I bought my CB550F towards the end of Fall last year and did some minor things with it but the problem remained the chain hanging by about 4" of slack. I also could not open up the engine's side cover because of a badly stripped screw. I packed the bike up for the winter and resolved to take care of the problem with an air hammer in hand in the spring.
Well here we are. I managed to take the screw out with a simple chisel and hammer (advice from a motorhead older and wiser than I) and take off the engine cover. The problem is immediately obvious. The cog (or front sprocket or whatever you wish to call it) is completely off the peg, it's just floating there on the right upper side of the engine, the cover was the only thing keeping it up with the chain on it. I remove the chain and the deeper problem is almost laughable. Whomever had this bike before replaced the front sprocket (he told me this and it seems new so that checks out) but he said something went wrong because it stopped working and the chain was slack so he just gave up and sold it to me months later. Here's what he did:
He tightened the plate on the front of the sprocket tight onto it and then put it on the peg, there was nothing keeping it on there. So I loosened the bolt and put the sprocket on the peg and affixed it the proper way, I moved the swingarm back and then forward to set the chain on both sprockets with the tension correct and everything.
Now all that remains (I hope) is to clean the gunk (and there's a bunch of it) out of that side of the engine/transmission and to clean and sync the carbs. The besetting problem, however, is now solved. Rejoice with me and laugh at the simple mistake with confounded almost two owners of this bike, maybe more.
Any advice for cleaning up all that brown (and tiny metal) gunk of the left side of the case? How lubed does it need to be in there? Anybody have pics of what it should look like on the left side with the cover off? It's just a mess in there and I'm not sure if all that gunk is grease lube or just built up grime.
