Mechanic Monday Tip of the week. Chain tip #1

Mechanic Monday Tip of the week.
How about a chain letter this week?
My last trip to Milestone saw 3 people pushing their bikes back to the pits with broken chains. While there are a few ways a chain can fail before it reaches it's service limit, we first need to know what the service limit is.
Yamaha Motor corp has been nice enough to share a service limit for a standard 520 size MX chain. That service limit is 242.9 mm for a count of 16 pins in the links.
This weeks tip is to make that number easy to measure.  Simply take a old style metal clothes hanger and cut one leg of it to 243 mm then finish file the last bit to make it 242.9mm. Now all you have to do is make the chain tight with a rag in the sprocket and do a quick check and make sure the centers of 16 pins are shorter then your new clothes wire measuring tool.

Stay greasy my friends