CHAIN

[joderest]

Hi All
Question for those that know.

Last week, during my everyday wet commute, I failed to notice that the powers that be had been taking sand out of a car park by the coast. My last ride home I had a vibration, when I looked at the chain today, the sand and oil and water had produced an effective grinding paste. I have only done about 6,000 miles on the chain. I cleaned it today with a concentrated soap solution, dried it and put some chainsaw oil on to help out the oiler a bit.
However, it seems to have another tight spot now, all links move OK, and it now seems to run round the sprockets OK.
Would it have trashed the chain ?, or is it just normal wear and tear causing tight spots.

[Moo]

When I go out offroading with the TRF, more often then not, the first sludgy puddle we go through, the chain gets absolutely coating in thick mud.

For the rest of the day, the only thing lubing the chain is mud and water, being forced through it when its all clogged up round the sprocket.

We still get fairly decent wear on chains, more than 6000 miles and that's got to be a worse grinding paste that sand.

I'd thoroughly clean and lube the chain. Can the chain be pulled off more then half a tooth on the rear sprocket?

Cheap WD40 from Asda (£1.25 a can) is what I clean mine with, that and a tooth brush. Then a short run to warm the chain and a thorough lubing

[Rich:-)]

I use paraffin and a small long bristled paint brush to clean the chain.
I did use to use WD40 but now think that is probably a bit too much of a solvent. Paraffin does a good job at cutting through old chain lube and is cheap.

You chain is probably fine. Just run and lube as normal, see what it's like in a few hundred miles.

[Buggrit]

+1 for paraffin. It's cheap and leaves chain nice and clean, ready for a lube of your choice. 

[Yoyo]

Don't suppose you have access to a compressor? A paraffin gun is a brilliant way to clean the chain and sprockets.

.

[joderest]

UPDATE
As others have said, it all appears fine, however, I did post a while ago that my PD oiler ran out of oil, and it was a bit silly of me not to check it and top up, however, noticed that fresh oil was not getting on the chain after topping up, thought maybe needed bleeding, so tried this morning, only to find oil running down OUTSIDE of tube, on closer inspection, I must have cracked the pipe when doing the work on the backend of the bike, as there was a split, oil was running down on to the suspension linkage (which I thought was just fling off the chain), cut the tube back, and lucky enough had enough to reach again, all seems working again.
there's a moral here somewhere, but cannot think of it