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To oil or not to oil? that is the question
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I have had motorcycles for 46 years. All chain drive. In the old days(pre o
ring chain) I oiled and cleaned the chain. Now with o ring chain. It seems
to be fine to just ride and do nothin but check tension once in a while. I
keep the bike in a garage so rusting is not a problem.
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Isn't WD 40 a solvent? Won't it remove the oil/lube?
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We've had this discussion before. WD 40 is a solvent and is no good for
o-ring chains.
Call me weird but I use Honda o-ring chain lube on my Honda. 15k miles, no
problems.
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You're wierd. And bound to encounter problems, eventually. Probably
around 99k miles. At least, that's my prediction.
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And using synthetic or fossil motor oil? Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)
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Call me lazy, I use Honda oil. Goes to garage and checks label: Blah Blah
Blah...
Containing Polymers and base stock... Petroleum... So I guess it ain't
synthetic.
Exceeds all... Blah Blah Blah....
When I had jet skis I used Yamalube in the Yamaha and Sea-Doo lube in the
Sea-Doo.
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Another riderless day, eh Bryan? :-)
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Maybe silicone spray??? It's always good for rubber.
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I haven't used a rubber in decades. But I have had my chain yanked.
From the Honda directions:
Clean chain using Pro Honda Contact / Brake Cleaner or other o-ring safe
cleaner. (Contents unknown).
Chain lube Contains: Heptane,Isopropanol, Aliphatic Petroleum Distillates.
Any chemists in the house?
Bryan
Bryan
Sorry no silicone.
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There is an old adage, wrong lubrication is better than no lubrication.
IOW, if all I have is Dexron auto transmission fluid and I am a quart low,
it will keep my engine lubricated. If I don't have don't have chain lube
but 3-in-1 oil, it will work. However, at first available opportunity I
should drain sump and refill with proper lube.
However I noticed that on EK website, states that lube should be compatible
with O-Rings on those type chains. I guess the greatest reason to lube
includes cases where O-Rings fail. At least lubed it lubed, no matter
what.
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Having run both my '97 and '99 Triumph Speed Triples with factory and
replacement o-ring chains and NO chain maintenence (other than
adjustment) my experience indicates that o-ring chains definitely need
some kind of cleaning and/or lubrication. Both bikes were garaged, but
both were regularly ridden year round, including in the rain. Chain
life varied from a low of 7,000 miles to a high of 11,000 miles. The
chains did show rust fairily early, then got noisy, then developed
tight spots, and finally had one or more places where two or more links
essentially froze, requiring me to replace the chain. It was an
expensive process, and definitly pointed out to me that I need to care
for the o-ring chain on my new Ducati. It has 600 miles on it and has
been cleaned and lubed three times so far.
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My suzuki dr200 factory manual sais not to oil the chain either. On the farm
back in the 50 and 60 before any fancy chain we got the most life out of the
chains and sprockets (running in the dirt and dust) when we ran them dry.
Also harvard physics dept did a study on bicycle chain drive and lubricant.
they were amazed that it made no difference to efficency or wear if you
oiled or not. so they said the only reason to oil would be to prevent rust.
I do not oil my mountain bike chain either. When I worked for a city radio
shop 22years I asked the cops about chain life on the kz1000 police bikes
and they got better life running dry.(o ring chain). I hear about
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Did they have documentation to back this up or were they justifying their lack of maintenance?
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scottoilers and prooillers. So, what is your experience?
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According to the experts, the best thing to do is to brush the
chain with diesel oil now and then since this will (a) clean it
and (b) put a surface coating on it to stop it rusting (which it
will do otherwise, garaged or not).
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No. WD-40 will only protect against rust for a week or so.
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Cleaning a chain on the bike is not the best way to clean it. That
method tends to move road grit and grime further into the interstices of
the chain where it will act like an abrasive on the pins. The best way
to clean a chain is to take it off the bike, clean it thoroughly with a
solvent, and then blow the solvent out with compressed air.
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If you live in a place with judicious rainfall such as Auckland, New
Zealand, the aforementioned may do well.
Besides, how many are willing to remove the chain, which tends to be quite a
bother.
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Wax is not a good chain lubricant because it's a solid and quickly gets
displaced from the friction points.
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I thought chain wax was a grease product that applied as oil wet to soak
into joints, then turned to grease when distillate evaporated. (All grease
are waxes.)
Chain lubricating is such a PITA that I used 30W motor oil, then annually or
semiannually clean the chain by removing and soaking, blowing out with
compressed air.
However, now the only product I need is H-D belt wax. Belt is the way to
go.
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Other than that be scrupulous about adjustment, then leave it
alone.
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Chains wear at the pins and a chain that isn't carrying a lot of power isn't
going
to wear much, so I rather discount your '50s and '60s farm experience as you
were probably using massive chains carrying a lot less horsepower.
I certainly never saw a stretched bicycle chain or worn sprocket on my old
10-speed, but I can tell you I've seen worn sprockets and stretched chains
on
my neighbors "performance" 14 speed bicycle, she has a lot more
well-developed
legs than I ever did as a 16 year old, though, since she rides everywhere.
The historical factory recommendation for O-ring chains to to use 90W gear
oil on them, but gear oil gets slung off the chain in a twinkling, so your
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Isn't it just. You only have to do this once in your life to realise the "to
oil or not to oil" a chain (any chain) question is redundant.
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effectively
not oiling them doing this. I also question the damage it could do to the
o-rings,
I have seen plenty of oil-saturated vacuum lines under the hoods of cars,
and
I can't believe that the o-ring rubber is impervious to oil.
The historical recommendation for non-o-ring chains is
to take them off, and put them in a pan of grease and bake them in the oven,
pretty unrealistic unless you have a clip-type master link, and I'm sure
your
girlfriend or wife would not care for what it does to the oven, either.
I don't personally care for most of the spray-on chain lubes, they stay on
the chain
but attract dirt and grit.
What I'm using now is Honda sells a performance spray on chain lube they
call "white graphite" or some such, it is a white grease, but it does not
have the
"greasy" feel of typical white grease. It is the same stuff that the
manufacturer
of the o-ring chain uses inside the o-ring links, and also packs the o-ring
chain
in, so I reason that at worst, it isn't going to hurt the chain or the
o-rings. It also
does not appear to attract the dirt and dust that the stickier kinds of
spray on
chain lubes seem to.
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In my opinion, an O ring chain still needs to be cleaned and
lubed, since the O rings only benefit the area between the
pins and the rollers. You still need lube between the rollers
and the sprockets, as well as on the side links. I used chain
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Exactly right. If you don't get ~20,000 miles out of a
good-quality o-ring chain, it's because of abuse and/or neglect.
If you don't like doing chain maintenance, there are lots of
shaft-drive choices out there. (But they need maintenance, too).
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wax when I had a bike with a chain.
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