XJ600 pre div cush rubber replacement

[rowlyd]

Hi Guys,

I have a 1991 XJ600 which has been stood for 10 years, its running now after a carb and brake overhaul and recently passed its MOT, However the ride was very jerky and gear changing could be clunky up and down the box. I replaced the cush rubber but would just like some opinions on the end result.

The story..............There was quite a bit of movement of the rear sprocket as the chain took up the strain and before the rear wheel started to move, I believe this was down to worn cush rubbers. With the bike on the centre stand and in gear I could turn the rear wheel forwards and backwards between 1/2" - 3/4" before the drive train stopped the movement. All this wear seemed to be coming from the rear wheel since the rear sprocket would stop but the wheel would keep moving, then in the other direction the wheel would move about 1/2" - 3/4" before the sprocket moved.

So... not having done anything like this before I bit the bullet, marked the position of everything I thought I had to remove and took a couple of photos (just in case). I took the rear wheel off and looked at the cush rubbers. There were 3 sets of rubbers within the housing (a set being a big cheese shape and a smaller cheese shape connected together)They had some worn electrical tape bound around parts of them which I presume was to take up wear and the previous owner did not want to splash out the money for a proper job.

I installed 3 new sets and I thought they would be a really tight fit into the housing but this was not the case. It all went back together very easily and though the rear has far less play than before, its definately not rock solid, I'd say its fairly tight but still has a small delay before the wheel starts moving as the chain takes up the slack. Should it be like this? I have read that some people pack out the cush rubber with innertube etc to make a really firm fit but as I didn't know what was normal I put it all back together just in case I mucked something up by having no movement at all.

So now I have a small movement in the rear but nothing like before and gear changing is much much easier and slow speed manouvering is a lot more comfortable. Should I be happy with this or should the fit be a lot tighter with no slack between the sprocket movement and the wheel movement.

And is this another little job to be done.........with the bike on the centre stand and in gear I can now rotate the rear wheel a large amount, say a quarter turn, before the gearbox stops movement, I have no idea how serious this is, it obviously contributes to some jerkiness at low speed, seems like I need to spend more money on her.

Sorry for the meandering post, I'm sure this stuff is bread and butter to you guys but it was a big deal for me to remove the rear wheel and but it all back together again, the bike is going ok I just want to make sure that I don't wear out new parts through ignorance or when a simple mod would save me heartache in the future,

thanks for taking the time to read this

[wild foamy]

Hi there, welcome to the forum,

First of all, there is definately a small amount of play in the system before the drive even counts because in theory as you change up a gear the geartrain is wanting to overtake you in order to catch up with the rest of the drivetrain but that isnt a mechanically proven concept, but electrical tape wound around the cush drives doesnt sound right, aslong as you have changed that that's basically all you can do

with my XJ, it always had a bit of a clunk into first, a lot of it is due to your perception on selecting a gear, you wait until the revs are at a certain point before selecting that gear, within a month of riding that bike on a regular basis you WILL know when/where that bike wants a gear or when/where you shouldnt be changing gear