How To Clean & Lube Your Motorcycle Chain at RevZilla.com
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00:00Howdy, this is Lemmy with RevZilla, here to talk to you today about how to clean and lubricate
00:04your motorcycle chain.
00:10You should be interested in cleaning and lubricating your motorcycle chain if you have a chain
00:13final drive on your bike and you're interested in keeping your motorcycle's chain lasting
00:17for a really long time and keeping it from becoming a safety hazard.
00:20You're going to find these on all sorts of motorcycles, primarily older Harleys, sport
00:25bikes, and just about every dirt bike ever produced.
00:27While there are some bikes that use different methods of final drive transmission, the chain
00:31is what we're going to concentrate on today, and that should cover a lot of you guys out
00:34there on bikes.
00:35Now, as far as the difficulty of this task, I'm going to call it a one-bearder on our
00:39BSD, or Beard Scale of Difficulty.
00:42Most of you should be able to attack this job very, very easily.
00:45You should not only know how to do this, but you should be doing it frequently.
00:49Because of the frequent surface interval for most motorcycles, typically around 300-500
00:53miles, it's really important that you know how to do this so you don't get stuck bringing
00:56it to a shop.
00:57It can be really inconvenient to have to go into a shop for such a minor thing.
01:01If you've got some basic common sense and a few specialty tools, you can get the job
01:05done all by yourself.
01:06Okay, before we start tackling this task, let's get a little bit of education in.
01:10You need to identify what kind of chain is on the motorcycle upon which you're working.
01:14Different style chains have different care and feeding techniques, so to speak.
01:18There's two major types of chains.
01:20There's plain chains, and then there's sealed chains.
01:22You'll hear sealed chains talked about as O-ring chains, or X-ring chains, or perhaps
01:26even a Z-ring chain, and long after this, there'll probably be all sorts of other letters.
01:30But if you have any letter plus ring on your chain, it's sealed, and those get treated
01:34a little bit differently.
01:35Let me explain the difference to you really briefly.
01:38In the old days, all they had were plain chains.
01:40Plain chains, like all motorcycle chains, are made up of two types of links, inners
01:44and outers.
01:45On this chain, you can see here this gray link is an inner link, and this brass-colored
01:48link out here is an outer link.
01:51They made chains for a long time, simply connecting the two with a rivet or a stake in between
01:54them like you can see here.
01:56At some point, somebody got the bright idea to help keep the grease inside of the pin
02:00and bushing cavity and keep moisture and dirt and gunk out of the chain.
02:04They did that by using an O-ring or an X-ring, one of these seals you see right here.
02:08Again, this is why they're called sealed chains.
02:11The only real difference there is those are applied to the pins, and they sit between
02:15the plates on these.
02:16Basically, they sit right here, sealing up that cavity, again, keeping factory-applied
02:21grease inside the chain, and keeping all sorts of mud and muck from the roadway outside
02:25your chain.
02:26It helps those, especially who are bad about maintaining their chain, get a little bit
02:29longer life out of things.
02:32Once you've identified what type of chain it is that you have, you can figure out how
02:35to clean it.
02:36The reason that matters is because these seals are probably the most delicate part on the
02:39motorcycle chain itself.
02:41Before I get started on cleaning, the first thing I like to do is inspect the chain and
02:45the sprockets.
02:46It's a good way for you to examine some of the things around your motorcycle on the lower
02:51side, places where most of us don't hang out all that often.
02:54You'll notice, too, we have this bike up on a lift.
02:57You don't need a lift to do this job.
02:58We're just presenting this to you that way so our cameraman doesn't break his back.
03:02I've actually got this bike up on its center stand, which you can see here.
03:05If you've got a center stand on your bike, it can be a real help.
03:08You can also either take your chain off to clean and lubricate it, or the other thing
03:11you can do is kind of chase it around the driveway a little bit, move it forward a section,
03:15and do just a section of a time on the chain.
03:18Any way you do it is valid.
03:19This is just going to be the simplest way for us to show this to you.
03:22Now, when I'm examining things, I'm going to pay special attention to the chain and
03:25sprockets.
