Acceptable chain wear?

[Brucey]

...The chain is cleaned weekly, not by removing but with a thorough clean in situ with transmission degreaser and a toothbrush. Then it has a proper lubrication with bicycle chain lube, just finished off a bottle of green line wet.

Do you mean finish line wet?

It might be that your chain cleaning/lubing routine can be improved; but there is no one 'right way' here.

Another possibility is that the chain was substandard in some way; occasional QA problems are not unknown in any factory. IIRC Wipperman made a whole load of quicklinks that broke a few years ago, so they have 'previous form' on the QA front. You could have excessive roller wear (rather than bushing wear) so I'd suggest you check the elongation of the chain with a ruler over a 12" length.

But having said that, chains usually wear because their factory-applied coatings (not all chains) are stripped/worn off, and the lubricant fails in some way. Lube can fail in several ways;

1) lube gets dirty. Wet lubes are pretty good at this. If you are going to clean the chain, clean it fully.

2) lube is otherwise contaminated. Degreaser residue (doesn't evaporate in cold conditions), road salt, water etc degrades the lube.

3) lube fails to protect against corrosion. Bushings etc wear via corrosion/erosion once the lube film is breached in the bushing. In addition the chain can corrode internally when the bike is not is use; salt water is the usual culprit.

You can tell if the chain is corroding internally. If you pull the bike out of the shed and spray the chain with water-displacing lube (GT85 or WD40) and run it round for a few turns, you may see brown rust-coloured stuff oozing out of the chain.

If you do the same thing with a 'clean' chain and there is any sign of blackness when you wipe the chain off, the chain isn't really clean. The black stuff is a mixture of wear debris and dirt; IME removing it all greatly decreases the wear rate of any chain, even if it is but a temporary state of affairs.

I have to own up to not being a fan of some wet lubes, even those from companies where (say) I love their grease etc. These lubes are ridiculously priced; if you pay £4 for 120ml for 'oil plus some additives' then (say) at that rate a 5l can of motor oil would cost about £160 quid. If you have an expensive wet lube the temptation is to use it sparingly; this means that the lube is more likely to become a grinding paste. Although some wet lubes seem to leave a gungy layer over the outside of the chain, they don't always inhibit salt water corrosion inside where it matters.

But the bottom line is that if you chain is truly worn out in 400 miles, this is an exceptional state of affairs. Even a dirty chain (with lots of oil on it) would last 400 miles without clapping out, so my vote is for a duff chain or a chain that has suffered internal wear/corrosion through ingress of salty water or something.

[BTW dirt on the outside of the chain does matter; it also accelerates the wear on the sprockets and chainrings. Arguably a stretched chain is worse, because it will wear the other parts such that they won't take a new chain any more, but dirty chains cause wear, no mistake. ]


cheers

[MartinC]

Given the OP's experience my first question would be to ask how they've decided the chain is worn out. I tend to use a Park Tool thingy but if it was consistently showing early wear then I'd check it by measuring the old fashioned way too. Be interested to see what the OP found if they did this.

[TonyR]

It might be that your chain cleaning/lubing routine can be improved; but there is no one 'right way' here.

There is a right way and you know it's worth it

http://sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

[Audax67]

Not sure that cleaning makes much difference to stretch. My chain has done around 3500 km since last August with no more TLC than a wipe and a squirt of TF2 periodically (you'll find me in the directory under "lazy bugger"). The Park gauge still shows it OK.

[gplhl]

Not sure that cleaning makes much difference to stretch. My chain has done around 3500 km since last August with no more TLC than a wipe and a squirt of TF2 periodically (you'll find me in the directory under "lazy bugger"). The Park gauge still shows it OK.

Same, I'm too lazy too!

I once ran a chain, big ring and cassette for 15,000 miles after I forgot to put a new chain on before it was too late. Guess what, it still worked, yes it got noisy and eventually felt rubbish.

I finally replaced the whole drive train at less than the cost of all the chains I'd have used.

Now use Rohloff for touring and I'm equally lazy other than the oil change for the Rohloff. Just replaced the rear sprocket and chain after 12,000 miles.

Gary
www.longbikeride.co.uk

[Brucey]

Not sure that cleaning makes much difference to stretch. My chain has done around 3500 km since last August with no more TLC than a wipe and a squirt of TF2 periodically (you'll find me in the directory under "lazy bugger"). The Park gauge still shows it OK.

You probably are not having to deal with road salt as much? Also you are probably 'cleaning' your chain a little every time you use TF2; if you use the bike immediately the excess (and some dirt) gets flung out, and the same thing happens (but more slowly) if you let it dry first. TF2 is mostly solvent with a little light oil in it; the reason chains don't look too sticky when they are lubed with that stuff is that the excess is coming off the chain (taking the some of the dirt with it if you are lucky) all the time.

If your regime (no matter how slack or otherwise) 'cleans' more quickly than the rate at which fresh dirt etc is added, the chain will run fairly clean most of the time. If it doesn't, your chain will get dirtier and dirtier, and most likely wear faster and faster.

cheers

[Mick F]

As for cost, that is a moot point, but even if you clean a cheap chain only once or twice, it's better than not cleaning it at all and risk ruining your cassette and chain rings.

That is only a risk if you run a worn chain not a dirty chain.

Of course, but the problem is, a dirty chain wears quite quickly, and far more quickly than you might think.

