I thought my bike was clean... until I opened the sprocket cover.

[Danny500]

I thought I had a massive oil leak today. I went out to my bike and noticed black oil around my shifter, all over the frame, and on my kick-stand. I looked under the bike and the same black oil was on my oil pan, shock, and swingarm... first though... seal failure. After freaking out i remembered that i oiled my chain recently with a new GUNK oil that I bought... (I hate it.. toooo thin.) And realized that this was the problem. The oil loosened up all this road grime in the sprocket housing and it was now dripping EVERYWHERE.

So, I took the cover off and... well... it was a sight from a horror movie. There was 1/2 an inch of 8 year old, compounded road grime in the bottom of the case in every crack and crevice. The stuff was caked into the clutch actuator, all over the push rod, all over the shift shaft and packed up and around the back of the sprocket and around the shaft seal.

It took about 1 1/2 hours to get it cleaned up. I had to go back and fourth between engine degreaser, soap and water, and a 60/40 mix of paint thinner and gasoline on a tooth brush to clean it all off. After all was said and done and it was looking close to new again I sprayed all case surfaces with CemSearch Dry-Lubricant. It basically acts like a temporary teflon coating and protects against stickage. We use it at my old work all the time to keep wet grass from gumming up lawn-mower decks. So hopefully this will keep things protected for a while..

In the mean time I've switched back to using Bel-Ray wax...

What do you guys use?

Dan

[Skeets]

For chain wax? I buy this stuff in a purple can called "Chain wax" nothing special. It's $9.99 and it doesn't fling. On another forum I hear people using dupont chain lube etc.

[Danny500]

I've heard of the dupont stuff and might give it a try. The stuff I have normally runs about 12 a can and won't fling either. I just thought I'd try a new brand and NEVER AGAIN with that stuff. Lol, it went on like water... the spray almost looked as thin as brake cleaner.

And no... the stuff isn't chain cleaner... it's lube... shitty, shitty lube.

Dan

[fred]

Yeah, I opened my sprocket cover and found something like 14 years of road crud in there. I tried scraping it off for a while, then figured it has been there for 14 years, what's a bit more and left it where it was...

[jp]

You're going to get build-up int there no matter what you use, unless you don't lube the chain enough. Even the chain wax will eventually build-up, it'll just take longer to do so. When you put a new chain and front sprocket on, take the extra time to clean out that area. I learned this on my 82 GS1100E. I hadn't changed the front sprocket in a couple of chains, and noticed I was having trouble shifting, and there was brown gunk leading out of the sprocket area. When I pulled the sprocket cover, I found the gunk built up so much that it causing drag on the shifter shaft passing through there. It took about 20 -30 minutes to clean everything up really good, and solved both the leak and the shifting problem.