03:26Spurgeon's chain is looking like it's in pretty good shape here.
03:29One of the things I want to check just with basic condition of the chain is physically
03:32how much play there is, what kind of shape it's actually in.
03:35Let me show you off the bike a couple of better examples.
03:38Here's a nice chunk of brandy spanking new chain.
03:40This is in pretty good shape.
03:41If I apply any side-to-side pressure to this or any compression and tension, this looks
03:46pretty good.
03:47There's not really much slop or play.
03:49Now, in this particular chain, this has seen a lot of miles.
03:52Look at the wear in this.
03:53Side-to-side, you can see this wiggling back and forth.
03:56Even if we apply compression and tension, you can actually see this kind of moving back
04:01and forth.
04:02That's because as this chain was neglected over the years, the round pins and rollers
04:07began to get misshapen.
04:08They became ovoid, egg-shaped.
04:10What that allows is, again, all that compression and tension you see here.
04:14Now, if you multiply that by the entire chain, there's all sorts of driveline lash.
04:18That's going to make your throttle feel twitchy regardless of how much effort you put into
04:22fueling.
04:23This is something that can also make your bike ride a little bit better.
04:25If you're going from a really poorly neglected chain to something that's much, much better
04:29and you start taking a little better care of things, stuff like this doesn't happen.
04:34It makes your bike a joy to ride.
04:36The next thing I like to examine after I'm done taking a peek at the chain is also look
04:40at the master link.
04:42This bike has what's called an endless chain.
04:43It's a pretty common setup to come from many of the factory bikes.
04:47If you look at this, all of the links look the same.
04:49However, on some bikes, there's a link known as the master link that might look a little
04:52bit something like this.
04:54The exterior of these links tends to look a little bit different.
04:57They'll either be a clip on the outside of the link that, again, visually looks a little
05:02bit different, or you might see something like some screw-style snapped-off pieces,
05:07or you may also see rivets, rivet heads that have been kind of peened over.
05:10They typically stand out because the link looks just a little bit different than the
05:13link surrounding it.
05:14You want to make sure that that link is in good shape, whether that's a clip-style master
05:18link and you're making sure that the clip is in place, or it's a rivet-style and you
05:22are making sure, again, the heads are mushroomed over correctly and they look decent.
05:26You just want to give a quick double-check to make sure your master link is still in
05:29place and doing its job.
05:31Now, moving on from there, I'm also going to examine the sprocket area.
05:34This can be kind of important as well.
05:37Chains and sprockets work together as a system, and while sometimes you can get away with
05:40putting a fresh chain onto older sprockets, if you have to replace sprockets, it's usually
05:44going to happen with a chain.
05:46Terrible sprockets and a new chain typically is a bad recipe.
05:50So when I'm examining the sprocket, there's a few things that I'm going to look for in
05:53particular.
05:54The first is what I like to call shark teeth.
05:57You'll notice that the teeth on the sprocket here look fairly similar from front to back.
06:02On a bike that's accelerated hard, but maybe not decelerated very often, or just a very
06:06old chain on a bike that's ridden fairly gently, the leading edge right here in the teeth can
06:11start to wear.
06:12As that wears, but the backside of the tooth does not, it gives a weird kind of a shark
06:17fin appearance.
06:18You'll get shark teeth, effectively.
06:20Now, compound this situation, and sometimes for those of you who are heavy decelerators,
06:24or perhaps you like to downshift often, you may notice not only the leading edge of the
06:29tooth wearing, but also the trailing edge as well.
06:32When that starts to happen, you'll get teeth that look kind of pointy.
06:35The reason I say they look pointy is if you examine the teeth here up top, there's actually
06:39a pretty decent sized flat on the top of the teeth.
06:43As both the front and the backside of the tooth cavity wears, where the roller lays
06:46in it, it sort of makes those cavities just a little bit bigger.
06:50They expand more and more, until the point where this flat up here disappears, and the
06:55teeth actually start to look pointy, and sometimes they can actually get so sharp they can cut
06:58you.
