) the gap between links gets greater and the chain no longer fits the sprockets causing a rapid increase in sprocket wear.