Took chaincase cover off of my brother-in-law's '99 ZL 600 for a quick inspection.
I noticed that the chain tensioner bolt is not touching the tightener assembly, but the spring seems to be keeping the chain plenty tight enough. What is the proper way to adjust the chain tension? It seems that once the chain is under load, the tensioner assembly will ride on the end of the tensioner bolt. Anybody have some information for me?

Loosen the jam nut turn the tensioner bolt in finger tight.

If it bottoms out time to replace chain.

Thanks for the input. The owner's manual says nothing about chain tension.
Is it just me or are the newer owner's manuals really lacking in information? There is 3 pages about how to adjust your healight aim, but only a small paragraph on chaincase maintenance.

What Big Cat said

I think the auto tensioner is great, but the bolt should contact the roller. If you have the sled running on a stand so the track is turning at idle and you hit the brake you might hear a small clunk as the auto tensioner moves and bangs into the manual adjusting bolt. The chain tension is still reasonably maintained, but I don't think it is good in the long run to have things banging around. If you check this with the cover off you can see it happening. I replaced my chain last year and the spring is stretched almost to it's max with the new chain and the manual adjuster bolt had to backed almost all the way out. This will be different from sled to sled depending of gearing, etc.

As tight as you can get it with your fingers, than back off one turn.

Where did you hear back it off a turn? I remember reading in my Cat manual to go finger tight with no backing off. It seems as though any looseness in the chain would be a bad thing. The automatic tensioners are designed to take all the slop out.

I crank adjuster bolt in hand tight and lock it down.

Take the spring off, throw it away, and adjust it hand tight.

Can a person do this? I'm assuming you have to also take out the rear roller assy.(opposite the roller that gets pushed by the adjuster bolt)??
-John

Wrong. BTW see Rob's post about the avatars.

I have removed the spring and roller opposite to the adjustment bolt on both my ZR 700 and Zr 900 and run 75w90 semi sythetic gear oil in the chain case .Tighten chain till finger tight. NO PROBLEMS for 3000 miles on 700 and 500 miles on 900.700 used to clatter on deaceleration till this was done. Secondary roller is to close to chain case in my view. Also skidoo only has one tension roller in its chain case on my wifes sled.

tighten up by hand and like flyntgr(is that right)said when it bottoms out replace the chain. i just broke mine today ,i thought it was the clutch slipping i guess not.my bolt was bottomed out so i tookit out and removed the lock nut and put it back in it snugged up nicely to the case .first time i pinned it she let go. better at home than on the trail. i have heard of people taking the idlers out of the case with no ill effects