06:59If you have sharp teeth on your sprocket, it's time for a sprocket and chain replacement.
07:03There's not really much point in trying to maintain a chain and sprocket system that's
07:06kind of already shot.
07:08So inspection should be one of your initial steps as far as taking a peek at your bike
07:12and making sure everything is in good shape before you get started.
07:16Now we're going to get cracking on the cleaning process.
07:18So I want to remind you before, it was important that we identified the chain.
07:21The reason we do that is, again, because different chains have different sort of processes for
07:25cleaning them.
07:26If you've got a plain chain, the whole thing is made out of metal.
07:29They're pretty tough cookies.
07:30I've cleaned those before in something as harsh as gasoline.
07:33However, if you have a sealed chain, as most modern motorcycles do, you don't want to use
07:37something like that.
07:38You want to check out whatever it is that the manufacturer of your chain tells you to
07:41use on it.
07:42And I think one of the things that you're going to find is that you can either use a
07:45commercial chain cleaner like we sell at RevZilla, or you can also use kerosene.
07:49A lot of the major chain manufacturers just recommend plain old kerosene.
07:53It's gentle on the O-rings, and again, it'll help give your chain nice long life, which
07:57is really the point of this whole exercise anyway.
08:00So to get started, what I'm going to do is start soaking down Spurgeon's chain and sprockets
08:04in some kerosene to get them clean.
08:06This does get a little bit messy.
08:08So again, if you have just cleaned your bike and it's looking great, you may want to remove
08:11the chain if possible.
08:13Then again, you may not want to do that.
08:15Either way, get the chain soaked down in kerosene.
08:18So I'm going to start spraying and moving that chain and sprocket to soak this puppy
08:24down.
08:25And I'm not going to be shy with this stuff.
08:26It's a dime's worth of kerosene.
08:28I want to get this thing good and gooey.
08:30The whole reason we're loading this up with kerosene is to help dissolve some of the existing
08:34lubricant.
08:35And then we're also going to get the dirt particles kind of floated up so they get up
08:38to the surface and get out.
08:39We're basically trying to flush those things out detergent style.
08:43So you'll notice here, this chain's already starting to look a little bit better.
08:46And the reason it's doing that is because we're knocking some dirt off.
08:48And as you do this, you're going to see dirt gathering all over the place.
08:53That's a good thing.
08:54Now, some of you who have exceptionally clean motorcycles can probably stop at this point.
08:58You may be able to simply take a rag, give it a lick and promise, wipe most of the dirt
09:02and gunk off of there.
09:04However, for those of you, again, who tend to use thick or heavy lubricant that can cake
09:08up, or those of you who really do get out in the dirt or the dust, you're probably going
09:11to need to do a little further cleaning.
09:13You're going to need to scrub this chain off.
09:15So there's a couple of different ways you can do that.
09:18Again, if you're rocking a plain chain, you don't have to be quite so careful.
09:21You can attack that baby with a brass brush and clean up every little bit on there.
09:25Sometimes a brass brush can even knock off a little bit of rust if it's formed on there.
09:29Not too bad, but any surface rust shouldn't be a big deal.
09:32But again, if you have a modern sealed chain like this, you don't want to use something
09:35nearly as aggressive as a brush with brass bristles.
09:38Instead, something like a soft nylon brush is probably the way to go.
09:42Something like this.
09:43For those of you who like making your life a little bit easier, too, you might want to
09:47investigate something like a grunge brush.
09:49I have to say, this is a product I really do like.
09:51You can see the brush itself has three faces here, so it quickly allows you to clean three
09:56of the four sides of your chain.
09:58Check out how easy this is.
09:59I'm going to fit this puppy on here and start spinning this wheel.
10:03As I do that, I'm quickly able to start scrubbing this chain clean.
10:08I'm knocking the dirt and the snot right off of here.
10:11This chain is cleaning up very easily.
10:12I'm going to whip this around a couple more times, just to make sure I've got everything
10:16on here.
10:17From there, I'm going to take my nylon brush and get in this puppy and start doing the
10:22same thing on the top, the face of the chain that I couldn't get to with the grunge brush.
