THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE OLDEST NEW PRODUCT EVER!
I first did our MB Lambretta top chain slipper back in 1988!
In that time theres only been 2 alterations.
1) early on, we changed the casting to make bolting the nylon slipper easier, once altered it stayed like that for years until.
2) we went from sand casting to die casting but was unaltered in design.
At the time the Innocenti designed top slipper was a well known issue for breaking and wrapping around your chain locking the motor. Various dealers at the time tried different ways to stop it. Some welded steel brackets, some used an alloy channel and others used a cast item to stop the guide snapping.
I looked and thought – if motorbikes can use plastic to stop chains cutting into swinging arms could it take the pressure of a chain running on it all the time? I looked into special plastics and found a material that was self lubricating and was made for things to run over it, add oil and even better!
I then knocked up some alloy welded brackets and tested the guide. It worked so well I made the tooling and cast the alloy bracket then bolted the special Black nylon to it…….. you could say the rest is history!
This top slipper has got to be the most copied part ever made for a Lambretta engine. Others used my first cast design that we moved away from and all of them used the wrong White nylon which use to wear out.
The first one is still in a running bike from 1988 and has run every year since! I’ve totally lost count how many we’ve sold – it’s in the thousands!
From day one I said – USE a bottom guide!
Over the years I’ve seen so many say ‘you don’t need a bottom guide’! Err wrong! If you’ve seen the amount of casings where the chain has rubbed and ruined a casing! Ever heard of a Rolon chain? These are utter and complete junk from India, they can totally wear out in 1000 miles touching the top and bottom of the casing! And dealers are still selling these things! Leave off the bottom guide and you will see what a mess it can make.
Today there are numerous up and down push me pull me latest chain guides of varying qualities. I’ve seen some of these failing so be careful. I don’t think in 34 years I’ve seen a MB one fail.
Ours are simple! They obviously work. They obviously don’t fail and they set up with simple standard gear ratios and chain set ups.
I do know of a chain guide that can’t use a bottom guide, so if you’re using one of these new push me pull me’s – check to see if a bottom guide can be fitted.
To avoid any damage and stop the chain flopping around USE a bottom chain guide/slipper with ours or any of the copy top slippers!
Okay if its’ a race bike you don’t need to use a lower guide as the side cover is on and off all the time.
Moving on 34 years, standard type bottom chain guides were getting such bad quality we were using second hand ones to built engines. But these were getting harder to find.
It came a time to make one, here is our latest newish product if you missed the last FB post that FB took down, it may be news for you.
Our bottom slipper is just a slipper like the top, it lets the chain slip over it. Okay its also a guide – it was a play on words back in the day! It adjusts to suit any chain and sprocket set up, unless you want to use an oddball set up that we’re seeing to day that needs a downward guide, now we have different close ratio and 5 speed gearboxes.
Ours are easy to fit. The bottom one goes up and down the studs when fitted, it can twist a little to set up different sized sprockets as the angle changes! Set the bottom slipper so the chain hardly touches it – this helps when the chain flexes as the engine revs change, then set the top slipper so it slightly pushes on the chain to get 6mm up and down movement.
