Chain Care

For discussions about bikes and equipment.
Brucey
Posts: 44454
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by Brucey »

Tiberius wrote:ENTIRELY due to wanting to keep my bikes cleaner I have recently started to experiment with waxing my chains.....

Time will tell eh ??


I shall be very interested to hear how you get on. One of my concerns about this approach is that the chain won't resist wet weather very well and specifically that winter conditions in the UK might soon cause the onset of corrosion in the chain. I guess you will be finding this out; keep us posted.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
pwa
Posts: 17357
Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by pwa »

Brucey wrote:
Tiberius wrote:ENTIRELY due to wanting to keep my bikes cleaner I have recently started to experiment with waxing my chains.....

Time will tell eh ??


I shall be very interested to hear how you get on. One of my concerns about this approach is that the chain won't resist wet weather very well and specifically that winter conditions in the UK might soon cause the onset of corrosion in the chain. I guess you will be finding this out; keep us posted.

cheers

I'll be interested in how that pans out too.
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RickH
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Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: Chain Care

Post by RickH »

nicmarsh wrote:excuse me if i have missed this somewhere, but...

thought i would try the epic ride and I have a new chain. Should I be cleaning the factory oils off the new chain first and if so what with - a degreaser followed by water and left to dry ( slightly gives me the heebejeebs a new chain being left wet ) or just WS then left to dry or something else?

In my experience adding Epic Ride to the stuff on a new chain will probably just dissolve most of it out. I wouldn't recommend Epic Ride unless you are keen on lubing your chain the day before every ride plus during the ride if you encounter any wet on the road (especially if you don't have full length mudguards with a really long mudflap that keeps all spray off the drive train).
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Tiberius
Posts: 798
Joined: 31 Dec 2014, 8:45am
Location: North East England

Re: Chain Care

Post by Tiberius »

Brucey wrote:
Tiberius wrote:ENTIRELY due to wanting to keep my bikes cleaner I have recently started to experiment with waxing my chains.....

Time will tell eh ??


I shall be very interested to hear how you get on. One of my concerns about this approach is that the chain won't resist wet weather very well and specifically that winter conditions in the UK might soon cause the onset of corrosion in the chain. I guess you will be finding this out; keep us posted.

cheers


Yup, will do....
alexnharvey
Posts: 1921
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:39am

Re: Chain Care

Post by alexnharvey »

I wax my chain. I have recently restarted commuting. The chain has some exterior rust but still appears to have good internal wax. I'm considering either adding a protective topcoat, or just letting it rust externally and seeing what happens.

Maybe something like acf50 or waxoyl as protection.
toontra
Posts: 1182
Joined: 21 Dec 2007, 11:01am
Location: London

Re: Chain Care

Post by toontra »

alexnharvey wrote:Maybe something like acf50 or waxoyl as protection.


I would have thought that Waxoyl would be a real dirt magnet :shock: Also not sure how it would react to the wax already on the chain - not well, probably.
alexnharvey
Posts: 1921
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:39am

Re: Chain Care

Post by alexnharvey »

Indeed. Any topcoat must not interfere with the internal wax. It would be preferable if it wasn't sticky, although because the internal wax hopefully prevents road dirt migrating into the chain it might not be a deal breaker. That's why I was thinking of an anti corrosion spray.

I am using non-derailleur setups, singlespeed or hub gear, which is why I am less worried about exterior chain rust. It does look a bit unsightly though and I feel judged by other cyclists, much as I have judged the creakers and squeakers with entirely unlubed rusty chains in the past!
Last edited by alexnharvey on 19 Oct 2018, 11:55am, edited 1 time in total.
althebike
Posts: 242
Joined: 10 May 2018, 12:58pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by althebike »

How times have changed, in my youth I would never degrease or change a chain, and use 3 in 1 oil. I wonder if bike trends will ever sway back to longevity of components, once they have been made as light and strong as they can be, a longer life would be the only way left to improve them.
reohn2
Posts: 45143
Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by reohn2 »

The most important thing with chains and their maintenance is longevity both of the chain,(including both elongation which accelerates cassette wear and to a lesser extent chainring wear,and side slop which causes slow gearchanging) and longevity of cassette and chainrings.
A couple of people on the forum(MickF and Meic IIRC)have proven in the past that Campag chains last longer than other chains,but it seems,again IIRC that,that's at the cost of the cassette and their cost compared other chains worked out about the same,ie;you pay twice as much for a Campag chain but don't get more than the price of two other lesser but good quality chains such as Sram 971 or 1071.

