I’m reckoning, if you take some of the more viscose automotive oil (gearbox oil?), add in some perfume and green food colouring and you’d have some homebrew Finish Line wet conditions lube for about 1000th the price of the real thing.

But then again, it might possibly be a load of complete gubbins… 😛

Anyone ever investigated this sort of thing?

haha, funny you should say this, my dad was saying the lube is a rip off & gearbox oil would be just as good!

I use chain saw oil. Seems ok. It’s designed to stick to a chain so should work on a bike.

tesco/asda multi oil mixed with a little tesco/asda GT85 works great.
the gt85 takes the stickiness from the oil.

make sure its unsalted to stop your alu frame rusting. job done 😆

I have done this, but a looong time ago.

I used some fairly sloppy ptfe grease and mixed it with a bit of the rubber solution you get in puncture kits, to make it stick to the chain.

Worked very well actually!

I have used engine oil, didn’t last as long as Finish Line wet tho.

Oils are quite complicated things, and chain lube has to be good at a fair few things. It has to stick to the chain but not to crud, it has to resist washing off and it has to not degrade in sunlight/water – at the same time as having good resistance to pressure.

If you just wanna randomly guess if an oil engineered for one situation will do well in a completely different situation, go ahead, you might get lucky 🙂 But for me a 5.99 bottle of lube lasts seemingly for years. I’ve got more lube as freebies than I’ve ever bought, I reckon.

I just buy the big litre bottles when they’re on clearence for a few quid. I used to use free motor oil on the commuter, but proper bike lube does attract less crud.

I often use motor oil knocked back with some white spirit – works a treat.

Synthetic engine oil mixed with paraffin – I’m sure that’s what Finish Line is. If you make a fairly thin mix it’s not too sticky.

Gearox/diff oil (EP90 grade 3 or 4) seems to work quite well as an emergency solution, but only seems marginaly more sticky than 20/50w engine oil.

Do castrol make a GTX magnatech gear oil? I’d imagine that’d be pretty similar to chain oil.

Good idea richmars, getting a chain saw soon will try that especially @ about £5/litre!!

All you need now is a foaming applicator á la Finish Line spray 🙂

I’ve tried a few:
-Chainsaw oil often a bit gloopy, anti fling properties not relevant to bike chain, often organic/bio origin so can be a green option.
-Cam start up lube + solvent, good, not so cheap, anti scuff properties probably good in chain application.
-Gearbox/diff oil, as above, cheap, seemed good.
-Shell Ensis, beats all the rest hands down, a bit difficult to clean off but one application lasts ages, disadvantage: min order 20 litres about £80, used to come as wax finish or greasey finish. So good I’m thinking about getting a lifetime supply – because it’s only available in a lifetime quantity.
All of the above very cheap and not appreciably worse than bespoke products, some miles better, chain suck problems eliminated.

I’d buy a 1/16th of it off you 🙂

Alexxx, had I not got a litre from an engineer mate I’d have definitely ordered some and split the costs with a bunch of folk. I might yet. Lasts weeks on the winter road bike and will cope with a foul weekend on the MTB easily, but I tend to re-apply to that weekly because I degrease & wash it.

Shell Ensis V. Fast drying solvent-based water-displacing wax film rust preventive with self-healing properties

Duration of Protection
months: 60

Jeez… this stuff sounds like magic fairy dust for chains! 😛