Workshop Tips

If there’s one thing that you have do yourself, regularly, it is to lubricate your chain. The advent of the ‘O-ring’ chain has made this less essential than previously, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that intervals between lubrications has been extended, even if the need to has not.

- Harry Fisher

Lubrication will not only extend the life of the chain but also the gearbox and rear sprockets and help with quieter running. So often I hear the argument that, because it doesn’t rain at all in Gauteng during winter, then there is no need lubricate because water spray won’t wash away the film of oil on the chain.

What these people fail to realise is that the lack of rain only serves to increase the amount of dust, which is fantastically abrasive. With no filter, such as you find cleaning air before it enters the engine or oil in the engine, a chain is extremely exposed and therefore needs all the help it can get to give long life.