seized chain

[skymoose]

Hi

I have a roadbike with a SRAM 1071 chain on it which after taking advice use mucoff dry-lube on. The chain has less than 1000 miles of use on it. Now last year I had to stop cycling in June owing to a health issue which unfortunately meant I just left my bike hanging in the garage until now (so nine months with no use).

I have come to ready the bike for use today and find that the chain is seized almost solid. It is not rusted at all in fact it is still shiny. But about two thirds of the links are all seized either solid or almost solid.

I've taken the chain off now and am trying to rescue it. I also have a cheap mountain bike which I havent used for about 10 years but has been to the moon and back previously. I havent touched the chain on that in a decade - its just got probably some light engine oil on it - and its not seized at all.

Can anyone help advising me on the proper use of dry lube please? Is it appropriate? Am I using a decent one? Do I have to clean all the dry-lube off the chain before an out-of-use period? Am I better just using light oil instead which seemed to work ok for the last 30 years?

Is my chain scrap? Am I better buying a new one rather than trying to rescue this one?

Would really appreciate a bit of common-sense advise on this.
Thanks in advance

c

[mercalia]

sounds like u need to soak it in some thing. may be try wd40? or in citrus degreaser or paraffin? then re lube. u just made a good argument against wax lubes?

[willcee]

General consensus in the trade & coming from Shimano.. is that their modern chains are well past their usefulness at that mileage.. in fact many would have stretched beyond 1% by that mileage ime.. i personally have little time for Shimano branded chain but who's to know who actually makes them for the far eastern conglomerate..
A couple of customers who would not be hard riders, although may have issues with cleanliness esp after wet rides... have had their 9 and 10 sp chains [on 2 year old machines with full shimano groups]replaced in the past 10 days by myself, i used sram.. both had suffered broken chains inside 1000miles!! .. my 2d's worth .. will

[Kenn]

I tried mucoff dry lube on my chain last year. Not a good decision! It seized up just like yours. I lubed it well with WD40 and worked the chain around until it loosened. Then I continued using WD40 before every ride for a while. Then went back to the light machine oil I used before. Chain is fine. Binned the mucoff.

I do plan to try White Lightning Clean Ride at some point. One of my friends uses it and his chain stays immaculate. Not sure how good it is in the wet (he's a fair weather rider).

Cheers, Ken

[Brucey]

General consensus in the trade & coming from Shimano.. is that their modern chains are well past their usefulness at that mileage...... i personally have little time for Shimano branded chain
... have had their 9 and 10 sp chains [on 2 year old machines with full shimano groups]replaced in the past 10 days by myself, i used sram.. both had suffered broken chains inside 1000miles!! .. my 2d's worth .. will

er, the OP is talking about SRAM chain...?

If you get 1000 miles out of some chains before they go to >0.5% then you are doing well these days...

[BTW dry lubes and WL are OK in dry weather. Even the condensation you can get in winter storage is enough to overwhelm them.....]

cheers

[cycleruk]

General consensus in the trade & coming from Shimano.. is that their modern chains are well past their usefulness at that mileage.. in fact many would have stretched beyond 1% by that mileage ime.. i personally have little time for Shimano branded chain but who's to know who actually makes them for the far eastern conglomerate..

O.P. says it is a SRAM chain, not Shimano, and says less than a 1000 miles..

I have also recently used Mucoff chain lube and it sets like tar and takes a lot of cleaning off. Even makes the KMC quick link difficult to remove.
You could buy a new chain while trying to rescue the seized one.

[willcee]

Sram..Yes..Brucey, Trade chat says that sram make shimano chain i cannot confirm this but just what i hear.. ime there is little betwixt any of them except wipperman ..perhaps.. will

[Brucey]

KMC have themselves confirmed that they make Shimano chain. I dunno about all shimano chain....

cheers

[mig]

whilst i understand the theories of what 'stretches' a chain the practice baffles me. for winter 2012-13 i fitted a wipperman white star chain to my fixed bike and subjected it to the rigours of commuting from october onwards. gave it a regular clean and lube and measured it after a month - hugely elongated after maybe 600 miles so off to the recycling unit. i today measured a sram pc1 that went on the same bike last october and has had this winter's weather thrown at it to find a barely noticeable margin of elongation over maybe 3000 miles. so either the wippermann was made of cheese or was already stretched when first used - i admit that i didn't check it out of the box..!!

