Chain lubrication, the balance of pros versus cons
- Thread starter silva
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An advantage of a chain like that is that your friend will not need a bell, pedestrians will hear the bike coming a mile off.
Fastpedaller
Über Member
Hmm..... I just read the complete thread. I realise the previous errors I made. I had some cheap Shimano Chains, and they would only last a few thousand miles. I rode the bike along a beach and that (same as all the others) chain only lasted 300 miles. I tried using one of those 'whirling brush' gadgets with a solvent bath that clips on the chainstay and the drivetrain is rotated to clean it - worst decision ever! I suspect it was almost impossible to get all the solvent out from the inside of the chain- even drying 24 hours and then lubing gave the chain about 1000 miles life. My recollection from earlier years (20 years earlier) was that drivetrains and chains in particular lasted a long while, and indeed I was probably doing 12k miles a year commuting etc. This made me think that the chains I was using now were inferior. I changed to a more expensive chain KMC X8.93 and the chains last a lot longer. My regime (as always) is to keep a regular check on the chain cleanliness and measure the length with a steel rule and discard the chain before 0.75% wear. Cleaning....... remove chain, put into jar containing paraffin, and aggitate a few times over the next couple of hours. hang chain to dry for a couple of hours and squirt it liberally with TF2 spray - remove excess with a clean cloth and refit to bike. Seems to work. My belief (and it is only that) is the hardening of the chain parts is the most critical thing (all other care being done). I wonder if e-bike chain (which by definition is more durable?) is the thing to use. I've just lookes at KMC and it seem s ebike chains are for 10 speed or more. I shall investigate further o see if I can find 7/8 speed ones.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Jameshow
Veteran
Lack of lubrication!
Ehm no... just lack of news...
Have replaced bikes broken frame with a new - bike shop replaced crank set (wanted to get rid of that crap octalink crankset whose left crank when water gets in starts a weeks lasting loosening > retensioning period, until it doesn't loose anymore... until a next downpour.
Had it solved by a cut out rain protecting cover but since had to be dismounted anyway, decided to dump it altogether - back to square taper.
In the process, turnt out that the axle of the bike delivered as new in 2017 had been 5 mm too long, bad dealer choice, for no reason, and if I didn't have had intervened with this frame replacement, it would have been again that way.
The replacement axle is 5 mm shorter, and the chainring doesn't void the frame tube, proving it was possible. Bonus: I don't suffer pedal strikes anymore, proving the longer axle had been their primary cause (since same crank length as previously).
Bike reassembled at home, rode back to dealer with it to refill the hydraulic and finito.
About lubrication (yay!) - when rain is foreseen and the chain is dry, I brush off the dirt (dry=not sticking), and a drip oil on every roller.
Then I ride on further, until the beginning conditions reappear.
Due to the broken frames movement, one of the teeth of my skeleton-worn Velosolo chainring broke off.
I decided to put it back on. That's 4 months ago now. I don't notice the missing tooth.
This chainring was mounted start 2019, so it's now 6 years in service.
I replaced chains everytime bottom bracket based eccenter at its end position - no choice.
Everytime I started to hear chainring making noise, I checked the teeth, when seeing sharkfin shape, I flipped it.
Also, when seeing a quarter of the teeth clearly more worn than the following quarter, I rotated it 360/5 degrees on its mount. 3 years ago I ceased doing that because of differences nearly gone.
It's like it didn't wear further anymore.
What does this prove: that Velosolo could cnc machine the chainring in a worn fashion, that is, purposely make the teeth so short that even the most worn chain = max length under tension, its rollers still fit inside the valleys so don't rub of further alu from the teeths edges, and the chainring lasts forever.
The rear cog (Velosolo chromoly 16T) I kept replacing, because I had to, teeth broke off.
But last month, when deciding to flip or not the cog, I started to ponder about the sharkfin shape.
Rollers hollow out the middle of the height of the teeth, causing the sharkfin shape, which then act like hooks that prevent the rollers from disengaging easily.
This seriously aggravates the problem, because the disengaging resistence and the longer trajectory hollows them even faster out.
So, as Velosolo recommends, it's a matter of flipping "in time". But what is "in time"? Every beginning of a hollowing out = aggravated wear.
Now, I had an idea.
