P11 primary chain

After hearing plenty of horror stories about the stock chain failing and locking up the rear wheel or blowing out the case, what are the best chain options now? Are the original chains that bad? I remember ATF fluid being recommended to me for the primary on my Commando. Seemed to work fine but it had a tendency to leak easier than 20w50. What chain are you guys running and how many miles do you have on it?

Simple.

The chain is 08B-1 and there is a lot crap about.

I sell the German iwis which is the best but if you have any even number of pins (should be 68)
then an O ring chain is actually a very good option.

Andy

Thanks. Do you have any pictures showing the difference between the IWIS and the O-ring?
O-ring can be run dry? What is the cost difference?

O ring can be run dry and is used by a lot of Manx riders.

O ring is a little wider but should fit and cost is about £15 extra.

Andy

andychain said:

O ring can be run dry and is used by a lot of Manx riders.

O ring is a little wider but and cost is about £15 extra.

Andy

Click to expand...

Andy,
should fit? Have you had anyone successfully changed to this mod with no interference issues?
I am interested in this mod as I would run my P11 primary dry and just pull the outer cover off to periodically clean and re-lube the O-ring type. Would an DID 520 x-ring work?
Thanks,
Regards,
Thomas
CNN

CanukNortonNut said:

andychain said:

O ring can be run dry and is used by a lot of Manx riders.

O ring is a little wider but and cost is about £15 extra.

Andy

Click to expand...

Andy,
should fit? Have you had anyone successfully changed to this mod with no interference issues?
I am interested in this mod as I would run my P11 primary dry and just pull the outer cover off to periodically clean and re-lube the O-ring type. Would an DID 520 x-ring work?
Thanks,
Regards,
Thomas
CNN

Click to expand...

For a comparison, I fitted a HD (non O ring) chain in my Atlas (similar except inner primary cover). There was sufficient clearance, but it was close. My guess would be the O ring type would work. If you can find the dimensional comparison of the width between the O ring and HD types, that should nail it down.

Slick

Running the primary with a non-oil-bath O-ring is not my first choice. I think the P11 Primary case seals better than my Commando primary which always leaked. Considering it is a simplex chain and there is a lot of heat build up, I'd think oil would be mandatory in this application. Would like to hear from users of o-ring chain without oil bath, as to how long service life they are getting.

O ring has has been used by Panther owners for ages and increasingly so on other makes such as Nortons.

Two things in the post stand out.

Firstly please forget you ever heard of heavy duty or HD chains. Bikes should break chains they wear them
and a big heavy chain spinning at 1000s of rpm will wear quicker by weight. QUALITY OF THE STEEL is far
more important hence the iwis German chain that has a chromised pin.

Secondly the O ring (428) is only supplied in even number of links so those running with a crank link may
have to alter gearing.

Andy

PS Running O ring in oil does very little as as well as keeping lube in, the O rings stop oil getting to the pin
where it is needed. To clubs in UK book me for a talk.

Think about it, O-ring chain was designed to keep grit out. There is no grit in the case, so if you run a case and it seals good, there is no need for an O-ring.

You would need to more often get inside the case to the lubricate and check rollers with an O-ring chain, I'd think. Juice is not worth the squeeze IMHO.

I guess I don't see the advantages of the O-ring chain in a P11 primary. My case seals good with Yamabond liquid gasket. Set it and forget it.

Maybe I am missing something?

Read back, O ring is recommended for when the chain is run in the open
or when the cases dont hold oil. In cases that hold oil the iwis chromised
works very well.

Andy

andychain said:

Read back, O ring is recommended for when the chain is run in the open or when the cases dont hold oil. In cases that hold oil the iwis chromised works very well. Andy

Click to expand...

Andy have you got a link you can post to a dimension chart for German IWIS chain? Thanks

Hi all,

I'm running high quality 'O" ring primary chains on both my Atlas café and 1950 ES2 for several years now. To date, there have been no issues other than a lack of oil dripping from the tin primary covers and that's really why I chose to fit these modern chains. Admittedly, these machines only cover a few hundred miles a year so it will take a long time to fully evaluate the chains longevity.

My one and only concern is lubrication to the rear caged bearing on the clutch chain wheel?

My personal feeling is that an O-ring chain would be fine on a P11 as they have a much higher tensile strength rating than the standard Renolds primary chain.

C-ya, Jer

Good points but once again tensile strength is not an issue as the chains
run at very high rpm and torque is minimal. However bearing parts are
critical both in material and tolerance.

For iwis dimensions just go the the web site of iwis and look at L85SL. This
is 08B-1 in DIN terms.

Andy

andychain said:

Good points but once again tensile strength is not an issue as the chains run at very high rpm and torque is minimal. However bearing parts are critical both in material and tolerance. For iwis dimensions just go the the web site of iwis and look at L85SL. This is 08B-1 in DIN terms. Andy

Click to expand...

