Chain vs. belt vs. shaft drive?

[CORSCO]

I'm a shaft drive guy, my Ascot and VMX. The pros...low maintenance. The manual calls for first service and every 20k miles (give or take). But I change it every service. It takes five minutes and its cheap. The cons...no gearing changes. Unless you talken money.

Chain Drives...pros..affordable gearing changes. Give the girl a new character! And hey, chain and sprockets are a maintanence item any way. cons...At some point, you will have to replace them.

Belts...pros...it's proven and its clean. Less adjustments than a chain. cons...more expensive to change gearing.

All the aboved mentioned final drives are all reliable if maintaned properly. If not, chains break, belts snap, and shaft drives implode. Do not let this be a big factor in deciding what to buy. If the bike grabs you, let it.

[angrypeppers]

Thanks, Corsco! Like I said, the final drive isn't a deal breaker, more just curious about people's experience, and maybe get some hints on what to look for while shopping. I appreciate the info!

Chris

[The Grinch]

Ah chains. I hear more naff stuff about chains than almost anything else, except perhaps for octane ratings and stuff like that.

The thing that kills chains is not lack of lubrication (I've rarely seen a chain completely without lubrication, but more on that later) but dirt. Road dirt and grime mixes with the chain's lubrication and the result is remarkably similar to grinding paste. This sludge wears away at the chain plates and pins and causes the chain to elongate (not stretch as some people call it) until finally it's unusable. Chains run in a clean environment, such as those in sealed primary drive systems that run in an oil bath, last a very long time.

The best way to clean a chain is to remove it from the bike and soak it in a solvent. Cleaning a chain on the bike removes the surface grit, but does nothing to remove the grit embedded between the plates and pins. In fact, it can drive grit deeper into the interstices of the chain.

The best chain lube is a heavy oil, such as 80-90 SAE gear oil. Expensive specialty motorcycle chain lubes do no better than plain gear lube. Those who say that the specialty lubes cause less splatter and fling-off are slathering on too much lube and need to to learn how to lube a chain properly.

Wax is useless as a chain lube. It's a solid, and as such it is quickly displaced by the motion of the plates and pins, and once it is displaced, any value it may have had as a lubricant are gone.