FBinNY 

I get mixed reports on Chain-L and since the product is very consistent, I have to figure there are variables, either in the application process, or possibly the condition of the chain beforehand.

Two things,

First and foremost, The chain must be dry and free form solvents or cleaners. Chain-L (like all lubes) depends on capillary action to draw it into the chain. If the chain still has solvent, cleaning solution or old lube filling the internal spaces it cannot wick in. Moreover any remaining solvent or cleaner will thin or otherwise compromise any lubricant.

Second, Yes, Chain-L is sticky and will adhere anything. The key is to manage this by wiping the surface from time to time as needed. Usually this is neded more early on, and less later once all the surface oil is gone. But Chain-L isn't magic, and depends on the human element to help keep the chain clean.

djb

this makes complete sense, especially with a thick, sticky long lasting lube like yours. I have read your applying suggestions and again, it makes complete sense (akin to super sticky motorcycle chain lubes I've used in the past)

I personally have been using Triflow for the last few years as I like how it is inbetween thicker lubes I have used before like Phils Tenacious (hence Triflow is easier to keep drivetrain cleaner because it is thinner) and the real thin ones like Prolink (not much "lasting" power in rain, very quickly gets surface rust)

As you have said numerous times before about choosing a lube that works best for the conditions you ride in etc, I can see how a lube like yours works best with wet conditions and less regular applying, simply because of the lasting power of it. As you say though, the human element is going to be a factor, and leaving too much exterior lube on is always going to collect gunk, so keeping an eye on the excess surface stuff is always going to be the factor of "accumulation" of gunk, but nothing a rag cant take care of and a minute or two.

wilfried

How many miles does Chain-L last for you before you have to reapply? It seems to last me about 600 miles +-25 miles or so, at which point I'm getting just a slight squeak and chain rattle. I ride mostly on city streets, occasionally in some rain, but not a whole lot, so not particularly harsh conditions. I'm just wondering what others' experiences are?

jyl

In the Portland winter I usually relube with Chain-L every 400 miles while riding daily in rain. However, I do not do a proper clean-dry-relube of the chain. I merely clean the chain on the bike, with solvent then pressure washer then fan-drying overnight before applying Chain-L. So my chain is not really clean and probably not fully dry when the lube goes in. Considering that, I'm very pleased with the longevity of the lube.

Reason for my lazy ways - a generic KMC 8 speed chain is so cheap, I don't care too much how long its service life is, my main goal for lube is to keep the chain quiet and smooth during whatever that life is.

wilfried

The only chain cleaning I do is an occasional wipe down with paper towels. I apply the lube on bike, a drop at a time. I've got a bit under 3000 miles on this chain, and I think it's just about at 1/16" stretch. This is only the second chain on this bike, so I have can't tell if Chain L made any difference to chain wear.

Rokh Hard

hello all. returning to biking after replacing it for many years with other activities....after many years i realized that i missed how dynamic and fun it is. never was a big maintenance guy, just ride and put away, well now i have an expensive bike and im actually afraid to ride it, im stuck on the fear of breaking it or getting hit, go figure.

i like sheldons site, the "Car Guys" (PBS) of the online bike community. been reading about chain maintenance -

1) pre ride wipe and light relube as needed

2) deeper cleaning: glass jar with mineral spirits

3) deeper lube: glass jar and ATF


does that sound like a good plan? straight forward and should work well? hows the ATF approach? what "general" lube would i use to match with the ATF, more ATF?


thanks a hunchback -

terry with a Hard Rokh

Bandrada

Nothing like a good lube thread.

I steer clear of using any type of degreaser on any of my moving parts. With chains I simply wipe them down and/or shoot out excess debris with compressed air and then reapply a liberal amount of lube. I like DeMonde Tech. I pre-mix the yellow (lite) and blue (original) until I get green for our conditions here in New Mexico.

FTR - I have zero experience with either of lubes in question and I ride mostly dirt.

FBinNY 

Yeah. We don't have nearly enough discussion of this controversial topic.

ThermionicScott 

Welcome to BF! If your plan is to do all three, then you're signing yourself up for a lot of labor. Some of us do the mineral-spirits deep-clean, and relube with Chain-L (or ATF or chainsaw oil) specifically so that we don't have to touch our chains very often.

davidad

There's no flesh left on the dead horse!

