Hi. I'm Dave and welcome to the Canyonchasers garage. One of the more sensitive
components on your motorcycle, for maintenance, is your final drive chain. If
you neglect it, your chain and sprockets could wear out and become unserviceable
in as little as 3,000 miles. But with proper care and maintenance you can see
as much as 30,000 miles out of a quality set of steel sprockets, and a
high-quality chain. The key to getting the most out of your chain and sprockets
is to clean and lubricate it regularly. The schedule that we've adopted is that
we like to clean our chain every time we wash the motorcycle or at the very least
every time we change the oil. You should be lubing your chain every three to
five hundred miles, or every other tank of gas, depending on your riding
conditions. If you ride in dusty or wet conditions, you'll need to increase the
frequency of your maintenance accordingly. Water actually strips chain
lube away from the chain, so you should be lubing your chain after every time
you get caught out in the rain. What's more, a properly lubed chain will not
only be quieter, but it will slightly increase your fuel mileage as well.
In fact, a properly lubed chain reduces rolling resistance enough that it can
actually be seen as a slight increase in horsepower on dyno runs. And now for the
safety message. Do not, please, please, please, do not, under any circumstances,
start the engine, put it in first gear, and let the motor spin the rear wheel,
while you perform any kind of maintenance to the chain. I personally
know more than one person who has lost fingers to this practice, and if you need
any further convincing, and if you have a strong stomach, do a few internet
searches on the subject. Too many people have lost fingers and have mangled hands
from trying to save a few seconds. It only takes a fraction of an instant for
something to get snagged, and get drawn in between the chain and the sprockets.
So, please keep the engine off and the bike in neutral.
Now with that out of the way, for the sake of clarity, we're going to start by cleaning the chain first.
Despite all that you've heard, WD-40 is actually not a very good product for
cleaning or lubing a chain. It can actually displace the grease behind the
O-rings, or the X-rings, in an o-ring chain.
But more than that, it's actually probably the slowest and most
time-consuming method because there are other products available that do a much
better job of cleaning the chain. There are lots of products on the market that
are designed just for cleaning a chain, and they are, certainly more effective
than WD-40. Now, we've tried many of these chain cleaners and they do an okay job.
They certainly work better than WD-40, but they still can't hold a candle to
the product that we've been using for decades, which happens to be the product
that chain manufacturers have been recommending. And that's Kerosene. For
clarity, Kerosene is not the same as camp fuel. Camp fuel is what's known as white
gas and it's extremely volatile and a pretty harsh solvent. Kerosene is
entirely different. Typically, but not always, kerosene will come in a blue can
and camp fuel will come in a red can. Don't use camp fuel. It's so volatile
that it can be ignited by a hot fart, and as we mentioned it's so harsh that it
can actually do damage to your chain. Kerosene, on the other hand, is much more
gentle, and it'll actually clean your chain to looking brand new so quickly
that you won't believe your eyes. Something else to consider; chain
cleaners like this one cost around $10, and will clean about three to four chains.
While the kerosene does cost $20, a bottle like this one will last
us about three years. To get the most out of our kerosene we will employ a generic
spray bottle, available in most grocery stores, so we can spray the kerosene
directly onto the chain. But whatever cleaner you choose to use, we encourage
you to avoid any kind of degreaser. We've seen people use really harsh stuff like
parts cleaner, the aerosol parts cleaner, and carb cleaner and and things like
that. And yeah, they do a great job of getting the grease off the chain but
they're just far too brutal. They damage the o-rings and as soon as those o-rings
crack or fail, then any of the lube that's actually inside the chain from
the manufacturer just comes out. Even some of your real gentle degreasers, like
simple green and purple power; they're still just far too harsh for the o-rings.
So we encourage you to just stick with kerosene, and as soon as you use kerosene
and see how well it works you'll be sold. The final thing we recommend you obtain
before you start as a grunge brush. It's less than 15 bucks and you should be
able to find it at your local motorcycle dealer, and if not it's readily available
online. Another great little product that will make the job easier is this spiral
brush made by Tirox. Available for about the same
price. To best clean your chain you will need to get the rear wheel off the
ground so the rear tire spins freely. We suggest covering the work area with
towels and even a catch tray is a good idea. The point is you want to prevent
getting chemicals onto your rear tire. A little bit of cardboard can go a long
way. Use your chain cleaner of choice, and liberally spray down the chain, being
careful not to spray this stuff onto the tire, and let it soak for a moment before
taking your grunge brush and scrubbing down the chain. To check your progress
take a rag and wipe the chain down removing all the black gunk the chain
cleaner has released. Depending on how dirty your chain is you may need to
repeat these steps several times before your chain looks sparkly and brand new
again. We also advise that you occasionally remove your front sprocket
cover and clean out any build-up that may have collected in there. You can also
take this opportunity to clean any other chain lube buildup on the top of the
swing arm, near the rear sprocket, or anywhere else chain lube may have been
flung. Depending on how dirty your chain was, and how big of a mess you made, when
you cleaned everything off, you may want to take the bike outside and rinse it
off with a low pressure garden hose. Again, no high pressure, because high
pressure water can also do damage to the o-rings. Once the chain is clean and dry,
then we can move on to lubing the chain. We strongly encourage you to opt for a
motorcycle specific chain lube. Right now we're a big fan of Motul Factory Line
chain lube. For lubing the chain, we found this amazing product that needs to
be in every motorcyclist garage. It has a silly name, but we cannot speak highly
enough of the Grease Ninja. This awesome little product can be ordered at
GreaseNinja.com and cost a mere fifteen dollars, and it comes in three different
sizes to fit your specific chain. The Grease Ninja does a fantastic job of
placing lube directly over the pins and rollers of the chain without wasting any
lube, and preventing overspray. Plus, we can attest that our chains have lasted
longer and held up better since we started using the Grease Ninja several
years ago. We want to take our chain lube of choice and take the little hose and
put it into the top of the Grease Ninja block, and then the copper wire wraps
around the can so that we can hold it with one hand leaving the other hand
free to rotate the wheel. We want to lube the chain on the inside of the chain so
when the wheels spinning the lube actually gets drawn towards the outside.
It draws the lube in between the plates and the rollers.
If we were to Lube the chain on the outside, as soon as we started riding, the lube
would just fling off the chain and go everywhere and make a mess..
The ideal time to lube your chain is after a ride when the chain is warm, but in this
situation, where we've cleaned the chain and there's no lube on at all, we want to
lube it right now. Slowly rotate the wheel, allowing the Grease Ninja to slide
across the top of the chain until you have a nice light coating all around.
Be careful not to over lube the chain. Too much lube will attract dirt and grit and
actually cause the chain to wear faster. When you are finished, you should see two
little beads of lube directly over the chain o rings, between each of the plates.
Well, there you have it; a perfectly cleaned and lubricated chain. Thanks so
much for watching we hope you've enjoyed this and learned something from it.
Be sure to check out Canyonchasers dot net for more travel-logs, how-to videos, product
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