I took the new chainring (my now seemingly rendered stock for no need) and laid this 2019 worn chainring over it. It's not only the valleys between the teeth that got wider, and the valleys deeper, but ALSO the top of the teeth gone. So, the height, from bottom valley to tip of teeth, didn't change, material on both places lost.
And then I realized why rear cog teeth break off and chainring teeth not (with that single exception due to the broken frame): apparently, the tops wear off less faster than the edges, resulting in much more pronounced hooks / sharkfin shapes than the alu chainrings case.
So last month, when feeling again vibration at the rear cog, flipping useless since both edge sides equally worn, I took off the cog, went to my grinding machine, and grinded off all 16 teeths tops to sharp pointed and symmetrical of course, both leading and trailing, and also a couple mm of the tops.
Well bingo, the vibration all of sudden totally gone, in both force directions (it's a fixed gear) pushing / resisting pedals)
So I hope this rear cog now lasts alike the chainring lasted.
And in the future only have to replace the chains when the tensioner sits at its end.
I lose some chain life that way, due to the deeper valley's between the sprockets teeth = shorter distance the chain has to travel over, but ohwell, chain is cheapest of the 3.
A big plus is that this way I don't need to regulary flip sprockets anymore.
So I'd say Velosolo should redesign their rings and cogs with wider valleys between the teeth tips to fit chains new to 100% worn, but that's bad for sales so I guess a no.
>>> This ofcourse applies just for my specific fixed gear case.
It's only possible because Velosolo rings and cogs start with 4 mm alu and 3 mm chromoly plates, causing the due to a max worn chain to skeleton worn teeth to be still strong enough to not break.
Also specific in the sense that I run a 1/4" wide motorcycle chain, Regina 420 Urban.
I was lucky, I hampstered a life stock BEFORE the 2020 lockdown havoc & 2022 boycot havoc and resulting price hikes.
So, something to read.
Have replaced bikes broken frame with a new - bike shop replaced crank set (wanted to get rid of that crap octalink crankset whose left crank when water gets in starts a weeks lasting loosening > retensioning period, until it doesn't loose anymore... until a next downpour.
Had it solved by a cut out rain protecting cover but since had to be dismounted anyway, decided to dump it altogether - back to square taper.
In the process, turnt out that the axle of the bike delivered as new in 2017 had been 5 mm too long, bad dealer choice, for no reason, and if I didn't have had intervened with this frame replacement, it would have been again that way.
The replacement axle is 5 mm shorter, and the chainring doesn't void the frame tube, proving it was possible. Bonus: I don't suffer pedal strikes anymore, proving the longer axle had been their primary cause (since same crank length as previously).
Bike reassembled at home, rode back to dealer with it to refill the hydraulic and finito.
About lubrication (yay!) - when rain is foreseen and the chain is dry, I brush off the dirt (dry=not sticking), and a drip oil on every roller.
Then I ride on further, until the beginning conditions reappear.
Due to the broken frames movement, one of the teeth of my skeleton-worn Velosolo chainring broke off.
I decided to put it back on. That's 4 months ago now. I don't notice the missing tooth.
This chainring was mounted start 2019, so it's now 6 years in service.
I replaced chains everytime bottom bracket based eccenter at its end position - no choice.
Everytime I started to hear chainring making noise, I checked the teeth, when seeing sharkfin shape, I flipped it.
Also, when seeing a quarter of the teeth clearly more worn than the following quarter, I rotated it 360/5 degrees on its mount. 3 years ago I ceased doing that because of differences nearly gone.
It's like it didn't wear further anymore.
What does this prove: that Velosolo could cnc machine the chainring in a worn fashion, that is, purposely make the teeth so short that even the most worn chain = max length under tension, its rollers still fit inside the valleys so don't rub of further alu from the teeths edges, and the chainring lasts forever.
The rear cog (Velosolo chromoly 16T) I kept replacing, because I had to, teeth broke off.
But last month, when deciding to flip or not the cog, I started to ponder about the sharkfin shape.
Rollers hollow out the middle of the height of the teeth, causing the sharkfin shape, which then act like hooks that prevent the rollers from disengaging easily.
This seriously aggravates the problem, because the disengaging resistence and the longer trajectory hollows them even faster out.
So, as Velosolo recommends, it's a matter of flipping "in time". But what is "in time"? Every beginning of a hollowing out = aggravated wear.
