Total Motorcycle Community Forums

falcon93 wrote:I'm a little late to this discussion, but I for one will not ever buy another bike with a chain. I am already on my second chain. First one wore out at 6,000 miles and that was with following the Owner's manual recommendations of oiling every 200 miles and cleaning every 500 miles. The second chain is almost 1/2 worn out with another 2000 miles following the same procedures. After I'm done with my current bike, I'm done with chains. I hate them. Just my personal oppinion.

Did you replace the sprockets when you replaced your chain the second time?

6,000 miles is absurdly low mileage for a chain. I get 20,000 miles out of mine and getting 50,000 miles out of a chain and sprocket set with a Scottoiler is very common.

I have no problem with my chain. Just hit 10k miles with one adjustment by me and one adjustment by the shop becuase they changed the tire. My sprocket is still fine as well, I expect to hit 20k before I need to change it out.

I clean it every few weeks and lube it when I remember which is pretty often I guess.

RhadamYgg wrote:Plus I have lovely little marks on my driveway with white chain oil all over the place.

Oh, and I know I'm supposed to apply the chain lube sparingly, but I can't seem to help gloping the "crumb" all over the place.

You're using waaaayy too much. But you know that.... Hint: the chain is sealed. You're only applying a little lube to the outside of the seals to ensure they don't dry out.

falcon93 wrote:I'm a little late to this discussion, but I for one will not ever buy another bike with a chain. I am already on my second chain. First one wore out at 6,000 miles and that was with following the Owner's manual recommendations of oiling every 200 miles and cleaning every 500 miles. The second chain is almost 1/2 worn out with another 2000 miles following the same procedures. After I'm done with my current bike, I'm done with chains. I hate them. Just my personal oppinion.

Something is not right. Even assuming you were using a cheaper standard chain (as opposed to an O-ring), a Virago 250 should not be wearing out chains at that rate. I'd expect 10K - 12K out of a standard chain on that bike, and about double that for an O-ring.

Any possibility that you're adjusting the chain to tightly? That will cause greatly accelerated wear. I always adjust my chain to the loose end of the spec and it rarely needs adjustment (twice in 23K miles). I also never bothered cleaning it. My buddy, who has the same bike, is always adjusting his chain to the tight end of the spec and he gets about half the chain life that I do.

My current chain died, not of stretch related wear, but from worn out O-rings. I still had quite a bit of adjustment left, but the O-rings were breached and it was making some disturbing sounds under acceleration loads.

Right now I'm waiting to adjust the chain again until it basically is about to fall off as I want to maximize the life. Everytime I have adjusted it I actually measured the slack and made sure it was on the loose end of the spec. I'm not sure why I'm having so much trouble with it, maybe its that I have gotten 2 lemon chains or I ride too hard. I don't really know.

falcon93 wrote:Right now I'm waiting to adjust the chain again until it basically is about to fall off as I want to maximize the life. Everytime I have adjusted it .........

How often do you adjust it?

I have one 3-year old bike with 16K miles, I've adjusted the chain once, and need to do it again soon. The other bike is less than 2 years old, has 17K miles, and I've never adjusted it - doesn't need it yet.

jstark47 wrote:
I have one 3-year old bike with 16K miles, I've adjusted the chain once, and need to do it again soon. The other bike is less than 2 years old, has 17K miles, and I've never adjusted it - doesn't need it yet.

This is the way it should be with modern o-ring chains.

Reading some of the other posts, it sounds like people are lubing and adjusting chains like it is 1958. Why???

A lot of people it sounds like they are doing more harm than good with their ridiculous overlubing of their o-ring chains. All that is doing is creating a place for more junk to stick to.

I almost never lube my chain, and when I do, it is very lightly. And like Mr. Stark, it almost never needs adjusting and it basically lasts almost forever. In fact, I have never replaced a chain on any of my bikes ever.

It makes me laugh when someone says shafts are maintenance-free and chains are high maintenance. That is pure fiction on both counts. In fact, that amount of time and effort I put into the annual axle oil change on my R1150R is about the same as what I put into chain lubing on each of my individual chain driven bikes.

I have an x-ring chain on mine and have just shy of 9000 miles on it. I just adjusted it at about 8500 for the first time.

I lube my chain about every 500 miles - it's had to be adjusted once so far. I switched away from all the lubes that have the globby white stuff to a brand a lot of off-road riders use. It seems to collect way less muck that way.

Oh - and the sportster is definitely a belt drive. I had one.

im thinking of switching to the wax....