10:26You can always flip the grunge brush over.
10:27I'm actually not doing it here.
10:29Just so you can see, you can use a regular brush if you like to.
10:32I'm trying to give our camera guy a clear view in to see what I'm doing here.
10:36I'm scrubbing this puppy down.
10:37We're looking pretty good.
10:38As you can see, a lot of the dirt and muck is coming off this.
10:41I don't mind getting this scrub brush, too, on that sprocket and knock off as much dirt
10:44as I can.
10:47We're looking pretty good here.
10:48What I'm going to do next, you can see here before I get to that point, you can see all
10:51this muck starting to come off of this.
10:53That's a great sign.
10:54That's exactly what we're trying to do, is get the dirt flushed out of the chain.
10:59What I'm going to do next is give this another spray with some kerosene and start drying
11:03this off.
11:04Again, trying to float that grease out of there.
11:06I'm going to do the exact same thing.
11:08If you look below the sprocket, you'll notice the big black pool of grossness that is coming
11:12off of this motorcycle.
11:14That's great.
11:15Again, this dirt and that muck in there, that's the stuff that kills chains, especially those
11:19O-rings.
11:20What we're doing here is we're keeping those O-rings soft and supple and we're removing
11:24any grit that can act as an abrasive to them.
11:26Look how dirty that thing is.
11:27At this stage of the game, I'm going to say this is a reasonably clean motorcycle chain.
11:32The next thing I want to do is start drying this off.
11:35You have to get all the kerosene off for your lubricant to be effective.
11:37I'm going to get this thing dry.
11:39I'm going to just use a rag.
11:41Be super duper careful here, watching your fingers the whole time.
11:46That actually sort of brings up another mention.
11:48I have seen some knuckleheads who have attempted to do chain maintenance on a motorcycle that
11:52is turned on and sometimes they'll even throw a bike in gear.
11:54It's a terrible idea.
11:56Never ever touch a chain while your bike is on.
11:58The risk is just too great.
12:00Chains and sprockets are pretty good at injuring people.
12:02Make sure your bike is off regardless of how difficult this job may seem.
12:05You're not going to save any time doing it that way.
12:07As you can see here, I'm drying this chain up a little bit and it's starting to look
12:12good.
12:13I'm going to give it a few more passes real quickly and then we'll be ready to start lubricating.
12:17Already, we've gotten lots and lots of muck off of this.
12:20I've cleaned up Spurgeon's wheel a little bit here.
12:22I definitely cleaned up some of the gunk and muck that had accumulated on the lift.
12:26I also got the chain clean and completely dry.
12:28You can see I can actually touch this chain.
12:30If you look at my hand, it's completely clean.
12:32That's usually a pretty good indicator that you're getting to the point where you've knocked
12:35most of the snot and gunk off of the chain.
12:38Now we're ready to lubricate.
12:40Before we get really cracking on lubricant, I'm going to again go back to that chain ID
12:44section of the video.
12:45We're talking about figuring out whether you've got a sealed chain or whether you have a plain
12:49chain.
12:50The reason I'm bringing that up again is because the lubrication techniques for both are a
12:52little bit different.
12:54Let's talk a little bit about the old days, back in the days when everybody had plain
12:57chains.
12:58Everybody knew that the best way to keep a plain chain living a long and happy life was
13:02to keep a constant stream of lubricant on it.
13:04The more lubricant you had in there, the better off you were doing.
13:08Plain chains really love a lot of grease, slop a bunch of that stuff in there.
13:12However, for those of you with modern bikes who are rocking a sealed chain like this,
13:16the lubricant serves a much different purpose.
13:19Instead of having to load everything up with grease, you're not really required to do that.
13:23You're really just using a little bit of lubricant on the outside to keep rust off of things.
13:28Those techniques are also going to apply to what type of lubricant you may actually wind
13:33up using.
13:34There's all sorts of chain lubes on the market and there's all sorts of home-brewed stuff
13:37you can use as well.
13:39Everybody's got their own opinion.
13:40In that respect, I guess it's a lot like motor oil.