Rokh Hard

thanks for the reply ThermionicScott. there is a less labor intensive way to maintain the chain? im less concerned about the chain than what an under serviced chain will do to my BAH-zillion dollar gear set (bahzillion is relative).....new bike, only a few miles and its loaded with grit already! road bike - 2014 Pinarello Rokh

phoebeisis

My stainless steel chains-wipperman- I use "last forever"- several years so far at 2500 miles per year.
I rarely lube them-occasionally I simple simple greem them-and the bike and derailleurs- then hose them vigorously
then spray them a bit with whatever magic oil I have at hand
If they get noisy squeaky-I spray them-pretty rare-

I don't like filthy gritty chains-if you lube them-they get filthy gritty-stain anything everything they touch with black crap.
Someday I'll spring for a teflon coated Wipperman(sic) chain\
I suspect the lubes you folks use-attract grit which grinds away cogs chainrings-
I don't see the point in using lubes which ALWAYS attract abrasive grit???

Someday -when these two wear out-I'll try a teflon coated chain
Chains are so cheap-why waste time money lubing them-and making your pants curtains(store mine near window) filthy?? 3000 cents 6000 miles?

FBinNY 

Rule no. 1 don't oil a dirty chain because it carries dirt deeper into the chain. If the lube is still working, dry wiping as needed keeps them clean with little effort so that's a logical approach.

Deep cleaning off the bike with solvent, using multiple rinses to do a thorough job is effective. Save the solvent for future use (dirt settles by gravity, and you can pour off clean solvent). Be sure chain is completely dry (inside and out) before oiling.

So far so good.

Dip oiling doesn't do a better or more complete job than applying oil at the rollers. Either way oil will wick in by capillary action. The drawback of dip oiling is that it makes it difficult to wipe off excess, especially between the plates. Also the chain will take up more oil than it can sustain, and will get messier faster. Save time and oil by applying to the rollers rather than dipping.

I won't get into specifics of which oil to use, except to say use one that works for you. If not satisfied, switch until you find what you think is best.

Rokh Hard

right on FBinNY. got it. like it. time to ride.

Bandrada

Again, I steer clear of degreasers.

https://velonews.competitor.com/2005/...e-green-2_9216

I used to be methodical about having a pretty, shiny chain, but I was replacing them often. I decided to experiment after someone gave me some advice. Now, I do not deep clean anything. I just remove excess debris as best I can, either with a nylon brush or compressed air or both, and add lube. I have not replaced a chain or a drivetrain part due to wear in almost 5 years, although my 32t chainring is showing a fair amount of wear. I have also been able to mix and match parts without skipping. I might just be lucky, though. I don't measure chain stretch either.

ThermionicScott 

Degreasers aren't an evil thing if you know what you're doing. Mineral spirits let you remove nearly all the old lube and grit from the interior of a chain and will dry completely, allowing fresh oil to wick everywhere it needs to go. Water-based degreasers can work as well, but you need to rinse them out completely with fresh water, and then get all of that water to evaporate (oven or hot plate) before you can relube the chain. (Any chain damage caused by soaking a chain in Simple Green is completely avoidable, since there's no need to soak the chain for longer than it takes to clean it.)

The fact that we can keep having debates over which method works best just drives home that it's possible to have "good enough" chain life with many different methods. Just pick whatever works best for you.

Rokh Hard

yeah. i was thinking the same thing. the chain flotsam annoys me, but just something we tolerate? ill look into the teflon coated ss chain thingy. im open to most anything as its all pretty new to me.....like a mentioned earlier i rode my old bike daily and didnt do anything to it, just ride that 1986 Raleigh Technium into the ground....well....its still in fine shape, runs great and i dont baby it like the Rokh.....im really "scared" to ride that bike, so.....PRECIOUS.

FBinNY 

We need to be clear about definitions. The referenced article was about Simple Green which is (I believe) a water/detergent type degreaser. This is very different from petroleum solvents such as mineral spirits, naphtha, kerosene, etc. The chemistry is completely different, and petroleum solvents will not attack steel in any way.

BTW- neither will water based cleaners if you don't forget the chain and soak it for days or weeks. A normal wash/rinse/dry cycle in Simple Green or any water/detergent cleaning solution is OK, though I prefer petroleum solvents because they do a better.faster job breaking down petroleum based oils and greases.

