Everything You Need To Know About Your Primary Drive

Maintain Your Kit To Last:

Chain drives are a lot of maintenance, and louder than belt drive setups. This goes for Surron Light Bee, Ultra Bee, and E Ride, 420, 520 volconized rubber sprocket ring or not. This is something most people do not antisapaite, so be ready! 

When it comes to maintenance its realitively simple but easily forgotten about. If you are riding off-road you should be cleaning and lubericating your primary chain each ride. Due to the short length and tight radius bend the chain goes through it gets hot fast, liquifying most lubricants. As well as dirt and debrees sticking to the chain if you have guards on or not.

You will need to often check chain links for tight spots. As well as worn out chain rollers, Lets not forget chain tension adjustments, check for those as well. Keep in mind your chain should NEVER be tight. Its also a smart idea to zip-tie a spare master link to your bike somewhere incase yours ever comes off. Its not likely a master link will come off but it has happened.


Primary_Drive_Failure_Due_To_Chain_Being_To_Tight

Common Mistakes Made:

The single handed most common mistake is chain tension. Its very common for people to install a new primary, or even new chain with the assumption the chain will stretch. You NEVER want to have chain tension tight EVER...

When setting chain tension you want to have roughly 3/4 of an inch of slop "freeplay" up and down on your chain between your front and rear primary sprocket. 

With chain tension to tight it will promote exes wear on your sprocket, chain links, & rollers, and a lot of heat generation. With a tight chain you will also notice your primary drive will be louder than usual. The photo above shows what happens when your chain is set to tight.

The other common mistake is not checking for tight spots in your chain after you have made adjustments. Tight spots could develop from multiple things as there are a lot of rotating parts on the primary drive. If you have a tight spot you will want to loosen your tension enough so the tight spot is no longer tight. A tight spot could be developed from bad motor/jackshaft bearings, bent or misaligned hardware, or even a used or poor quality chain.
Primary_Drive_Chain_Alignment

Chain Alignment (One Size Does'nt Fit All):

Any chain drive application requires precision chain alignment. This is important for heat management, longevity of chain and sprockets, and rotational resistance. You can use lasers, and other various tools to validate your chain alignment is good. Or you can just look at the specific fitment tab on our product listing to validate if the primary chain kit fits your bike and motor.

You will know if your chain alignment is off if the face of your aluminum sprocket has extreme wear. Or if your are breaking chains. The only time you would break a chain is if you have steel primary drive sprockets. Chains usually snap due to exes inner link wear from poor chain alignment. It is almost impossible to break a 420/520 chain with the power these e-moto's are capable of making.

The image above is illustrating the usage of a laser alignment tool used on our 25KW E Ride Pro with almost 1000 miles on its primary kit. Due to perfect alignment, good chain tension, and good maintenance, we have seen no issues with the primary drive. The bike on the other hand just had its last moto at the MX track due to bending the swingarm from jumps and breaking the upper left motor mount from wide open throttle landings. 



520 Primary Drive Installation

Primary_Drive_Sprocket_Motor_Configuration_OEM_and_V2_EBMX_Motor
This illustration shows the Primary motor sprocket and spacer orientation for either your OEM Ultra Bee motor or the V2 XUB-80 EBMX motor. If you fail to set proper spacing it will result in sprocket failure.  

The spacer should be placed onto the motor shaft first, than the sprocket should be placed on last with the circular chamfer cut out facing outwards so it is visible to you. Than you will need to fasten your motor sprocket. 

To avoid failures ensure chain tension is set loose NEVER TIGHT.

Please watch the full installation video below.
Primary_Drive_Sprocket_Motor_Configuration_V1_EBMX_Motor
This illustration shows the Primary motor sprocket and spacer orientation for ONLY the V1 XUB-80 EBMX motor. If you fail to set proper spacing it will result in sprocket failure.  

The sprocket should be placed onto the motor shaft first, with the circular chamfer cut out facing outwards so it is visible to you. Than the spacer should be placed on last. Than you will need to fasten your motor sprocket. 

To avoid failures ensure chain tension is set loose NEVER TIGHT.

Please watch the full installation video below.

420 Primary Drive Installation

420_Primary_Drive_Motor_Sprocket
The 420 primary drive kit works for E Ride Pro S, Pro SS, Surron LBX, S, As well as Segway X160, and X260 bikes. We have not seen any motor offset variances however, if you have an aftermarket motor and it was provided with extra motor mount shims you will NEED to validate chain alignment. Failure to do so will possibly result in breaking chains, and or defacing primary drive sprockets.

The 420 primary motor sprocket will have laser etching on each side. One side will say E Ride the other will say Sur Ron (applicable to Segway as well). The side facing out (visible to you) should be labeled as the bike you are installing it on. So if you are installing the kit onto an E Ride the motor sprocket should display E-Ride outwards when placed on the motor shaft.

To avoid failures ensure chain tension is set loose NEVER TIGHT.

Please watch installation video below.