[andrew_s]

either the wippermann was made of cheese or was already stretched when first used

If you use a chain wear gauge that puts 2 prongs in the links (i.e. any gauge other than the expensive Shimano gauge), you ought to check what the gauge says against what a simple ruler says. 2 prong gauges push two rollers in opposite directions, and rollers are a loose-ish fit, so it the amount of roller slop on your chain doesn't match what the maker of the gauge guessed, you will get the wrong answer. Gauge makers generally err on the side of pessimism, since scrapping a chain still with life in it will not be noticed, but chain slip when you replaced within limits will be. It's not unknown for the gauges to show un-used chains as being worn out.

Measure between pin centres (or any other matching pair of points) 12 pairs of links apart. 12" is un-worn, 12 1/8" is 1% worn.

[Brucey]

past experiences of fully-bushed wipperman chains have been similarly poor. So much so that I have not tried many of their bushless chains.

cheers

[JohnW]

sounds like u need to soak it in some thing. may be try wd40? or in citrus degreaser or paraffin? then re lube. u just made a good argument against wax lubes?

Yes - I'd try WD40 initially - I've never had a similar problem with a chain which WD40 hasn't solved.

For dry lube, I have had complete success with TF2+plus. I use it as directed. The thing about dry lubes is that you have to keep loading the chain up frequently for the first few hundred miles - I didn't know this and didn't do it the first time I used TF2+, and the chain dried out and squeaked like a bush full of sparrows. If I knew I was going to let a bike rest for several months, I think I'd wet lube the chain before I hung it up - or go back to it from time to time.

You may also find the KMC chains are a better product.

[mig]

either the wippermann was made of cheese or was already stretched when first used

If you use a chain wear gauge that puts 2 prongs in the links (i.e. any gauge other than the expensive Shimano gauge), you ought to check what the gauge says against what a simple ruler says. 2 prong gauges push two rollers in opposite directions, and rollers are a loose-ish fit, so it the amount of roller slop on your chain doesn't match what the maker of the gauge guessed, you will get the wrong answer. Gauge makers generally err on the side of pessimism, since scrapping a chain still with life in it will not be noticed, but chain slip when you replaced within limits will be. It's not unknown for the gauges to show un-used chains as being worn out.

Measure between pin centres (or any other matching pair of points) 12 pairs of links apart. 12" is un-worn, 12 1/8" is 1% worn.

i use the ruler method.

[willcee]

while i agree with previous comments, what concerns many of the guys i do maintenance for is the regularity of chain breakage,at less than expected mileage on newish chain.. wear is inevitable and many of my guys don't have the nouse ,tool ability or time to cosset their drivetrain.. yes chain checkers are quick and can justify to an owner that things are wearing, personally i've never had a chain break on the road, and have used several which were way beyond wear limits and were still changing well, my experience with wipperman has always been good, campagnolo also, perhaps i could understand breakage if the users were messing with chain tools joining chains etc but this wasn't the case..my experience of wax on chains isn't good.. i prefer regular on the bike cleaning with white spirit and any sort of heavy oil, plenty on and then remove the excess, drip on cardboard and another wipe or two with a nice lint free cloth.. never lets me down.. will

[pliptrot]

First off, I find it highly unlikely that SRAM would make for Shimano. This is the former Sedis company we are talking about, after all. As to mileage - 1,000 miles is 1 month of commuting for me, so if I use that bike for anything in addition, less than 1 month per chain. The idea of taking a fixed sum from every paycheck for chain replacement is not pleasing.