Cleaning and Lubing the drive chain.

[Water Warrior 2]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

Why you guys fuss so with all the mess of oil, grease, toothbrushes, rags, slinging stuff off as you ride, having to clean up, is beyond me. Get a can of Dupont Teflon spray, as I said before. It's easy, quick, cheap, lasts, no dirt, no muss, no fuss, no cleanup. Try it, you'll like it, and you'll never go back to that other dirty stuff.

Now tell us how you really feel. LOL. ................. But I gotta agree, it takes me longer to get the can out than lube the chain.

[cspan37421]

Just tightened my chain for the first time and wanted to share a couple tips and ask a question.

First, spend more than a cursory amount of time straightening out the cotter pin. When you grab it with pliers (after doing some straightening of course) and it doesn't want to come out, you may find the pliers lose their grip and your hand and pliers go suddenly upward toward the rear fender - ouchy. Even though the pin looked straight, it apparently wasn't - where I couldn't see. I ended up working it out by alternating between tapping it from underneath with a nail setter and straightening it with the pliers (again, from underneath). In the end you hardly have to pull from on top.

+1 on the measuring forward to back, not left-right.

I had a lot of slack in my chain - almost 1.5", so about 3/4ths of an inch each way pushing up and down. Tightening the adj. nuts, a little goes a long way. I'm clearly at the tight end of the adj range - probably 0.25" - so I'm going to carefully watch it in the short run that it doesn't tighten any further.

One thing that puzzled me about loosening the axle nuts - I loosened the chain side some, then went over to the exhaust side, and found the nut already loose! (I had already taken out the cotter pin, and it wasn't loose prior to that). I'm guessing loosening the chain side simultaneously loosened the other side? That led me to wonder - since I can't fit my torque (socket) wrench between the exhaust and the axle nut with the cotter pin, do you really need to loosen the cotter pin side, if it can be accomplished from the other? Probably you do - or the alignment would be off. But it did make me wonder if that cotter pin wrestling match was even necessary.

Next step for me - valve clearance inspection - and maybe adjustment! O_o

[music man]

The back wheel is held on by basically a bolt with a nut one the end of it, so yes if you loosen the nut on one side (or the bolt head on the other) the result will be the same, the wheel will get loosened.

As for the cotter pin, if you didn't take it out, you could not have turned the other side, without spinning the axle nut and cotter pin around and around, which would mean that you were not loosening anything.

Sorry if that didn't come out clearly, sometimes i don't explain things real well.

[JWR]

Back to the BelRay chain lube.

On the 1400 mile trip, we had over 400 miles of rain.

The chain lube did a real good job of repelling the water.
After the trip I used mineral spirits(thanks to EasyRider) and cleaned the chain, then reapplied the BelRay.
http://www.bel-ray.com/consumer/product.fsp?pid=1296

Jerry

[New GZ250]

Originally Posted by mrlmd1

Dupont Teflon Spray Lube in an aerosol can - many on here like it and use it. No mess, no fuss, no sticky dirt on the chain. Easy, clean, works great.

Great stuff! I was using PJ dry wax lube absolutely no comparison! I bought the Dupont Teflon Wax Lube from BikeBandit! Bare minimum throw off on rear rim and I mean bear minimum. Thanks for the recommendation. Oh yea, I'm using the liquid non spray Dupont Wax Lubricant!
:2tup:

Here's the link: http://www.bikebandit.com/dupont-multi- ... er?b=59463

[mrlmd1]

That's probably the same stuff as in the spray can I and others use, just is only the liquid. Should be just as easy to use, just drip it onto the chain as you rotate the rear wheel. You'll like how the chain stays clean with no dirt or mud or anything sticking to it and how easy it is to reapply anytime you feel like it.