13:43I like to use an item called chain wax.
13:46Maximum makes this stuff.
13:47I discovered this when I was about 17.
13:49It worked so well, I've been using it ever since.
13:52Just so you know, I'm not standing up here trying to peddle you stuff.
13:54There's other things you can use too.
13:56Some of them are cheap and some of them we don't even sell.
13:58One of my favorites for plain chain is chainsaw bar oil.
14:01Any of you folks who run a chainsaw know that that stuff's pretty sticky.
14:04It hangs onto a chain pretty well.
14:06The reason I like to use the chain wax as opposed to something like chainsaw bar oil
14:09is that the wax is much less likely to fling.
14:12As this chain is whipping around here, rather than it tossing off chunks of lubricant, getting
14:17your gear dirty, and possibly getting your motorcycle dirty, the chain wax goes on like
14:22a liquid in an aerosol form, and then it tends to get waxy.
14:26It's got a paraffin base in here, so it's much, much harder for the chain to fling off
14:30little pieces of the lubricant.
14:32Let's get right into the lubing itself.
14:34Again, when we were cleaning, we cleaned four surfaces of the chain.
14:38We're going to do the same thing with the lubricant.
14:41Again, because this is a sealed chain, I don't really need to flood this thing with lubricant,
14:44but there probably is going to be a little bit extra hanging out because I am going to
14:48try and be thorough.
14:49One of the things I think makes it easy is if you take your straw and just sort of direct
14:53it onto the sprocket, that'll help get that top surface of the chain pretty easily.
15:00We're going to get some lubricant in there, kind of run this thing through until I see
15:04chain coming in that's already been hit with lube.
15:07We talked about heat earlier.
15:09That's not super necessary, especially with a sealed chain like this, but some folks do
15:15like to actually bring their bike out for a quick ride to actually heat the chain up
15:18to help draw this in on a plain chain.
15:21That's a valid way of doing things.
15:23I'm starting to see some lubricated areas show up there.
15:25I know I've got the inside surface of this done.
15:27Now I'm going to work on the outside surface.
15:29This is going to get just a little bit messier, but you can see the stuff going on.
15:33It's got that brown color, so it's pretty easy to identify when it's actually gotten
15:36onto a couple of links.
15:39If you look in just a moment, you'll see some of that brown lubricant showing back up, which
15:43means we've got that side of things done as well.
15:46I'm going to repeat the process too on the top of the links, the outer portion of the
15:52chain.
15:53Then I'm going to give them one quick blast here on the inside as well.
15:58It gets a little bit goopy.
15:59You will have to probably do some cleaning when you're all done.
16:02This chain is now well lubricated.
16:04In fact, I would even say it's over-lubricated.
16:06The fact that we see lubricant pooling down below here, not so bad for a plain chain,
16:10but this isn't a plain chain.
16:11This is a sealed chain.
16:12We're going to clean this stuff up, and then what I'm going to do is take a separate rag
16:16here and I'm just going to wipe a little bit of the excess off of here, anywhere it's super
16:20duper drippy.
16:23We're looking pretty good there.
16:24I've got most of the excess knocked off, but you can still see there's a fair amount of
16:28residue on here.
16:29The last thing I have to do, because I used a paraffin-based lubricant, is just wait a
16:33little bit for this stuff to tack up some so I can take it for a ride.
16:36If you used a strictly liquid-based lubricant, though, this bike's ready to rock and roll.
16:41Now, if you're looking to learn a little bit more about chains, check out some of our common
16:44tread articles on Final Drive.
16:46We've got a couple there that break out what methods of Final Drive are used on motorcycles
16:49if you want to learn a little bit more about Final Drive on your bike.
16:52Of course, if you're looking for another project to tackle, jump into our playlist, check out
16:57all of our great how-to videos.
16:59If you need immediate help because you're waiting to take your bike out on a ride for
17:02a nice, sunshiny weekend day, give a holler to one of our gear geeks.
17:06See us at RevZilla.com, or you can always jingle us on the telephone too, 877-792-9455.
17:12I'm Lemmy, I'm out of here.