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I find whites spirit rag wipe best on outer plates. Putiline across all 6 family bikes now. Saves a fortune in flash dry lubes.
Who gives a shit.
A. Chain isn't solid or squeaking carry on.
B. If it is use whatever you have lying around and carry on.
Spray a bit of WD 40 / GT85on a rag and run the chain thru it
I find whites spirit rag wipe best on outer plates
Thanks will try these out
I reuse quick links on 9 speed chain. Just seen a crock pot in st john hospice shop, Lancaster, 8 quid. So 20 quid glf wax, croc pot, old wire coat hanger u r all set up. I bought a quicklink extractor but not really needed.
Who gives a shit.
A. Chain isn’t solid or squeaking carry on.
B. If it is use whatever you have lying around and carry on.
Same here. Rag with a bit of white spirit (or shake in a jam jar) to clean the crud and a bit of oil. A new GX Eagle chain is £20 so don’t understand this obsession about wear. Watched a GCN video and looked a right chore involving ultra sonic cleaners and slow cookers.
Power links are £1 each so why even think about reusing?
However, I always find it a nightmare because of whatever is already on the chain when I buy it.
You're adding oil to a not very good (for our purposes) grease. It's going to turn to shit fairly quickly.
What in God’s name does Shimano put on the chain and how the hell do people get it off? Or do you not have to if you’re hot waxing?
Degreaser and a chain cleaner (park cyclone or similar) will get it off eventually, white spirits, petrol or thinners will get it off in a few minutes of stir and shake, then drain, dry and start lubing again from a bare metal chain.
I never take the factory lube off. I ride until its gone then wax. I use sram chains mainly
It's not really a "lube" it's trying to keep the chain running as long as possible, while corrosion free and protected for lowest common denominator users. Anyone going much over and above "riding to work in the rain" probably needs to strip it out fairly soon (and clean it the outside of the chain before you fit it in the first place).
You'll be in a better place, as putoline seems to be somewhere like a very hard grease or soft wax so mixing the remnants of the general purpose chain grease into it won't make that much difference, adding to a hard wax probably will. (i've used very similar stuff to putoline in industrial applications, needs to be cut into lumps and forced into the bearing cavities and melted in. Then when it's running (hot environment) it lubricates. Let it go cold and the start up torque is immense!)
1)it also saves the rest of your drivetrain
2) its nice to ride with a clean well lubed chain
3) it does not need to be the faff that some folk claim
4) its nice not to have to use oil every ride but wax every few hundred miles
I think its saved me over £1000+ in not replacing drivetrains over a decade. £1000 in my pocket is worth having also the £35 tin of putoline has lasted me a decade
Mert - there is non of the factory lube left or almost none when I wax it. A few ml of it in a kilo of wax is irrelevant anyway
I use two jamjars to get the packing grease of my chain. One with de-greaser, the other with a solvent. Put new chain in de-greaser, shake it like a cocktail, take it out, put it in the solvent, repeat, take it out, let it dry. Lids back on the jars for the next chain. Takes 5 minutes.
A few ml of it in a kilo of wax is irrelevant anyway
Not if you believe in homeopathy. 😉
For me it's just longevity, especialyl in bad conditions. Like, I used to do all the scottish enduro races, without fail there'd be a couple of races every year that were a swamp- blocked up frames, chains literally running through blocks of mud around the chainstays. And you'd see every possible desperate measure taken- people jumping in rivers, people carrying little bottles of cleaner and brushes, some people arranging probably-not-cheating-only-because-nobody-thought-to-make-a-rule-against-it outside assistance to have mates turn up with power washers mid-race... It wasn't like "I could do with cleaning this", it was "my gears don't work". But the putoline never missed a beat, I guess it just stops the crap from getting in better? I'd ride both days, no cleaning, no bother.
Obviously that's worse conditiosn than most people will chose to ride in but it does still apply in more sensible bad weather.
A new GX Eagle chain is £20 so don’t understand this obsession about wear.
You have to change really early on to protect the cassette, and they're pretty expensive these days. I don't like listening to my drivetrain wear out as I rode along. And ask I keep saying, it's less faff overall. Most of the time it's ride, put bike away, get bike out, ride. If I did that with wet lube I'd be buying twice as many chains at least and probably twice as many cassettes. Which is what used to happen. I spent 30 years riding with wet lube, this is definitely better and easier. That's why I do it.
You really can feel the difference between a perfectly clean drive train and one that's been done only a few weeks previously. It sounds better, it freewheels better, it's just better. In dry weather I get around 400-500km (2-3 weeks) of mixed (road, gravel, etc) surface commuting. In the winter, that's about half unless I just re-apply a little on top.
You have to change really early on to protect the cassette, and they’re pretty expensive these days.
Funnily enough just replaced GX chain yesterday after exactly an year and 5000 km (and it’s clay around here) without any sign of wear on GX cassette. Maybe I’m just lucky.
without any sign of wear on GX cassette. Maybe I’m just lucky.
You are also lucky it's not warped like my brand new ones. I'd keep that one as long as poss if I were you!
I do re-use quick links yes.
Power links are £1 each so why even think about reusing?
Where?
Cheapest i can find 10-11-12 is usually about 4-5 quid
Wiggle have them for £1 at the mo. Including Eagle ones.
EDIT code SALE10 means they’re 90p…!
<p style="text-align: left;">Must stock up!!</p>
Yes ime, I use Fenwick’s Professional and generally apply it with the aid of a hair drier to get it flowing into the links. It’s like a half-assed Plutoline – way thicker than Finish Line or White Lightening but not solid wax. I rode 1000km, a road tour mostly in the dry inc one intermittently wet day recently with one re-lube after about 450-500km (on the road in warm sunshine rather than using the hair drier.. I travel light and don’t carry a hair drier…). It wasn’t noisy-dry when I got back either.
- just had the route up and it was 1350km, so even better durability from the Fenwick's
I can ride a 600 km Audax comfortably on a Putline waxed chain if it is dry (or a wee bit wet) and would tend to re-wax the chain after that distance, but I guess I might squeeze another 200km if conditions were good. I don't find Putoline lasts as well as oil in very wet conditions, but have used it successfully for 200-300km of wet riding.
The original factory grease is still my favourite. I rode 1540km on LEL with a new chain (in dry conditions) without needing to add any lubrication.
I run 2 or 3 chains at time so I can just swap over a freshly waxed one while the others queue up in the fryer for a batch of cooking. I just keep the chains matched with the power links that they were supplied with and keep re-using them for the life of the chain. Power links are designed to be removed and refitted. I think the warning about re-use is to discourage anyone from using the same power link over the lifetime of more than one chain, which would obviously not be a good idea.
Before I bought a tin of putoline I did try a frying pan with a couple of old candles melted in plus an unscientific glug of old fork oil and a dollop of molybdenum grease.
It did seem to work better than any other wet lube I had tried and I have to say wasn't as sticky as putoline but didn't last quite as long. I've been putolining for a couple of years now and have to say it's good stuff but having seen there's people selling kits of paraffin wax chips and PTFE for extortionate sums I might buy a cheapy DFF and chuck in some cheap candles maybe a dollop.or two of the putoline and if I can get it cheap enough some molybdenum disulfide powder (not a fan of PTFE) just to see if I can make a less claggy, longer lasting paraffin wax solution.
Since someone suggested it on here a few weeks back, I just put silicone oil on the surface of the chain/cassette to prevent rusting...