This is a difficult website to use for motorcycle chain, definitely not set up to review options.
Simply a catalog listing of many many chains.
Metric sizing of English chain, no standard 420, 428, 520, 530 .........

All major chain producers, even Renold, distance themselves from motorcycle.

The chain used on old Brit bikes is basically 08B-1 (primary) and 10B-1 rear.

Renold 110048 and 110056, iwis L85SL and M106SL.

Renold never made motorcycle as such they made made dam good industrial, sadly
in my personal view, no longer. Iwis are the same no bike chain but a really good
industrial, typically 1/3 above DIN. Regina also do good quality.

Using my 40 years in the chain world and doing talks to clubs, it has become obvious
that urban myths about chain have become the rule and many users have not got
the means to check out exactly what they need in the way of quality. Many given the
choice would even choose a crap spring clip, very important with chains, over a good
one because "it looks beefier".

I have done several talks to Norton clubs......looks like I need to do more.

Andy

I'm new to these forums but have been reading them with interest for some time. My main concern are the many rumours that have come about since Renold stopped officially marketing motorcycle chain or having it certified to ISO 10190. Most of these rumours & especially the damaging rumours are false and as Renold are not in the motorcycle chain market, they're not going to spend time contesting these rumours.

I'll my flag to the post & admit that I have always been a fan of Renold chain and have used their chain since I bought my first British bike in the early 1980s. I've done a lot of research into the history, technical specs etc. and am about to launch my own sales of genuine Renold chain for the classic bike market. I've posted below some of the most common myths & facts that will give anyone interested some food for thought.

The bottom line is that Renold have never actually stopped making the same motorcycle chain that would have been fitted as OEM equipment on our classic bikes. It's never been outsourced to cheap quality far east manufacture, never used split rollers, always has approx 50% stamped plates.

The chain you can still buy from many dealers in Renold motorcycle chain boxes should indeed be genuine "Blue box" spec chain that your classic Triumph/Norton/BSA etc. These dealers can only buy this chain from one single distributor that buys direct in bulk from Renold. Therefore, any Renold chain you purchase should be fully traceable via this route.

Myth - Renold don’t make motorcycle chain anymore
Fact - FALSE - Renold have never stopped making chain suitable for motorcycles.
The chain made now (known as Renold Blue Box) is to the same spec as the chain fitted to all British bikes but better quality.

Myth - Renold don’t make chain certified to ISO 10190
Fact - TRUE. Renold do not certify their chain to this ISO standard, specifically for motorcycles. However, their chain is to a specification way beyond that required for ISO 10190.
When the British bike industry was dying, the purely commercial decision was made to not continue paying for certification in what was an ever shrinking market.
The exact same chain continued to be manufactured but simply not certified.

Myth - Renold farm out chain manufacture far east resulting in poor quality
Fact - FALSE. Renold have NEVER farmed out or licenced manufacture of chain. During the British bike heyday, chain was made at the Coventry site (where it was essentially invented), then moved to Manchester HQ until the early 1980s. Production then moved to France until the late 1990s when it moved the state of the art facility in Germany where it’s now made.
So, the truth is, no Renold motorcycle chain is made in the UK but made in a high tech factory in Einbeck, Germany.

Myth - Renold use split rollers in motorcycle chain
Fact - FALSE. Renold have NEVER used split rollers in motorcycle chain. They do make some industrial low speed chains with split rollers but they are a completely different product and should NEVER be used on ANY motorcycle, classic or modern.

Myth - Renold chain have no markings identifying them as Renold
Fact - FALSE. Renold stamp approximately 50% of the plates but when assembled, the markings may well end up on the “inside” of the chain so may not be so visible. If a chain has no markings at all then it’s not a Renold chain and likely to be a cheap copy.
Aside from the stamping, there are a number of ways to identify Renold chain as being genuine including the type of riveting.

Myth - Renold don’t make “O-Rings” chain
Fact - TRUE. Renold never made “O-Ring” chain but for a while when Motorcycle chain was still being marketed, it was bought in & re-branded as Renold chain. The quality of that chain was still to the Renold standard but sales of this stopped with the decision to drop out of the motorcycle chain market.

Myth - Renold don’t make Grand Prix chain
Fact - TRUE. Whilst Renold no longer sell chain marketed as “Grand Prix”, this is purely due to not pushing the motorcycle market. Chain superior to GP spec is still manufactured under the name “Synergy”. In fact, this Synergy chain is manufactured to a specification & quality way beyond that of the old “GP” chain. Whilst the cost is typically twice that of the “Blue Box” chain, the working life & strength is several times greater.

