Broken Chain

Headed for work recently, left home at 5:30 am, temperature sitting at -4°. 20mins down the road I was rolling to a red light when it changed to green, gunned it and nothing....thought I'd missed a gear or selected neutral by mistake. I rolled for about 500m (I live in the Blue Mountains in NSW, it's pretty much downhill all the way to work in Western Sydney) trying to get the gearbox to select a gear. I pulled over to the side of the road and a truck pulled up beside me and the driver informed me that I had thrown the chain off. He was right behind me when it happened. After waking my wife up to come and get me, a bit of messing about organising a trailer and a mate to help me I had the bike back home and tucked up in the garage. We'd also managed to find the chain and grabbed that as well.  I couldn't check it out till later as I had to work from home for the rest of the day.
Thought I'd better check the sprockets to make sure they were ok. When I took the outer cover off there was a nasty surprise. The chain had destroyed the sprocket cover, including a coule of mounting points on the crank case, and damaged the clutch actuator and push rod. I didn't know it at the time but it had also totalled the starter motor, dislodging all the permanent magnets in the case.
The clutch push rod came out in two parts. When the new one came in the bike shop thought they had been sent the wrong one as the new one was longer. It was longer by exactly the width of the chain. The chain had neatly smacked a section of the hardened rod right out.
Anyway, after a couple of weeks and a lot of dollars I'm back on the road. Can only assume that the chain had a bit of damage that I hadn't noticed as one of the links snapped right in the middle. Although the chain was run over by a couple of trucks before I picked it up it still felt pretty good. Didn't appear to be warped and was moving well. No frozen links or anything.
Now go out to the garage and check your chain, just in case.

That’s a whole series of bad luck. When was the last time you checked the chain? 
The starter is unlikely to be related. A number of B1250 had that happen. Mine is documented on here with photos. 
Hope you’re back on the road soon.

Bummer !
Usually wipe/clean/lube mine about every 1500km, less km if been on dirt, lots of roadworks or water crossings.
At least it was thrown off and didn't jam itself around front sprocket. Did you change sprockets ?

Wow , not something you would imagine happening when you set off ......mind you,it could have been a whole lot worse I suppose .

Ouch!!

I was off the road for about two weeks. Waiting for parts mostly.
Both sprockets were fine and barely worn. Didn't even need changing.
The bike always started flawlessly but when it was started after the repairs it made a hell of a racket and didn't start easily.
When the starter was pulled out all of the magnets except for one were completely dislodged and one was smashed. 
An OEM starter was about 1/3 the price of a genuine Suzuki so thats whats in there now.
I love riding the Bandit and I was a bit anxious when it wasn't an option.
I'm planning a big ride later in the year. From The Blue Mountains to Melbourne and then to Adelaide and back so glad it happened now and not when I was a couple of thousand K's from home.

You rode in temps of minus 4 deg? Could that have affected the chain?

Regards
Stan L
South Africa

Hi Stan,
Don't you get cold weather over there?
Minus 4 C is not bad for that area for winters morning, wind chill can drop it by another 4 or 5 .
Some days it reaches 0 C by lunch.
Worked there very often on night shift out in the open .

GSX1100G wrote:
Minus 4 C... wind chill can drop it by another 4 or 5... 0 C by lunch...

A-a-r-g-h!


Not being used to low temps, I wondered if minus four could have affected the chain. Then again, they design the stuff with cold climate countries in mind, so it must have been just bad luck.

The cold affects me more than the bike. It doesn't live outside. The bike is warm and snuggly in the garage over night. I froze the first couple of times I rode early in the morning till I bought a merino neck warmer. Highly recommended. The heated grips help too. We had about 70mm of snow here a couple of days ago. The bike definitely stayed in the garage that day. There was black ice everywhere.
I really wanted to push the bike out into the snow for a few photos but I was too chicken. Too slippery and didn't want to drop it.