[andrew_s]

I once ran a chain, big ring and cassette for 15,000 miles after I forgot to put a new chain on before it was too late. Guess what, it still worked, yes it got noisy and eventually felt rubbish.

I've done that too.
I eventually gave up on it when the rollers wore down enough to start falling off.

[531colin]

I have used a Rohloff chain wear gauge for about 20 years. Here is a summary....
The chain wears; the worn chain wears the sprockets. The rear sprockets are much more sensitive to chain wear than the front chainrings, so you need to measure chain wear relative to whats happening to the sprockets not the rings.... You are in fact using the wrong side of the gauge.
Buy cheap chains, certainly in the winter, because the pretty shiny plating on expensive chains doesn't cover the wearing bits, so the wearing bits corrode. In the winter, I reckon the lion's share of chain "wear" is actually corrosion.
If you do a search of the forum, you can find all sorts of stuff about how gauges measure the "wrong sort" of wear....all sorts of stuff about measuring wear with a ruler, and all sorts of stuff about complex methods of chain "cleaning"....and nothing about corrosion.
After a day's work, I never had the determination to take my chain off, measure it with a ruler and clean it in vats of stuff.
I can drop the wear gauge on the chain in a cold, dark shed without putting my reading glasses on, and know "near enough".
If you drop the gauge on the chain in lots of places, on a "winter" chain you will find absurdly variable "wear"....this is, in my view, corrosion that happens in the bit of chain that winds through the jockey wheels, and is rusted into a zed bend in the morning. If the gauge drops right in for several links I tend to bin the chain, even though most links show acceptable wear.....that's my kind of extravagance, I guess I have been in Yorkshire a long time!
If you run a chain past the time the Rohloff gauge tells you to bit it, you will wreck your cassette. If you bin the chain when the gauge tells you to, your cassette will be OK.....every chain, for about 20 years, in Yorkshire where salting the roads seems to be a hobby. When I replace the rim because the brakes have worn through it, I usually replace the cassette....I can see wear, but a new chain doesn't skip, so the wear is acceptable.

[botty]

The chain is in the shed awaiting a proper 'length' measurement with a ruler to check the wear.

Interesting point about variable wear along the chain. Some checked points show totally worn out but some points show (just) not at that point yet.

[botty]

You are in fact using the wrong side of the gauge.

I must be missing something.

Presumably differing chain wear on different sized sprockets on a bicycle is due to the different number of 'passes' a chain makes over them for a given turn of the road wheel? My smallest chain ring is 28 teeth and often runs with a 28 or 32 sprocket, up to 10-15% of my commute depending on whether I am coming or going. Presumably when it is the chain ring would wear equally or faster than the sprocket if they were both the same alloy?

If I were using alloy sprockets I would use the A side of the gauge and replace the chain when it showed wear enough to damage those alloy sprockets. If the chain is worn enough to damage 28/30/32 sprockets why would it not be equally damaging to a 28 alloy chainring?

[gplhl]

If it really is wearing that quick something else is worn too much already, cassette or Chain ring, possibly both. If these are worn too much already they will accelerate Chain wear.

I'm guessing the chains not slipping, ruling out cassette?

Gary
www.longbikeride.co.uk

[531colin]

Its unlikely that a sprocket or chainring that's in use for 10% of the time will be the one to wear out.
The sprockets that wear are the middle to small ones....16/18/20, that get used a lot of the time, and see 2 or more passes of the chain for each turn of the pedals.
Chainring teeth are taller, and the chain wraps right round.....and the inner ring of a triple is often steel, 24/26T

[Brucey]

it is worth noting that slight wear on a sprocket will foul a chain being fed onto it and this is what makes a slightly worn sprocket jump with a new chain. The chain is able to climb over (rather than mesh with) the sprocket because it only has the derailleur tension to fight, which isn't much.

By contrast the chain is under (hopefully enormous) tension on the top run and a slightly worn chainring poses little impediment to the chain as it is fed onto it. A slightly hooked chainring might be a bit noisy with a new chain but they usually settle down after a while. In fact chainrings can carry on working acceptably well even when about 50% of the original tooth is MIA, worn to atoms.

Of course it is a leetle crezzy to make tiny chainrings from soft alloy, but surprisingly few of them are made from properly hard steel; mostly they see comparatively little use by comparison with the larger chainrings, and last reasonably well if made in moderately hard materials such as Zicral or moderately hard steel (too soft for sprockets).

cheers

[Audax67]

Not sure that cleaning makes much difference to stretch. My chain has done around 3500 km since last August with no more TLC than a wipe and a squirt of TF2 periodically (you'll find me in the directory under "lazy bugger"). The Park gauge still shows it OK.

You probably are not having to deal with road salt as much? Also you are probably 'cleaning' your chain a little every time you use TF2; if you use the bike immediately the excess (and some dirt) gets flung out, and the same thing happens (but more slowly) if you let it dry first. TF2 is mostly solvent with a little light oil in it; the reason chains don't look too sticky when they are lubed with that stuff is that the excess is coming off the chain (taking the some of the dirt with it if you are lucky) all the time.

If your regime (no matter how slack or otherwise) 'cleans' more quickly than the rate at which fresh dirt etc is added, the chain will run fairly clean most of the time. If it doesn't, your chain will get dirtier and dirtier, and most likely wear faster and faster.

cheers

Practically no road salt before this last week, mostly dust & grit. I'll be swapping out the chain this weekend; it'll be interesting to see how the new one mates with the cassette.