Timing Chain inspection

I thought it would be good to pull the cover off the Timing Chain Adjuster on the SR500 the other day, as its been a few km since the last one but as I've not noted any sounds I have not been worried. 

However I revisited this post (from 2024) where it mentions in the manual that it should be inspected every 4,500km (heh) and so I had a look. It was barely lower than spec so I tightened it up about a quater of a turn (checking movement of the pin by moving the engine around).

I only thought about a before and after when thinking about this post, so here is the overlay of the part of the photo from the older blog post

BUT based on this overlay it may be a half turn ... either that or the above image was a before not an after? Either way the adjuster has pressed in by about a thread thickness.

The bike now has 53,290km on it and had about 35,000 on it then, so about 18,290km. To me this indicates very little wear of the cam chain in that period (which would have been 4 inspection intervals).

I'm going to extrapolate that and say that

• this bodes well for engine wear in general
• I would say that my oil change interval of 3,000km is helping
• all things being equal I'd say this chain will perhaps last a total of 100,000km on this engine (which really depends on how much adjustment can be tolerated before it becomes a problem)

Because the bike was low (apparent) milage (which I feel inclined to believe) and doesn't seem to have been thrashed by the previous owners then I'd say that its likely I'll be able to get away with just basic maintenance for the next 50,000.

I hope so.