Mastering Chain Lube Maintenance for Peak Motorcycle Performance

Publisher's Note: Welcome to our nineteenth edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Mastering Chain Lube Maintenance for Peak Motorcycle Performance".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

Mastering Chain Lube Maintenance for Peak Motorcycle Performance

John Gardner: So much power and so much fun, welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. You know that power doesn't do you any good if you can't get it to the rear wheels. That's why we're talking about chain lube and maintenance. If you've ever replaced a chain on one of these bikes, you know it can be as easy as just replacing a master link, and/or you may have to go get a chain breaker and bust it all apart. It's a tedious process, so you don't want to mess with it.

Now, what goes on when a chain starts to wear? You can see it right here: the rollers, the pins, it starts to wear and what happens? It starts jumping teeth. You're not getting power back there. Then the chain starts to stretch, you're getting a lot of slack, you're not getting the clutch feel, you're not taking off. It's a big problem.

And Len, you ran this test. Tell me about it.

Len Groom: "That was a 200-mile test, 5 hours, and we compared many different chain lubes. We were looking at different things about wear on the pins, wear on the sprockets, just basic general wear protection of the product.

John Gardner: And you can actually see the AMSOIL versus the competitor on the lube on the actual chain link and the sprocket itself."

Now, what characteristics make a good chain lube?

Len Groom: "Well, there's a few things in there that you look to do because this chain lives in such a bad environment. It's dirty, you know, it can be hot. The lube needs to be properly formulated, as any product would be. You've got anti-wear additive in there to keep the chain looking really nice. You've got some rust and corrosion protection in there because if you've ridden a dirt bike like I have, you're in the water with it sometimes. And then you want it to be sticky but not too sticky that it attracts dirt. So, it's a very fine balance and those are the three things that we really were testing when we were running that test."

John Gardner: AMSOIL did just that. Now, to put it on, it was super easy. We just jacked up the bike, cleaned the chain, made sure it was clean, sprayed it on there and, like you said, that was the neat part as we were spraying it on there, you can kind of see it stick to it. Let it dry for 15 minutes then it wasn't tacky anymore, so it wasn't picking up any dirt so, awesome product

Len Groom: Exactly works as it's designed, proven by the testing. Go get yourself a can.

John Gardner: And you can do just that. Get yourself a can.