Dupont chain lube

[He Man]

my last can barely lasted 3 months.

im a commuter and ride in the rain a lot lol

[live2ride]

wow, 3 months??

i've put 15,000 miles on the ducati in the past 3 months.  i've gone through less than 1 can in that time.  

[errazor]

Please feel free to call me stupid, but I thought the O ring cain have the lubrication built in it selves, and that you could not get any lubrication past the O rings. I have 10,000 km on my cain and it is only been adjusted once and it`s still acording to spec. I use wd40 after washing.

[He Man]

wow, 3 months??

i've put 15,000 miles on the ducati in the past 3 months.  i've gone through less than 1 can in that time.  

its not just miles but road conditions. if you are constantly riding in the rain, it gets washed out and theres been A LOT of rain lately with the tropical storms and hurricanes. in 3 months ive only done about 3,000 milesish.

[thought]

Please feel free to call me stupid, but I thought the O ring cain have the lubrication built in it selves, and that you could not get any lubrication past the O rings. I have 10,000 km on my cain and it is only been adjusted once and it`s still acording to spec. I use wd40 after washing.

they tell you to put on the chain lube after you ride around and warm up the chain because then the o rings can suck in the lube.

also wd-40 for chains is considered a bad idea.  supposedly it can seep into the orings and actually displaces the original lube (it was designed to penetrate and displace water), leaving only the wd-40 which quickly dissipates as it was not designed for that kind of temp and wear.  this leaves your chain with no lube at all.  there's a lot of debate about this, but there have been pics of a sealed airplane bearings that have totally rusted after using wd-40 as the primary lube.

if i were you, i'd just got and get a can of the dupont stuff either yellow or blue.  it's cheap, readily available, and def works for chains.

[errazor]

My theory is that the lubrication is sealed inside the O rings in the cain.
I want to keep the outside dry and clean to avoid dust sticking to the cain acting like abrasive paste.
I spray on and dry of WD 40 after wash to prevent corrotion.

[akmnstr]

I have both the blue and yellow cans in my shop.  I didn't notice a difference between the two that the review points out.  One of my bikes sat unused for a year in our humid high rust climate on the Texas coast.  I lubed the chain with the the blue before the bike set.  I recently got the bike running again and I noticed that the chain has picked up some rust.  Not bad but if I ever store a bike for a long time I'll go with a more conventional grease and then remove it when I'm ready to ride again.  

[ducatiz]

I have both the blue and yellow cans in my shop.  I didn't notice a difference between that the review points out.  One of my bikes sat unused for a year in our humid high rust climate on the Texas coast.  I lubed the chain with the the blue before the bike set.  I recently got the bike running again and I noticed that the chain has picked up some rust.  Not bad but if I ever store a bike for a long time I'll go with a more conventional grease and then remove it when I'm ready to ride again. 

When spraying anything onto a chain, any ambient moisture can be picked up by the spray or it can be trapped on the surface of the chain.  The spray should push the moisture out, but sometimes it can lock it in.  There are solid film lubricants on the market which will displace the moisture (Eezox comes to mind) but I don't know if that's good for a chain or not.  It certainly does the job for all kinds of metals and is the only firearm product which completely prevents rust on bare metal after a salt spray.

[thought]

My theory is that the lubrication is sealed inside the O rings in the cain.
I want to keep the outside dry and clean to avoid dust sticking to the cain acting like abrasive paste.
I spray on and dry of WD 40 after wash to prevent corrotion.

not a theory, the lube is sealed with o rings.  putting lube on the warm chain will allow some to suck in to help the sealed lube.  any lube will act to keep the outside clean as long as it's replenished.  wd-40 can penetrate and displace the sealed lube in your chain leaving you with no lube at all.

read the last comment at the end of this article:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/motorcycle-chain-lube/

also, lubing after a wash doesnt help the chain that much at all.  lube it after you've ridden it for a bit so it's warm.

[Langanobob]

also wd-40 for chains is considered a bad idea.  supposedly it can seep into the orings and actually displaces the original lube (it was designed to penetrate and displace water), leaving only the wd-40 which quickly dissipates as it was not designed for that kind of temp and wear.  this leaves your chain with no lube at all.  there's a lot of debate about this, but there have been pics of a sealed airplane bearings that have totally rusted after using wd-40 as the primary lube.

A link or picture of the airplane bearing please?  What kind of  an idiot would lube an airplane bearing with WD40?  He/she should not be allowed near an airplane.  Plus,  there's no relationship between lubing airplane bearings with WD40 and and cleaning an o-ring bike chain with WD40.  Thanks for mentioning it but I really don't think it's pertinent to this discussion.

For the sake of discussion here is a WD40 bike chain link:



Not necessarily a defender of WD40 but it does seem to get unnecessarily hammered on a lot.  Not a very good heavy duty lubricant at all, but it does have it uses.  Never had a problem using it for o-ring chain maintenance although the DuPont stuff is probably better.

[thought]

A link or picture of the airplane bearing please?  What kind of  an idiot would lube an airplane bearing with WD40?  He/she should not be allowed near an airplane.  Plus,  there's no relationship between lubing airplane bearings with WD40 and and cleaning an o-ring bike chain with WD40.  Thanks for mentioning it but I really don't think it's pertinent to this discussion.

read the last comment at the end of this article:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/motorcycle-chain-lube/

and also, offhand, this discussion is about lubing chains, not cleaning them.  the issue that comes up is when the wd-40 penetrates the o rings and displaces the grease inside them.  i'm not sure how much that will affect chain stretch, but i would guess that doing that will cause the links to bind up quicker.  what would have been interesting in your posted article would have been having him cut open the o ring and see if the grease was displaced or not.  but i guess that's another experiment for another time.

but w/e, i just posting what i've heard as the hazards of using wd-40 on chains.  in general, i just stick with products that were made to lube chains as opposed to products that were made to penetrate and displace water.

[Langanobob]

read the last comment at the end of this article:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/motorcycle-chain-lube/

Well that was a fast reply, thanks.  After reading the article and looking at the airplane bearing pictures, it only reinforces my opinion that there is no relationship whatsoever between a failed attempt at using WD-40 for an airplane bearing lube and using it for o-ring bike chain cleaning.  I suppose if you built a sealed housing and ran a bike chain in a WD-40 bath for 20,000 miles it might work its way past the o-rings.  But occasional use as a cleaner will not wash out the chain grease as has been demonstrated in my link above

In any case I think we both have better priorities that getting into a long discussion on WD40 shortcomings. Thanks for posting the link.

Bob


Bob

[Armor]

On a sealed chain, the chain lube prevents rust and lubricates the chain going over the sprockets.  There is friction between the chain and sprockets.

[S21FOLGORE]

So, I picked up Dupont yellow can chain lube a couple of weeks ago.
(was curious about "dry, self cleaning lubricant" catch copy ... )

I thought, I should start with clean chain&sprocket and see how it keeps them clean.

Choose your weapon, clean the chain & sprocket (also surrounding area) as much as you'd like.


Nice & clean. Spray DuPont chain saver on.


After a couple of weekend rides.


I think, it actually is "self cleaning" pretty good. As I spray chain lube onto the chain, I can see dust, debris, old chain lube,etc washed out from the chain ...