Good reason why you should always give your bike a close inspection

[Blanca BusaLess]

I call it a 'pre-flight check' same as an airplane.
Something goes wrong you cant just pull over and stop as in a car, not always.
Was cleaning the bike and saw this cracked sprocket nut.
Sure I got four others but still not nice to see.

IT IS A PRO-BOLT ALUMINUM SPROCKET NUT WITH A STEEL INSERT.
It was torqued to their specs and has been fine for approx 2 months/1500 miles.
I wash bike regularly and slow spin wheel by hand while sitting down to clean it.
For sure I would have noticed it.
So it has only happened in the last one or two rides.

Again no biggie but you never know and should always take 5-10 mins to give her a look see before you take flight !


Lucky kit I ordered came with six and Busa only takes five so I had a spare to put on but now I am thinking about just junking all of them and putting the factory ones back on.

 

[Wayneovich]

I would call the company I got them from let them know.Good call on giving the bike a look over before riding. sometime the simpilest things can ruin a day of riding.

 

[dmrowe]

Good catch and a good reason to perform a 'pre-flight' check! Looked at that picture prior to reading and was like, "s**t is that a crack?". Never know what you will find, imagine if that nut came off and traveled with the chain...

 

[VFRcanada]

I took all my Pro-Bolt stuff off the bike. Cheap aluminum crap.

 

[CCbusa05]

Whew.......I thought it was a "factory" nut that failed until I read the end of your message! But yes indeed, I always do the pre-flight check prior to every ride. Glad you caught it before it caught you!!

 

[84Ninja]

Go factory, bro, go factory! Some of those upgrades are really only upgrades in appearance.

 

[r1d3on3]

aluminum sprocket nuts, gotta try and shave off every bit of weight you can right? haha. my bro has a set on his zx14 for 'appearance.' i just gave him a heads up to look his over some time

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

Good catch and a good reason to perform a 'pre-flight' check! Looked at that picture prior to reading and was like, "s**t is that a crack?". Never know what you will find, imagine if that nut came off and traveled with the chain...

Yes it could...never know have gotten caught and thrown the chain.Strangre things have happened

I took all my Pro-Bolt stuff off the bike. Cheap aluminum crap.

Go factory, bro, go factory! Some of those upgrades are really only upgrades in appearance.

aluminum sprocket nuts, gotta try and shave off every bit of weight you can right? haha. my bro has a set on his zx14 for 'appearance.' i just gave him a heads up to look his over some time

As far as the other 3 comments. I agree mostly.
I figured since there are 5 of them chances of catastrophic failure were slim.
I worried about chain and torque just rippping sprocket off cuz they were 'cheap alum' but these are some of the only ones I found that have steel inserts inside them.
Strange the Alum outside cracked but steel insert did not ?
Crack did close up a bit when I took it off so somehow its flexin but I see no crack in steel innard ?
My quest for black had me buying thise pretty things instead of just using my old staple Rustoleum Satin Black.
As I sit here at 12:30am though I think I'm going to Homey D tomorrow to get a can and spray the factory ones and put them back on.

All I can see now is 5 alum sprocket nuts flyin off next time I twist it !

 

[Puggle]

Far out man, stuff like that kills people in aircraft. I love your mentality and approach to riding!

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

Far out man, stuff like that kills people in aircraft. I love your mentality and approach to riding!

The wife thinks I'm crazy.
I start it up and for at least 10mins while shes coming to life I look it over.
The other night just while cleaning it I saw that.
I clean it at least once a week and the only way for my tired old back to do the job is to sit down right next to it while its on stands on slowly spin the wheel.
While doing that you just notice stuff.
Of course that jumped out and I was like WTF.
It came off really easy so I guess in the cracking it lost its torque...duh ?

 

[outlawbusa]

Good catch~!~

 

[red1100cc]

and why again did you put aluminum nuts on your bike????
good advice on a preflight check.

 

[chrisjp]

you need a stronger set of nuts man....lol

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

you need a stronger set of nuts man....lol

You saying I got soft nuts ?

 

[84Ninja]

you need a stronger set of nuts man....lol

haha, Chris. Good one.

 

[ResidentEvil]

wow I got the same one's cuz I wanted black too ..I though about powdercoating the stock ones ...

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

wow I got the same one's cuz I wanted black too ..I though about powdercoating the stock ones ...

If you PC them than they usually get larger from the PC.
Then it becomes diff to put them back on because same socket is now super tight.
You will wind up scratching the PC doing this.
I think I'll just use my old faithful Rustoleum and since I am in no hurry I can let them dry for a weeks or so so it will be rock hard and wont scratch up.
Use this on them it will be fine.

 

[cipher5791]

Good find bro.

 

[kml]

Send me the offending nut and I'll make a video for you.



cheers
ken

 

[2busa]

Good eye, Blanca. If those are light weight aluminum, then they are one time throwaways. You hammer that sprocket, it wants to sheer the studs, and move off the studs seems like?

So, between the first load of the fresh new torque, the X and Y factors wanting to pop off the wheel carrier, the others might be all stress cracked trying to hold an out of uniform plate is too bad you don't have an x-ray machine to see if they are about to fail.

I think a couple bag of nuts are a lot easier on the bone marrow. That application is more for racing weight, not street application. But, hey, not my bike!