Bandrada

Very true. I've just seen a few references to SG and thought more information might be helpful. I don't like keeping having dirty, messy containers of used solvents laying around, either. Then, there is the whole hassle of getting rid of them.

I like what Scott said. There are many methodologies and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. Just trying to add some of my own experiences.

FBinNY 

I've long since given up on changing anybody's mind about chain lube, and like you don't have the patience for cleaning. Unless I have no choice, I simply dry wipe to remove loose dirt and oil on the bike. Of course, I use a product that lends itself to that method.

rootboy 

On a related but different tack, the subject of what works best for you...and for the conditions, has come up several times in this thread.
What would you use in a place with sand on the road? One of the hazards of living on a peninsula made primarily of sand. The stuff is death on drive trains.

djb

I have tried numerous chain oils with diff thicknesses etc , and to my mind, for sandy areas, I would go with the thinner lubes. Why, because they are so easy and fast to put on, they leave so little exterior stuff, and after wiping a chain down with a rag, the thin stuff will "wash" small particles downwards and out onto a rag. Again, this has been my experience using stuff like one of the Prolinks that I used for a while (its thin like water). I always wipe a chain "clean" before relubing, and with the thin stuff, you can see it carry particulates down onto the rag I wipe the bottom of the chain with (I always lube the inside of the chain, no use running particles downwards into the rollers from the outside of the chain is it?)

As mentioned by FB, Im too patient to take a chain off and do all the other stuff, but using a rag is surprising effective, especially if you get rid of the excess after rides. All the exterior stuff is just going to have sand stick to it.
It is also suprisingly quick to "floss" a cassette with a rag with the wheel on the bike, you just put the chain onto the smallest cog, and you can floss the entire cassette in just a min or so.
In a sandy area, to me the most important thing is to regularly wipe stuff down, as well of course of only lubing the roller areas to have less stuff everywhere, and I think the thinner lubes would be better--you just have to put them on more often, but they are so clean and fast to do it helps a lot to get you to do it more often because its fast and less messy.

If you are dealing with salt spray and such, this might be a neg factor that a thicker more "coating" lube would be better at, but I dunno, sand is so persnickity in getting everywhere, Im still inclined to try the really thin ones.
Heck, a bottle of lube is 5-10 bucks, try some diff ones and see what works best for you and how much you like spending time , however small, on drivetrain cleaning. I still say all one needs is a few old tshirts, its fast and does the trick.

fronesis

Just a guess, but given what you say about "wearing off quickly with the first application" and "pulley butter," I wonder if you wiped enough of the excess off on your initial application. I followed the website instructions closely, and it says to "look carefully for fans of excess oil spinning off the pulleys" and to continue wiping down the chain until those go away. Compared to the prolink I was using before, I found I had wipe the chain down repeatedly to get rid of those fans of oil. Once I did so, my experience was very different from yours: NO wearing off after the first few rides, and now, after about 250 miles, I see no "pulley butter" whatsoever.

I have never used t-9, but so far the chain-l is VERY impressive: my drivetrain is SO much quieter, and I've already gone further on this application of chain-l than I was ever able to go on prolink. Also, while the chain did seem a bit dirty to me after the first two rides, I just wiped off the outside of the chain, and now, many miles in, my chain is, if anything, cleaner than it was after the first ride.

nhluhr

I guess this is turning into a ChainL love-in, which I think is cool. I just happened to have started using some T9 lately since I bought a can of it to spray inside my travel frame. I like how T9 sets up as a wet waxy film and using it on the chain seems to be pretty typical of any semi-clean lube I've used in the past. I will say though that using Chain-L for the majority of 2012 and 2013, I am noticing startlingly low chain wear. I keep measuring the chain with my digital calipers and it keeps coming out showing approximately 0 wear, after many thousands of miles. I'm frankly baffled as to how this is working so well.

No, Chain-L is not the cleanest (and no, I don't really bother to try to keep it clean by wiping frequently). I do clean the chain with a Park chain cleaner machine and odorless mineral spirits maybe bi-monthly or whenever the build-up around the pulleys starts to tickly my OCD too much. After rinsing with water, I use my wife's portable blow-dryer to dry and warm the chain before applying a quick bead of Chain-L and letting it sit for a few hours. A very quick wipe when I'm done and I ride it like that for several hundred miles.

FBinNY 

Voodoo. Chain-L was developed in the Louisiana Bayou.