Now, I had an idea.
I took the new chainring (my now seemingly rendered stock for no need) and laid this 2019 worn chainring over it. It's not only the valleys between the teeth that got wider, and the valleys deeper, but ALSO the top of the teeth gone. So, the height, from bottom valley to tip of teeth, didn't change, material on both places lost.
And then I realized why rear cog teeth break off and chainring teeth not (with that single exception due to the broken frame): apparently, the tops wear off less faster than the edges, resulting in much more pronounced hooks / sharkfin shapes than the alu chainrings case.
So last month, when feeling again vibration at the rear cog, flipping useless since both edge sides equally worn, I took off the cog, went to my grinding machine, and grinded off all 16 teeths tops to sharp pointed and symmetrical of course, both leading and trailing, and also a couple mm of the tops.
Well bingo, the vibration all of sudden totally gone, in both force directions (it's a fixed gear) pushing / resisting pedals)
So I hope this rear cog now lasts alike the chainring lasted.
And in the future only have to replace the chains when the tensioner sits at its end.
I lose some chain life that way, due to the deeper valley's between the sprockets teeth = shorter distance the chain has to travel over, but ohwell, chain is cheapest of the 3.
A big plus is that this way I don't need to regulary flip sprockets anymore.
So I'd say Velosolo should redesign their rings and cogs with wider valleys between the teeth tips to fit chains new to 100% worn, but that's bad for sales so I guess a no.
>>> This ofcourse applies just for my specific fixed gear case.
It's only possible because Velosolo rings and cogs start with 4 mm alu and 3 mm chromoly plates, causing the due to a max worn chain to skeleton worn teeth to be still strong enough to not break.
Also specific in the sense that I run a 1/4" wide motorcycle chain, Regina 420 Urban.
I was lucky, I hampstered a life stock BEFORE the 2020 lockdown havoc & 2022 boycot havoc and resulting price hikes.
So, something to read.
That's an interesting point that I'd never considered - presumably the chainring is likely to wear in two opposite quadrants that correspond to the areas of highest load resulting from the two pedal strokes per revolution.
A great idea to rotate it by an uneven amount; although of course this is only possible on cranksets with more than four evenly-spaced mounting points, and then only on single chainrings since it would put the shift ramps in the wrong places relative to the pedal strokes...
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
You’ll have to explain what you mean by this.
Chainrings for doubles / triples have marks to angularly align them correctly relative to the crank arms. Presumably this is so that the shift ramps on the teeth and steel pegs in the rings are in the correct place to promote shifting at the optimal time relative to the pedal stroke - presumably when the chain is under least load..
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
The ramps are spread 360 round the chain ring. Anything else means a hesitation in shifting. The only difference is that the hole to screw the pin in, won’t be in right place and chain can drop between crank and chain ring.
The 48T Deore outer ring I'm looking at has two sets of pins / corresponding chamfers on the inside leading edges / outside trailing edges of the teeth. The first set is between 45 and 90 degrees behind the crank arm, the second 180 degrees behind those.
It makes sense for the chain to disengage from the ring after the peak torque input of the pedal stroke when load on the chain is least, and it appears that the facets that control where the chain disengages from the ring reflect this.
Looking at this Ultegra chainring shows the four pins to be unevenly spaced around the ring's circumference; again showing symmetry at 180 degrees and again suggesting their position has been determined by their relationship to the crank arms.
From the perspective of the pins above the ring could be fitted correctly in one of two positions; 180 degrees opposed. Of course this would only work on cranksets with an even number of arms; so not possible with five arm cranks - meaning only one rotational position exists to place the pins correctly relative to the crank arms.
In addition to this there's the chain retention pin on many cranksets which is intended to go behind the crank arm - again limiting the chainring's correct fitment to the crank arm to a single position.
Hence why manufacturers mark the rings to identify the orientation in which they should be fitted to the crank.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
You line up the pin with the crank. It’s as simple as that, and sole purpose of pin is to stop that chain drop into the gap and get jammed.
He is not talking about that pin. He is talking about the pins on the inside face that catch the chain to ease shifting. Of course, turning the chainring along to even out wear would also leave the pin you mention in the wrong place, and risk jamming the chain in the crank arm if the chain falls outside of the chainring.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