I'm not as anal as some about drivetrain cleanliness,though don't let my drivetrain get really mucky.These days I ride mostly in good weather if I can,mainly because I'm retired and can choose when and were I ride.
But when i did ride in all weathers I almost always got 4500miles+ out of a Sram 870/971 chain and wore out three chains before the cassette needed changing @ around 13 to 14,000miles,if I was feeling tight I would run the last chain for another 1,000miles or so if it wasn't affecting gearchanges due to side slop.Chainrings last 25,000miles+.

I've tried I a good few chain lubes,Finnishline wet(green) and dry(red),White Lightning(W/L),Purple Extreme(P/E),WD40,10/40engine oil,3in1,semi fluid areosol grease,and a few others I forget the names of.
I finally settled on TF2 aerosol because it was cheap,easy to use,stayed put in all but the wettest of all day rain,and learned PDQ that if the chain was lubed after a ride it dried and didn't attract road grit and muck like the wet lubes do.It didn't gum up the drivetrain and need a really strong degreaser either to clean it off like the wet lubes such as P/E or F/line green(which IMO are just chainsaw oil),nor wasn't utterly useless like the dry lubes such F/line red or W/L both of which became non existant after a short ride of say 50 to 80miles,in which time I could hear the drivetrain getting progressively noisier(I think in the past I've described them as someone running behind me shaking a bag of old spanners).

Anyway that's my personal experience which may differ from other people's,but I'm happy with TF2 aerosol and my drivetrain longevity :) .
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Sweep
Posts: 8441
Joined: 20 Oct 2011, 4:57pm
Location: London

Re: Chain Care

Post by Sweep »

althebike wrote:How times have changed, in my youth I would never degrease or change a chain, and use 3 in 1 oil. I wonder if bike trends will ever sway back to longevity of components, once they have been made as light and strong as they can be, a longer life would be the only way left to improve them.


I take it you won't be, er, "snapping" up one of these.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/kmc- ... -prod25420
Can understand why it's on clearance.

Most sensible folks wouldn't be remotely interested in the very concept.

Those who would be probably wouldn't be seen dead on 9 speed.

Am waiting for further deep discounts - might make a decent bit of jewellery or some sort of kink toy.
Sweep
althebike
Posts: 242
Joined: 10 May 2018, 12:58pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by althebike »

Sweep,
This is what I used , a regina golden oro 5 speed, it is worth a sight more on ebay now than it did when I brought mine for 2 and 6p whats that in todays money? 15 new pence?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-NIB-80-s ... Sw7bpbkYaQ
Scunnered
Posts: 224
Joined: 11 Apr 2014, 11:23am

Re: Chain Care

Post by Scunnered »

Tiberius wrote:ENTIRELY due to wanting to keep my bikes cleaner I have recently started to experiment with waxing my chains. I have four bikes, three using IGHs. The IGHs keep things clean to a point and I wanted to see if a waxed chain would also help.

I've read good things about this stuff..https://moltenspeedwax.com/ I think that it's mainly aimed at the racers (which I'm definitely not) but I've decided to give it a go anyway. If you read up on the waxing process it might all seem a bit of a faff, but I remove and rotate a number of chains anyway so it's neither here nor there to me.

I have only just started doing this, but so far on one bike used in all weathers (approx 250 miles) it's all good, running great and much cleaner than oiling.....the chain has been through the waxing process just once.

As I said, it's an experiment, I have no idea one way or the other if this is a good idea or not. Keeping the rear end clean is great but it's not that great if chain/sprocket wear is accelerated.

Time will tell eh ??