*IMPORTANT* Renold DO NOT officially endorse Synergy chain as being suitable for use on motorcycles.

On the subject of Synergy chain. If anyone has bought chain claiming to be Synergy in a Renold motorcycle chain box, it's a fair bet that it's not Synergy chain as Renold will in no way endorse it's usage on ANY motorcycle as it was never fitted as OEM equipment. The "Blue Box" chain however, was fitted as OEM and they therefore do endorse it's use as replacement chain.

That's not to say Synergy chain is not suitable as it's manufactured to a standard & performance way beyond that of their original "Blue Box" chain. I for one use it on my 1960 tuned Triton and ride it very hard with no trouble. I have no problem recommending Synergy chain as a direct and vastly improved replacement chain for classic bikes but again, I must stress that Renold do not & will not endorse use of their Synergy chain as being for motorcycle use.

I could write for hours on this subject but I'll light this fuse & see what happens.

If anyone's interested, I'll be at the Aberdare Park Road Races 30th/31st July this year with my chains guru stand and if all goes well the Triton will be back from it's latest rebuild

Phil (aka Classic@Chains.Guru)

I find it amazing that so many people posting on this subject apparently know so little about chain.....
Chain comprises of a series of plain bearing each one requiring lubrication... (As the staff of The Motor Cycle state in their book 'Speed and How to Obtain ' and I have NO doubt many British motorcycle owners will now be thinking...... 'never heard of it'....
For example the Renold publication ' Power Transmission - Diagrams & Technique ' on page 62 shows varions forms of lubrication giving the chain speeds for which each is suitable. We run our primary chains at anything up to 6,000 feet per minute, well my Dommy one spent much of its time at between 5-6,000 ft per min!!......
For a drip fed system as used on old British race bikes for decades itstartes and earlier on road bikes it states 'Up to 50 h.p. For chain speeds up to 1,200 feet per minute'.
For an oil bath system with the chain totally submerged in oil for part of its run it states 'Up to 50 h.p. For chain speeds up to 2,000 feet per minute'.
Fopr sump and pump lubrication where a pump sprays oil under pressure on to the inner edge of the side plates, in our case just prior to the chain flying around the clutch basket, it states ' NO LIMITATION '.
Thus IF our preimary chains were being employed CORRECTLY we would have a sump and pump oil supply system fitted......and the chain would have a longer life expectancy along with requiring less maintenance......
Run a chain at high speed through an oil bath and cavitation will occur. I would bet money on Norton knowing this when developing their oil bath chain case in the 1930s and is why oil mist lubrication was employed rather than oil bath. The CORRECT oil level being set such that the bottom of the chain just touches the oil in service creating an oil mist. Of it Mr Phil Heath who was involved with the Norton oil bath chain case development commented to me that it ' did little for chain life '. The comment amused me.
Chains not only need lubrication to lubricate the plain bearings...they also need it to lubricate the outside of the rollers to cushion the shock loads as each roller engages with the sprocket teeth. Forget that and our chains fail even quicker.
People really should remember that we DO NOT employ our chains ANYTHING LIKE the chain manufacturers recommendations. Renold state the MINIMUM life for a chain is 15,000 hours but we do NOT employ chain correctly and the price we pay for not doing so is seriosly reduced chain life AND efficiency. Testing carried out in the late 1920s by the UK National Physical Laboratory of a Renold 1 inch pitch bush roller employed in a Renold oil bath with sump and pump lubrication and employed carrying a steady 25 h.p.along with being tensioned correctly and with the sprockets correctly aligned for 6 hours at the recommendede chain speed showed an efficiency of between 98.4 and 98.9 %. If anyone wants a copy of the telegram sent to Renold giving an abstract of the test results send me your e mail address.
Some 'clever' souls who apparently never learnt to qualify statements tell the World that chains are 98 % efficient forgetting to qualify the statement with IF EMPLOYED CORRECTLY AS PER THE CHAIN MANUFACTURERS DESIGN MANUAL.
Mr Jack Williams wrote in one of his 1950s design note books for the AJS 7R and E95 motors thaty a drip fed primary chain was probably no more than 90% efficient and even lower still at the higher chain speeds ...at higher chain speeds centrifugal force forces the bearing surfaces together breaking the lubricatruion which results in heat generation thus power losses and lower efficiency. When Super Cycle Magazine in the late 1970s dyno tested a std chain and an after market belt system on a Harley they found the chain at a road speed equivelent to 90 mph was losing 5.5 h.p. compared to the belt system (FIVE POINT FIVE HORSE POWER). They actually stated something like at a chain speed of 6,000 ft per min the chain was a stiff as a broon handle absorbing lots of horse power. and self destructing ..... Some people have lost bits of their bodies as chains fail.... I believe one gent had one take off much of his head as one failed on Pendine Sands as he went for a World land speed record. A few British motor cyclists have lost their nicely polished chain cases as chains fail but to date I have not heard of a failing belt doing it.....!!
I would be amazed if i went to a so called 'Classic' race bike meet these days and found anyone with an old British 7R/ G50, 350/500 Manx etc using a chain primary drive system and if you had ever watched how much faster our old Atlas went up to Druids simply by changing to a primary belt system you would understand why. I stood in the centre of the circuit and noticed it...as did the rider as he braked for Druids in the usual place on the first lap with the belt fitted and came close to stuffing himself and the overweight ump into the banking.....the power losses in a sprayed with oil every so often singlex primary chain running at getting on for 6,000 ft per min must be 3 to 4 h.p.........Go read 'Speed and How to Obtain it' .......OR the article on the subject of chain in Motor Cycle Sport April 1976 page 130 etc......

