Chain lube for non-o-ring chains

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Teehehehe, using chain lube, especially yukky sticky wax on a sealed chain. Get back with us when my sour humor punch line strikes hits home...
 
Sprockets wear quickly without some sort of lubrication.

Also, those bone dry, squeaky clean chains develop unsightly surface rust. Yuck. Who wants that? :p
 
Squeaky chains is as good as squeaky clean dishes. Its a good low friction/wear condition most will quickly ruin by oiling and lubing to drive wear and road grit grinding paste into the wear prone surfaced inside. Same with most cleaning methods, short of the ancient tradition to agitate in kerosene/diesel and then in hot grease or oil bucket. Trial by expenditures on chain and drum sprockets make me a NON attender to my plain chains nor my sealed chains either or decrease their life spans, including the sprocket teeth. It your chain links are rolling in and out of valleys, you already got too worn conditions to last long. Now if drive chain was enclosed in oil bath that's a whole 'nother application that only applies to primary and cam chain. Seems I'm not alone in my findings the hay seed way.
Pull rear links away from valleys at very back of sprocket, that's where the chain runs at speed and loads bare on teeth, irregardless of chain tension setting. Ideal chain tension is almost no slack when sprocket and swing arm lined up mid arc.

http://sheldonbrown.com/brandt/chain-care.html
 
Try Putoline ceramic chain wax, it's in a blue can with a yellow top. Just my opinion, I don't get paid to say this but it is good stuff. I use it on non O ring 530 chains on Commando and Ducati single, also on X ring chain on TT and S2R 1000. It doesn't flick off chunks of gorilla snot, and sprockets and chains last nearly 10k kms at least, O rings twice that. It's hard to get but worth the effort. I don't do much dirt riding though.
 
PS, the price of Norton sprockets I can't afford not to lubricate them. Graeme
 
Duh dude lube does not protect the sprocket teeth only good unworn chain links, lubed or dry, at proper tension preserve sprocket drums. Do some deeper search study on this but its hard to find as most only reference the chain side of the drive wear. There should be almost nil sliding or rolling of links in and out of valleys but plenty of hard baring on teeth faces, so grinding paste hurts not helps. The bycycle URL comes to same exact findings I have. To get any real advantage of chain lube its should flow so much it can flush out links to sling off the grimey grit , most will not put up with that preserving mess. I get about 10k miles per dry chain through thick and thin. After I wised up to the falsehood of chain lube I don't know how much extra life of drum teeth I'll get. If you care to accelerate you own study on this fit a 520 conversion sealed chain and keep it lubed on outside nicely.
 
I agree that a non worn chain, properly adjusted will add life to sprocket teeth. But you can't lubricate the rollers on a non O ring chain without getting lube on the sprocket teeth. And if the sprocket teeth are dry, and the outside of the rollers are dry and shiny, chances are the inside of the rollers and links are also dry and wearing too. I'll keep using lube
 
I repeat much as it goes against one's limited data on logic to apply here, unless the chain is flooded in clean oil bath then its essentially impossible to avoid the grinding paste inside links on plain chain and un-needed in sealed chain. Lube does not lower chain friction unless it can carry off internal wear particles and keep external grit flushed away. Racers found this out with seized primary chains until they got down to 20 grade oil. Dry shiny sprockets and links are a good thing over oily gritty surfaces to me.
 
I like Maxima Chain Wax, and use the "Chris Kelley" method of using the wax to both clean and lube the chain. My not-stock Ducati 900SS has 17K miles on the original (o-ring) chain and looks to be nowhere near end of service life.
 
In the 60's and earlier, there was a product on the UK market (whose name escapes me) that was a graphite impregnated grease. It came in a fairly large diameter shallow can. The procedure was to put this can on the kitchen stove over a low heat until the grease melted, then you wound your chain into a tight spiral and placed it in the molten lubricant and took the can off the heat. When the grease was almost solid, you took the chain out, wiped off the excess and you had a deep-lubed chain to put back on the bike.

IIRC, the tratment was good for about six months of daily commuter riding. With the grease setting up again at outside air temperature, it didn't get thrown off the chain like oil does.
 
Hello Frank,
I remember it well, it stank and I could only use it when the fairer sex weren't home. Always got caught out by the lingering smell though.
Can't remember the name at this time but I seem to remember it was an English product. Duckhams?
Regards
Graeme

Edit, i forgot it was on the stove once and it caught on fire, never used it again. That was the end of a towel too. (and the ceiling paint was blackened)
 
frankdamp said:
In the 60's and earlier, there was a product on the UK market (whose name escapes me) that was a graphite impregnated grease. It came in a fairly large diameter shallow can.
Click to expand...

