[keetmanaa]

Now this is a strange question coming from someone that has been riding since the '50s, albeit many miles with a shaft drive, but yesterday after using the Kettenmax to clean the gravel grime off my V-Strom's chain and proceeding to dutifully apply DuPont Teflon I asked myself "just what are you lubing?' I dribble the Teflon over the o-rings then on the center of the chain but why? Is the purpose just to keep the o-rings from drying out? Surely the Teflon on the driven part of the chain will have a short life (and probably end up under the drive sprocket cover).
I've followed the clean then lube duty religiously and always get 15 k to 25k miles before I change the chain and sprockets and never questioned the need, until now.
Thoughts?

 

[greywolf]

Start with post #18 at http://www.stromtrooper.com/v-strom-service-maintenance-questions-discussions/63959-what-correct-procedure-cleaning-oiling-chain-2.html

 

[keetmanaa]

Interesting! I guess it's not a new question. After reading through the threads (thanks for the links) I come to the conclusion that the two main purposes of my lubing the chain are: 1) keeping the o-ring fresh and 2) lubing the bushing to roller contact.
I think I'm doing the o-ring lube correctly by "dribbling" the Teflon onto the o-rings on both sides of the link but I guess I should direct the spray nozzle to the junction of roller/ bushing in hopes some will make it into the space between.

 

[kick]

A quality chain lube also provides a lubricating barrier between the chain to sprocket contact points, greatly extending the life of each.

 

[oldturtle]

DL1000 specifically

With my 06 DL1000 I have been liberally applying good quality chain lube and never was too concerned about fling. Always believed that more is better than less. I recently pulled front sprocket cover and clutch slave cylinder and was faced with hugh amount of packed up oily dirt and gravel that had been hampering clutch push rod. So now for me it will be strictly limited amount of WD40 with hope to minimize this clutch interference. WD40 is too light for best chain lube but will be only lube for my Vee.

On my other bikes I will continue to use good quality chain lube and clean up after lube fling.

 

[swingset]

With my 06 DL1000 I have been liberally applying good quality chain lube and never was too concerned about fling. Always believed that more is better than less. I recently pulled front sprocket cover and clutch slave cylinder and was faced with hugh amount of packed up oily dirt and gravel that had been hampering clutch push rod. So now for me it will be strictly limited amount of WD40 with hope to minimize this clutch interference. WD40 is too light for best chain lube but will be only lube for my Vee.

On my other bikes I will continue to use good quality chain lube and clean up after lube fling.

Teflon dry-lube is a vastly better lube than WD-40, and will not fling or muck up the push-rod area.

:thumbup:

 

[greywolf]

Dupont multi purpose dry wax lube with Teflon or Bel-Ray super clean are both excellent chain lubes that will not cause a major sticky build up in that area.

 

[water warrior]

Just had a look at the front sprocket area after 25,000 kms. The build up from Du Pont was a very small amount compared to chain lube fling and mung I found from the previous 25,000 kms.

 

[OydnaR]

"just what are you lubing?'

you ask the question as if yer shafts didn't need lube


ANY metal to metal contact point needs lubrication or the metal (sprocket teeth/gear teeth)will heat and bend and break, for the same reason gears in a cars rear end need lube



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[Jimding]

Also

I would expect that rust accumulation on a chain would wear the sprockets in pretty short order. And I imagine that the o-rings need some lube to keep from wearing out as the chain repeatedly flexes. The modern 'superclean' lubes seem to work well without significant accumulation of grunge. WD-40 has little if any anti-rust capability (based on my experience with garden tools) and I'm not confident in its ability to provide lubrication long term. Works well for its intended purpose of driving out water, though.