Many years ago ago I had a chat with a Gentleman at Renold Chains and was assured that they no longer manufactured motor cycle chain. I have just made another phone call to Renold and was again assured that they DO NOT manufacture motor cycle chain. It was suggested I contact a company called Velocette at Meriden.
It is standard Renold made chain boxed in boxes marked Renold.
The ONLY specs / design manuals I have ever seen for Renold chain have been INDUSTREIAL where chain life is given as a MINIMUM of 15,000 hours. The ONLY motor cycle use spec i knew of is the one a Mr Wibberley working at Renold put together for his use when advising motor cycle manufacturers and it was NOT amoung the chain bumph he passed on to me shortly after retiring so I would guess it was passed onto whoever took over his responsibilities ... if anyone did at the time as the British motor cycle industry was well dead by then!!
With old unused REAL Made in England Renold chain sitting around in the loft I dont care!!
As for using O or X ring chain..........chains need lubricant to reach the many plain bearings that form the chain if they are to give satisfactory chain life and efficiency. I always thought the idea of O and X ring chain was to ensure these bearings retained the lubricant within themselves that was applied during manufacture rather than to chance some oil on occasion possibly managing to reach them but that lubricant was still required on the rollers to cushion the shock loads as each roller comes into contact with the sprocket teeth and to reduce sprocket wear......Is this not what the chain lube sprays were developed to do...not that many use them if the sounds I hear from the rear chains of bikes passing me and those I look at are any indictation!!
At trhe end of the day I suspect it all has something to do with public liability. Many years ago when Gates bought Uniroyal one of the first faxes to arrive at the Uniroyal factory in Scotland said that under NO circumstances was advice to be given on belt use for use on aircraft and a phone calltoday confirmed that this still applies. Any bets its all to do with accident chasing lawyers?
Bob Oswald of QPD in the USA who was making belt drive systems for British bikes before most of the so called experts making them these days even knew what a toothed belt looked like once told me that he had made belt systems for twin prop aircraft that had received their air worthyness certification. But I bet the belts are correctly maintained unlike some if you read web accident reports.......
No spell or grammer checks done. TOOO old and TOOO tired.

Is there a sensible suggestion for primary chain in a P11?
I have had great performance from chain bought from Walridge Motors.....and I have purchased and had in service all the internal engine/primary chains.

The fellah at Renold you recently spoke to was in fact incorrect in stating that they don't sell motorcycle chain. The "blue box" type that they currently sell is the exact same chain that was fitted as OEM chain (Not the GP stuff) to all the classics, British & worldwide up to the point that Renold stopped marketing motorcycle chain. So the truth is, Renold sell motorcycle chain only as an OEM replacement to bikes originally fitted with the same Renold chain.

Velocette at present, are the only company in the UK that buy this blue box chain direct from Renold in 25ft boxes, cut them to length and sell them onto the classic dealers in officially licenced Renold motorcycle chain boxes. Therefore, any new Renold chain in such a box purchased from a reputable dealer will have been bought from Velocette and therefore direct from Renold.

This "blue box" chain is the ONLY chain manufactured by Renold that they will officially endorse as being a replacement chain for motorcycles. The only other chain Renold manufacture that is technically fit for motorcycle use is Synergy which they state as having a life 6 times greater than that of the "blue Box" chain.

However, and it's an important however, Renold DO NOT & WILL NOT endorse their Synergy chain as replacement for motorcycle use. This is because it was never fitted as OEM equipment and has never been certified to BS ISO 10190:2008, despite it having a specification way beyond that required for the standard.

Personally, speaking as a professional Engineer & long time biker, I've only ever used Renold chain on my classics, always used them hard, always maintained the chains well and never had a problem with them. Until this year I've not tried Synergy chain myself but have recently fitted a length to my 1960 Triton. I'm more than confident that it will perform as well as I'd expect and will record & post any results that I record as to its performance & maintenance requirements.

classic@chains.guru