That was Filtrate "Linklyfe"
Chain lube for non-o-ring chains


A similar chain treatment is still available from Putoline: http://www.feked.com/chain-wax-putoline ... ation.html
(not suitable for O-ring chains)
 
From Collin Sharpe a UK rider form the golden era quoted off Brit Iron today. I'm sticking to my story any other way but constant mess drip oiler or grease melt bath is mostly just a cosmetic and mental palliative.
The proper way to deal with a chain is to first take it off the bike. An old, worn out chain hooked to the one in use makes this an easy task. Once the chain is off, clean it thoroughly with paraffin or petrol or some similar solvent. The chain can then be laid flat and the ends pulled and pushed to see how much wear there is.

The next step, provided the chain is not worn out, is to heat a tin of Linklyfe
graphited grease until the grease is well melted. This can of course be done on
a cooking stove, but to avoid the smell in the kitchen, a camping stove outside
works very well. The chain can then be put in the Linklyfe which will penetrate
all moving parts. When cold, remove the chain and wipe off surplus grease.

Put the chain back on the bike, adjust it, and you're good to go.

Provided chains are replaced before they are totally worn out, there is no need
to replace the sprockets. I do know Japanese bike dealers always insist on
replacing both chain and sprockets, but I strongly suspect the reason for this is
more financial than mechanical.

Colin.
Click to expand...
 
I still think one of the best chain lube techniques I've seen is the "Scott Oiler", or whatever it's proper name is.

The idea is to constantly flow oil onto a moving, running chain. Any dirt and dust is washed off, while fresh oil is always directed at the links. You set it up for about one drip per every ten seconds, more or less.

When I rode a 1995 Hinckley Triumph I made a similar oiler of my own. Being my name is "Scott", I could call it a Scott Oiler as well. All I did was hang a plastic bottle of gear oil from the bike and run a copper tube toward the rear sprocket. A plastic "nozzle" was on the end held close to the chain, and a valve regulated the flow.

Sure it made a bit of a mess, but it never went all over the tire, and when you were riding you didn't care. The chain was always clean. The only problem was if you parked and forgot to shut off the oil. Then you had a puddle.

--Scott
'75 Norton Commando Mk III
 
I've rigged up something similar to the Scottoiler for my 750, using a length of high performance chromatography tubing (0.5 mm id) to restrict the flow of oil to a drop every now and again. Don't know the lifetime of the chain yet but so far it's done 6500 miles with only two adjustments. Using a similar system on my MZ TS250, albeit with gaitered full enclosure, it did 40000 miles on the same chain over 4 years, with one adjustment per year. And still with plenty of life left on it when I sold it on. Full enclosure may be the key I suspect, to prevent grit getting in. Apparently the full enclosure on the Norton Wankels enables the chain to last a very long time.

Phil.
 
Ok I'll re-state my message more clearly in non sealed non oil bath chain runs.

Unless, one *flows* on *So much* oil by drips, brushing or sprayer, that it both pollutes the road and bike/tire, merely hand spraying, brushing or dripping > pushes road grit inside and fails to flush out wear grit > for less wear endurance even if it may questionably actually lube a road chain to matter friction or heat wise. The Norton factory chain oiller, that essentially No One runs anymore - was one of the best most functional items installed by Norton. They knew what it takes to actually lube a road chain to help not hurt its mileage.

So I maintain that anyone interfering with factory oilier or not removing chain for the real deal is in self satisfied delusion they are being an effective maintainer. Only real way to know how worn your chain is is to pull links out vallies at back of sprockets to see where links actually bear on the teeth. Chain tension even bow string tight has no effect on this wear slack. So hobot message is best if you really effectively lube your chain or if not best just forgetaboutit.

Chain lube for non-o-ring chains
 
This thread has me thinking (that is a dangerous thing)

1) How often should you completely clean your chain rather than just shooting some lube on it? I live in a sandy coastal region, lots of sand. Am thinking that this area would be a candidate for cleaning more often.

2) I know that in that one video the guy used WD40 for a cleaning solution. How about using GUNK, Simple Green or one of those spray on Citrus based products instead?

3) I did order one of those Grunge Brushes, seems like it would make a dirty job much easier to manage.

Thanks
 
I used to use a graphite spray on bike (pedal kind) chains. Has anyone tried this? It's dry and slick.
 
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