Chain & Sprocket wear

Take care of your chain and it will last ages. I regularly cleaned and maintained an Izumi ESH and it lasted nearly a year of messengering, brakeless.

A whole lot of hassle though.

i clean my chain every couple of days and re-lube all the time :( . still £6 every once and while.

i run my chain with zero play though.

I overheard one of the sales guys at the local bike shop saying that, if you can pull you chain away from the front chain ring then its worn...

How true is this?

Cause if its true, I need a new chain....

pop into your local bike shop and ask to get your chain checked for wear. there's a tool and it works and they'll check it for free! then have a good think about what type of chain you need for the kind of riding you do. kmc 510 is nice and quiet, 710 can be a bit heavy and noisey. half links are in fact pish as someone already said but i guess you'll play around till you find one you like. but i agree that keeping it all clean is important if for no other reason than to stop it making an almighty racket! and if you're cleaning it you're tensioning it regularly so you'll find a nice tension that works for you too!

I have a 510 on my bike at the moment and it been running great, not a sound. But since i put the new wheels on its been a really noisy, so I might have damaged it or it might just be a little old. Either way I am getting a new one. I am getting a k710 to see what its like.

i run my chain too tight though.

fixed.

I am getting a k710 to see what its like.

Since the KMC Kool 710 was mentioned, just a couple of questions:

Is it always noisy or does it quiet down eventually?

More than normal wear on a standard road chainring?

Anyone using or know where to find the 3/32 version - K810 in the UK?

try tartybikes.co.uk

bit pricey though

Get a fat ass chain 1/8+ run 1/8 cogs make sure your chainlines 99.9+% straght and it should run and run.
most bike shops know shit about fixed stuffs so ask the same question to more than one before taking action.
quote:
I overheard one of the sales guys at the local bike shop saying that, if you can pull you chain away from the front chain ring then its worn...
this theory originates from old 5 speeds and such.
modern chains are actualy designed to have lateral movment especally 8,9,10spd chains

So I take it, this would not be the case for single speed or fixed then?

One thing that is useful to do is if you take a close look at a worn chainring (indicated by the teeth profile tending towards a point) you notice that the wear only happens over a section at 90 degrees to the crank arms due to where the power stroke is applied. It is possible to rotate the chainring though 90 degrees AND replace the chain which can save getting a new chianring each time

pop into your local bike shop and ask to get your chain checked for wear. there's a tool and it works and they'll check it for free!

To be honest this is probably the most accurate indication of chain wear, although Park make quite a nice streach measurer for around £7 Link measuring both 0.75% and 1% wear, its simplicity making it more affordable than many others for home use.

I find as long as the chain is kept cleaned fairly often and free from grime, it lasts much longer, and dont bother with any of those £20 something chain cleaner things, just split the chain, place it in a pot with white spirit, put the lid on, give it a shake and in 30 seconds, it looks and feels like new.

Ollie

You know you can just measure the chain with a steel rule, right?

The standard way to measure chain wear is with a ruler or steel tape measure. This can be done without removing the chain from the bicycle. The normal technique is to measure a one-foot length, placing an inch mark of the ruler exactly in the middle of one rivet, then looking at the corresponding rivet 12 complete links away. On a new, unworn chain, this rivet will also line up exactly with an inch mark. With a worn chain, the rivet will be past the inch mark. This gives a direct measurement of the wear to the chain, and an indirect measurement of the wear to the sprockets:

• If the rivet is less than 1/16" past the mark, all is well.
  
• If the rivet is 1/16" past the mark, you should replace the chain, but the sprockets are probably undamaged.
  
• If the rivet is 1/8" past the mark, you have left it too long, and the sprockets (at least the favorite ones) will be too badly worn. If you replace a chain at the 1/8" point, without replacing the sprockets, it may run OK and not skip, but the worn sprockets will cause the new chain to wear much faster than it should, until it catches up with the wear state of the sprockets.
  
• If the rivet is past the 1/8" mark, a new chain will almost certainly skip on the worn sprockets, especially the smaller ones.
  
  
  
  

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chains.html#wear

I'll check my chain with a metal ruler this evening!

Thanks

Bumping this thread in search of a few answers.

What are the symptoms of a worn chain? is it noise? that it won't hold tension?

it will get noisy especially when resisting.
try pulling the chain at the front of the chainring the further you can pull it the more it is worn. you will see how each bush doesn't really line up with the teeth.
i got 6000 miles out of my izumi chain. miche cahinring and EAI cog are hardly worn.i did clean and lube it regularly though.
i used a chain checker at my lbs to accurately measure the wear, it was very worn when i swapped to a new chain.

try pulling the chain at the front of the chainring the further you can pull it the more it is worn. you will see how each bush doesn't really line up with the teeth.

Ok I follow. This shows movement regardless of chain tension.

Good stuff thanks.

err.. is this your first bike?

The 1st I've built myself, yes.

Why?

After 6000 miles you could see the wear on my Phil Wood cog on the drive side of each tooth; looked like a shark fin.

pull the chain away from the front of the front chainring, if it moves 5mm it's fnckingknackered™

Yeah, It's pulling about that.

It's gone.

Could not cleaning a chain regularly speed up the wearing process? My whole chainline is pretty noisy and the tension is all over the place but I've only had it since July. Probably cleaned the chain 5 or 6 times the whole time I've had it though, and never that thoroughly.

maybe. I heard tell that grit can get into the links and accelerate wear. This is why some people say you should always spray degreaser or whatever downward on the lower run of the chain - the thinking is that since grit is lifted off the road it will be on the outside of the chain.

This could quite happily be bollocks though. Lots of chain-lore seems to be.

Yes, dirty chains will wear quicker.