How To Re-wax Your Chain & Make It Last Longer!

[Music] foreign [Music] I am going to show you two simple processes of how to reapply wax to your chain not only helping your site then be a little bit easier but it's also going to help improve the longevity and life of your chain helping it last much much longer before it needs to replace it this is going to help save you cash to spend on other upgrades for your bike or just do what I do and buy extra cake at the cafe thank you if you're running a rack and a wax chain on your bike gradually after say 300 to 500 kilometers the wax is gonna start to wear off but thankfully the process of reapplying the wax onto your chain is much much easier than the initial application an incredibly meticulous cleaning process now if you're going to use the hot melt wax method to rework your chain you are going to need to remove the chain from your bike thankfully that's a pretty simple process to do and we also have maintenance tasks such as that as well as many others in the essential road bike maintenance book which is available at shop.globalcyclingnetwork.com foreign [Music] there is also of course a much much simpler way of re-waxing a chain and that's to Simply use a drip on wax method which we're going to cover as well because that's much faster but doesn't quite yield the same performance and Longevity between applications [Music] so step one if you're using a hot melt wax method you're going to need to use a wax heater fill it up with wax turn it on and set it to around 65 to 70 degrees Celsius this wax heater that I've got cost 10 pounds on Amazon and has a little thermostat on it to allow to control the temperature which is what you want oh and the wax I'm using is actually recycles I've already heated it up from the pellet form in the bag but there's no harm in doing that just reuse what you got step two thoroughly wipe your chain while pedaling backwards with a microfiber cloth oh so at this point you have two options option one apply your drip on wax lubricant such as this you can apply one big drop per roller work your way all the way around the chain and then pedal backwards to get the lube into all the links and the rollers and then you need to leave it for at least four hours for the wax to dry properly before your ride and then you're ready to go until that wax wears off and you can just redo the same process or you have the second option [Music] which is step three where you remove the chain from your bike for the hot wax method now you have a quick link such as this is actually pretty easy to remove your chain using something such as these which are the park tools MLP 1.2 or if you haven't got a quick link you can just use a chain tool like this to drive out the joining pin and then when you come to put the chain back together you can just refit a quick link and life is really easy but do note some quick links are designed to be single use but in my experience you should be able to get somewhere in the region of three to five uses before they come a little bit loose and will then start to replace it but proceed with caution thank you [Music] step four Once the wax heater has got up to temperature which this one has because I planned ahead earlier um you need to just simply lift the lid off check that it's nice and runny inside which looks good to go to me and then lower your chain into the hot wax and as you're doing this you want to make sure all of the chain is submerged in but do be careful the wax is hot [Music] with a chain inside the wax heater you're going to want to leave that for around five minutes the reason you're doing that is to allow the chain to get up to the temperature of the wax and allow the wax to start to work its way into all the little links and the little gaps give it five minutes we can then also take an old screwdriver such as this or quite frankly anything you're prepared to get a little bit of wax onto and then move the chain and agitate it round a little bit step five Harem left the chain in there to sit for a bit I can flick the wax heater off and then it's a case of leaving it a few minutes for that film to form onto the top now if I take the lid off it's going to allow it to cool down super fast and then I can get a small pick such as this or just screwdriver and then hook the chain out once that skin has formed on the top I just Stir It round and then hook it up and then at that stage I can hang it up on the wall and leave it for a few minutes for the chain to cool being mindful not to burn your hands because the wax is hot and if you haven't planned ahead and got somewhere to hang your chain well you can just stand there and hold it for five minutes wishing you had planned ahead but hey there's always next time [Music] once the chain is cooled it's gonna be stiff as a board and you're going to need to manually manipulate all of the different links to free it all off and this can be a bit of a messy process hence why we've come outside to not make any mess in the garage it's just a case of carefully going through in your hands and bend in all of the individual links just to free them off now as you do this some of the external bits of wax is gradually going to flake off so work our way all the way around the chain and then at this point once you've freed it all off we can head back inside and you've got a freshly waxed chain which is ready to fit onto your bike but also do be mindful there is still going to be more wax to flake off but you need to take a little bit of time to bed this chain in which will normally take 10 minutes or so [Music] when it comes to refitting the chain on your bike you need to be mindful because some chains are directional now a simple rule of thumb to tell if it's directional is whether it has writing on the outer links on both sides or just one side now simple rule of thumb is literally to have the outer links with the text on facing towards the outside of the bike as you install it on also the quick links which I've used I have cleaned with a microfiber cloth and you can see the ends of the chain here are full of wax so it's just a case of pushing a quick link through and it might be a little bit stiff to get the links to join together if that's the case you can just squeeze them together gently with a pair of pliers and if you had a normal joining pin having your chain together in the first instance you can use the chain tool to remove one of the ends of outer links and then that means you can reinstall a quick link ready to go front let's get on [Music] at this point you've got a freshly waxed chain ready to go for another few hundred kilometers of silky smooth riding but do remember it is going to take around 15 minutes worth of riding to bed the chain in and get the gears to all work nicely at this point the wax is going to start to flake off on the outside and even just with a few minutes of pedaling make a bit of a mess on my floor and also interesting I have noticed that 12 speed chains seem to take a little bit longer to bed in and get to their Peak Performance a little bit longer than what we have with 11 speed chains and I'm going to say now personally I'm starting to use the hot wax method less and less recently because I'm finding by using the drip on wax you can get pretty close to the same performance with a lot less hassle but it has to be said if you do want to have the best in terms of performance longevity between applications and a reduction in overall drivetrain wear then hot wax does seem to be at the top of the list anyway I hope you enjoyed this maintenance video and found it particularly helpful if you have let me know in the comments section down below and also if you've got any questions about waxing and chain get us in the comments section um but do remember waxing chain isn't for everybody and that is one of the freedoms that's afforded to you right I'm out of here see you later such an olive

Channel: GCN Tech

Views: 146,107

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Id: pVo8MttQmyY

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023