How Your Motorcycle Works by Peter Henshaw

Author:Peter Henshaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845845377
Publisher: Veloce Publishing Ltd
Published: 2012-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Primary drive

The primary drive is the first stage in transferring the engine’s torque from the crankshaft to the rear wheel. Its job is to transmit crankshaft movement to the clutch, and on modern bikes this is normally done through two large gears that mesh together. As well as being efficient, gear drives are very strong and, if kept well lubricated, don’t need maintenance. They’re also well suited to high-revving engines, being unaffected by centrifugal forces, so they are ideal for modern motorcycles.

Although gear drives are now very common, chain primary drive was once the standard method. These were quiet (and efficient when properly adjusted), but needed adjusting periodically, unless an automatic chain tensioner was fitted, and their life span was shorter than that of gears.

One final word on gear drives, and something that chain drive doesn’t suffer from: with just two gears involved, the output shaft will rotate in the opposite direction to the input shaft, so it has to be reversed again further along the system if we aren’t to end up with six reverse gears. Fortunately, the direction of rotation changes a number of times through several sets of gears, so if the engineers have done their sums correctly, all should be well by the time the rotation reaches the rear wheel.

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