Broken snap ring

Got my 231 pulled out to rebuild and when I removed the tail cone, the snap ring dropped to the floor in two pieces. The only problem I thought I had was a stretched chain. Other then that, it operated okay until the chain went skippy. Is this a common problem with these TC's or do you think my sloppy, slipping chain caused it to brake. Is there an alternative to replacing the stock snap ring with an after market thing-a-ma-jig?
Or do I just replace it and cross my fingers???

Steve

Most snaprings I've seen break did so because there was an excess amount of play somewhere. Given a sloppy chain (and not seeing the part in person,) I'd guess the bhain caused it - either from some excessive play or simple chain slap

Get one the right size and change it - unless you look for something exotic, they're all pretty much the same anyhow...

5-90

IIRC when replacing the skippy chain I swapped the snapring on my 231 with one that has holes...I fought the OEM SOB for awhile and when I finally got it off, found a 'real' one of similar dia & thickness in my stash.

Getting that stocker off was one big PITA with flatnose pliers in 'reverse' (would have been easy with a 3rd hand or a set of that type SRPs) count your blessings yours was so easy

I think you must be right, 5-90. Everything else is pretty tight for having 105k on it. Very little metal shavings on the magnet.

That 'thing-a-ma-bob' was something that was made to replace the tail cone on the 242 with a modified tail cone that didn't need a snapring to keep the guts from walking around. I believe I read it in either JP or 4 wheel and O.R. I just thought maybe they made something similar for the 231. Oh, well.

Yeah, Woody, I guess I got lucky that I didn't have to wrestle it off. Let's see how lucky I am to get this back together and have it work!!!