Cheap chain oilers

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Sanqhar
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Re: Cheap chain oilers

Post by Sanqhar »

Magnusson wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 11:25 am I always oil my chain after a ride when it's warm. The theory is that when it cools down it will suck the oil into the gaps.
Reminds me of a tip from pre O-ring days when chain lubrication was putting the chain into a pan of grease that had to be heated up so that the grease ran into the chain rollers.

I remember reading a report of a race mechanic in the 1960s who would first boil the chain in water and then put the chain into the heated pan of chain grease. His logic was that in boiling in water the gaps in the rollers would first be filled with water. When that chain was then boiled in the chain grease the higher temperature reached would expel the water causing a vacuum that would then be filled by the chain grease on cooling.

tom
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garyboy
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Re: Cheap chain oilers

Post by garyboy »

Yeah, most automatic oilers seem to have their problems. I read that a warmer chain will help spread the oil into those little crevices, lower viscosity? I always thought smaller sprockets put more strain on the chain.
catcitrus
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Re: Cheap chain oilers

Post by catcitrus »

firstly asking the chain to bend less around a bigger sprocket should help a wee bit. Also the bigger the sprocket the less tension in it for a given transmitted torque. Anyway--back to chain wear--I agree that doing any lube on a warm chain is better, but I repeat my note about actual roller wear on the pins. When you think about it it actually increases the effective distance between the links when sitting on the sprocket and any load spread between links that you may have got when new gradually reduces loading up individual links more and more--when " wear " starts it increases rapidly as a result. Keep your roller pins lubricated and do the finger check . Back in the old days(here we go!) on an XR I used a small hand wash plunger container that sat behind the flyscreen and a pipe that ran down to the chain. Every so often I would give it a push when rolling to drop some oil on the chain--cost nothing and worked well--but this was really pre O ring when you really did need to throw some oil on chains. Just think about 24 hour endurance racing--they get through loads of tyres and brake pads, but chains?
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