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IMPORTANT

The Owner's Manual for this vehicle contains warnings, instructions and other information you must read and fully understand before safely riding or performing maintenance on this vehicle. Always follow the warnings and instructions in Owner's Manual.

Click the link above for the Table Of Contents, or download a full PDF of the Owner Manual in the Owner Support area of Polaris.com.

Chain Inspection

IMPORTANT
Regular drive chain and chain case chain inspection is important. A broken chain can cause host bike damage.

Chains need to be regularly inspected for signs of wear, damage and stretching. A drive chain or chain case chain that has stretched 1% or more of it’s length is worn out and will need to be replaced.

NOTICE
A chain with 1000 miles or 75 hours of use will need to be replaced (see Periodic Maintenance Interval Table in the Maintenance chapter).

To measure chain stretch, perform the following procedure:

  1. To determine whether the chain has stretched 1% or more, first ensure the chain is taut along the area you plan to measure (a screw driver 2 is used to keep the drive chain taught in the drive chain image below).

    Timbersled RIOT and ARO snow bikes are equipped with 520 drive and chain case chains which have a pitch of ⁵∕₈ in or 0.625 in. (A chain’s pitch is the length of a single link which is measured from the center of one pin to the center of the next pin A).

    • 1 Link 1

    • 2 Link 2

    • 3 Link 3

    • 4 Link 4

    • 5 Link 5

  1. Mark out the number of links to measure (see the following table to find the number of links to measure for the chain you are inspecting). To mark this number of links, begin by marking the first pin 3 and counting forward the same number of pins (number of pins counted should equal the number of links to measure). Finish by marking the final pin 4. (see image with first and last pin marked).

CHAIN TYPE

# OF LINKS TO MEASURE

EXPECTED LENGTH

EXPECTED LENGTH +1%

ACCEPTABLE LENGTH RANGE

Drive Chain

24
(mark first and last pin)

15”
(24 x 0.625 = 15)

15.15” or slightly < 15 ⅟₈”

Between 15” and 15.15”

Chain Case Chain

17
(mark first and last pin)

10.625” or 10 ⁵∕₈”
(17 x 0.625 = 10.625)

10.731” or slightly < 10 3∕₄”

Between 10.625” and 10.731”

  1. Then measure the counted number of links by measuring from the center of the first pin 3 to the center of the final pin 4. This measurement should equal a length somewhere within the acceptable length range (as shown in the previous table).

  2. If the length of the counted chain links equals or exceeds the expected length plus 1% (see table) the chain is worn out and must be replaced.

    If the length of the chain links is less than the expected length plus 1% (i.e. the length is within the acceptable length range), the chain does not need to be replaced at this time.

Parent topic: Drive System