I am thinking of doing this myself, so what was the outcome of your experiment?
Tiberius
Posts: 798
Joined: 31 Dec 2014, 8:45am
Location: North East England

Re: Chain Care

Post by Tiberius »

Scunnered wrote:
Tiberius wrote:ENTIRELY due to wanting to keep my bikes cleaner I have recently started to experiment with waxing my chains. I have four bikes, three using IGHs. The IGHs keep things clean to a point and I wanted to see if a waxed chain would also help.

I've read good things about this stuff..https://moltenspeedwax.com/ I think that it's mainly aimed at the racers (which I'm definitely not) but I've decided to give it a go anyway. If you read up on the waxing process it might all seem a bit of a faff, but I remove and rotate a number of chains anyway so it's neither here nor there to me.

I have only just started doing this, but so far on one bike used in all weathers (approx 250 miles) it's all good, running great and much cleaner than oiling.....the chain has been through the waxing process just once.

As I said, it's an experiment, I have no idea one way or the other if this is a good idea or not. Keeping the rear end clean is great but it's not that great if chain/sprocket wear is accelerated.

Time will tell eh ??


I am thinking of doing this myself, so what was the outcome of your experiment?



I was going to write a complete review after winter. This is because I only use bikes with hub gears through winter and I have not used this wax with a derailleur yet.

However, for a quick here and now. I have used the wax exclusively since October on two bikes with IGHs (a Sturmey three speed and a Rohloff) I cover 350-400 miles/month in all weathers. To add, I live two hundred yards from the coast and the bikes regularly come into contact with salt water.

I had hoped to wax/rotate chains at around the 300 miles mark (on each bike) but I have found that I need to do it more often. The wax may well do a great job of lubricating the chain internally but the waxed chains rust in no time (cheap KMC B1 Silver) ‘Better’ chains MAY resist rust more effectively, but there was no rust on my KMC B1s chains when I used oil. I now disregard the mileage on the chains and wax/rotate chains every three weeks or so. Also, once a week I wipe the chains down with a rag with a whiff of GT85 on it….and I mean a ‘whiff’ just a tiny bit. This regime is keeping the chains rust free and not attracting dirt.

Re de-waxing the chains. I had read that you simply pop the chain into boiling water and that was that. Well it may be, but I got the feeling that it wasn’t really working (I can’t put my finger on it) so I decided to de-wax in a jar of white spirit before washing in hot water/washing up liquid and rinse. When dry I measure chain wear against a three foot steel ruler. So far the wear on the Rohloff bike chain is negligible, whereas the wear on the Sturmey bike chain is much worse at nearly .5%. These chains aren’t hard wearing (surprise surprise) and I’m happy to dump them after winter. Sprocket/chainring wear on both bikes is negligible…no issues.

If you remember that my No1 reason for getting involved with waxing my chains was to keep the bikes clean and free from oily gung then the experiment has been a great success. The bikes attract very little dirt and are a doddle to wash down every week or so with no need for any sort of de-greasing. I’m old school and tend to look after things, the bikes always look good and ride with a well maintained feel.

You soon get used to the waxing/de-waxing etc and personally I MUCH prefer it to having to keep on top of oiling chains and then having to deal with the mess that it creates. I won’t be going back to oiling chains on IGH equipped bikes only time will tell as to what I find with derailleurs.

Give it a go....See what you think..... :)
alexnharvey
Posts: 1921
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:39am

Re: Chain Care

Post by alexnharvey »

Did you find measuring wear difficult on a waxed chain? I have found this tricky, possibly because wax partially fills the worn interstices. Is that why you are stripping then before measuring?
Brucey
Posts: 44454
Joined: 4 Jan 2012, 6:25pm

Re: Chain Care

Post by Brucey »

that's very interesting. KMC B1 chains don't seem to last that well (outside of a chaincase) but they are cheap enough that this doesn't overly bother me.

I have seen results which suggest that the Molten speedwax can result in near-zero chain wear under some conditions, which would lead me to suppose that the surfaces in the bushings are kept separated. That you don't see that with a chain like the B1 (despite the large bushing area) suggests that

a) the bushings are not kept separated by a film of speedwax lubricant after all and/or

b) the wax never penetrated the bushings entirely when the chain was treated and/or

c) the wax became contaminated with dirt before the chain was retreated.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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