So I’m taking the opportunity to replace with a pre waxed chain that I bought from a fellow club member who was selling various spares for a charity.
The chain in question is a Shimano Ultegra item and has been ‘properly’ waxed (which I understand means it was stripped, cleaned, and then dipped following a set process to optimise the outcome).
This will be my first experience with a waxed chain so I have a couple of newbie questions:
how fastidious should I be about cleaning the cassette / chain ring / derailleur jockey wheels etc before fitment? My assumption is SUPER clean and degreased but wanted to check this was necessary?
assuming ‘average joe’ levels of wear - what sort of mileage should I expect to see from the chain wax before i need to consider removing and swapping out for another chain? I expect to average around 500 miles a month on my road bike, so was hoping it would see me into May?
aim is to avoid rainy days / mud etc but if that’s unavoidable, what is a sensible cleaning protocol to protect the wax but still get the bike clean?
Finally - will I even notice a difference? I currently keep my chain cleaned and regularly lubricated (without over-oiling) so I’m presuming not?
I only use drip wax but I got 5000 miles out of my first drip waxed chain with no skip on changing. My next chain I got 8000miles with some skip after changing until it settled down after 2 rides. I guess I could have ran it for 10,000miles the old chain still looked good.
No idea on the performance improvement but its great not having dirty hands/ chain tatts. I think I would wipe things down occasionally and maybe apply drip wax when you so.
The cleaner the better. You will get longer life out of all your drive train parts when dirt and grit is not grinding them down.
Wipe your chain down and drip wax your chain every 250 miles. At 6000 miles per year your chain might last 2 years or more.
After a wet ride clean your bike as you normally would. Spraying the chain with a garden hose should knock off most of the dirt. Wipe the chain with a clean rag.
I’ve been waxing for a couple years at this point. I’ve never bought a pre-waxed chain, but I imagine the same rules apply.
-When I first changed over from lube to wax, I did clean my cassette/chainring. I don’t think it would hurt to clean as such, but general consensus is that it is unnecessary. We strip grease off of the chain so that wax adheres to the chain, but we are not applying wax to the chainring/cassette.
-I usually get ~300 miles of rain free road riding before my chain starts to make some noise. Your results may vary, I would expect that a pre-waxed chain would last longer. When my chain does start making noise, I apply some Silca drip wax to the chain to extend the cycle another ~100 miles. This can be continued, but each application of drip wax lasts shorter and shorter (at least for me).
-Moisture will wear wax away faster. If I do a 60 mile ride after a heavy rain, the wax is toast afterwards and my chain is ready to be rewaxed. It would probably be wise to dry the chain off after such a ride, but I don’t.
-The difference I noticed is that when I have to change wheels or adjust my derailleur, I don’t have greasy hands afterwards. That’s the reason I switched to wax, its mess-free and is an excellent way to front load maintenance.
I have 4 chains that switch between. Once one chain is ready to be rewaxed, I swap out the next fresh chain and keep going. Once all four are ready to be waxed, I make an event of it. This gets me a few months between waxes, and takes me about 20 minutes to get all chains waxed. The longest part of the process is letting the crock pot heat up and melt the wax.
I bought a Dura Ace pre-waxed chain from Silca, and it’s still rocking, still quiet, still flexible, still clean. Do not regret buying it. Then I bought their wax kit on sale and did a few of my own chains. (For noobs, it’s really easy to do, no worries. If I could afford it, I’d buy pre-waxed, hands down, but doing it myself isn’t hard. Just don’t use a fresh waxed chain on a trainer attached bike, the crumbs are numerous and easy to grind into carpet and fabric material, but it seems to wash out fairly easily too)
You definitely want the entire drivetrain as clean as possible before installing the waxed chain for a few reasons:
Waxed chains really reduce the drivetrain wear because dirt and grime are abrasives (think sandpaper) which is what actually causes your chain and gears to wear (chain “stretch” is actually all the internal holes of the links getting larger, the metal does not stretch). So if you don’t get all that off, you aren’t really reducing the wear
That dirt and grime plus left over oil will to some extent get picked up by the wax and contaminate the chain. If you then put that chain in a pot of wax, the wax will get contaminated by the oil and grime. Then every chain after that gets contaminated too
Having a clean to the touch drivetrain is awesome
Your drivetrain will continue to pick up dirt until you get rid of all the oil.
So, it’s a no brainier to have everything clean before using the waxed chain.
A few more tips:
It’s fine to only drip wax the chain. No need to melt wax it. However, when you do drip wax it after it gets squeaky, you should drip wax it and let it dry 2-3 times in a row to really get a good coating down in the pins. This can be as simple as waxing it after your ride a couple times in a row.
Always wipe the chain down before waxing. Wiping it down more often is better. You’re getting any surface dirt off
Don’t let your drip wax bottle see freezing temps because the wax can separate from the liquid carrier. Once the wax has dried on your chain it can handle freezing temps fine.
If it’s an 11 or 12 speed Shimano chain it is directional. Make sure the writing is facing away from the bike
I used to use ‘white lightning’ chain lube. It was supposed to be a liquid wax concoction. Time after time the caps would fail, and the ‘vehicle**’ would evaporate. That stuff is very flammable and reeks… After using lots of it, I imagined my liver freaking out. I ended up tossing a few bottles that had evaporated and just finally admitted the stuff was crap and switched to a variety of other methods and figured maybe waxing is worth trying. I do have the Silca ‘Secret chain liquid’ but haven’t opened it up yet, partly over the feeling it has to be like the above mentioned stuff. shrug Call me an alarmist, but I’m exposed to so many chemicals during the day, adding more, I’ll pass.
But you do you… Ride on!!
** Keeps the ‘wax’ in solution, and then evaporates, hopefully leaving the solids where they are intended to be.
Also not saying that the Silca wax doesn’t smell quite a bit. It does, just hoping it’s not an issue.
The cleaner the better, but it’s not critical that it’s perfectly clean.
In good conditions on the road, I try to swap chains every 250 miles or so. They get noisy in a hurry at some point, I personally don’t like to get to that point.
You should always be careful about hitting any part of your drivetrain with water when cleaning (particularly spots than are prone to water entry like chain, bearings, etc. A gentle stream of water on the frame is all you need. Just wipe the waxed chain down with a rag.
The best thing about waxing is getting rid of the oily mess. No more concerns about grabbing a dirty chain, stains, massive buildup of gunk, etc. The performance is just a bonus for me.
And I seldom use drip wax, I find hot waxing much more effective and cleaner. It’s just not that hard to have a few chains in rotation and wax them all in batches as needed. Cheap crock pot and some coat hangers to hold the chains. Just wipe them down with a rag before re-waxing, no need to get crazy with cleaning before re-waxing. Wax will get dirty in the crock pot over time, just swap in fresh wax.
There’s absolutely no smell to the Silca Super Secret Drip Wax, so it must not contain any hydrocarbons. It looks and feels like water with wax and tungsten disulfide particles emulsified into it. I am not worried about breathing around it (no detectable fumes) and touching it.
Oh, memory popped up: I used a chain lube for my dirt bike back in the 80’s that smelled like bananas, Turns out (from what I heard) it was pulled from the market because people were smelling it too much and it was making them sick. It did smell really good though… (Hopefully not as bad as the model airplane glue I used to build a ton of those plastic models as a kid )
Honestly I have been hesitant to try it because winter and it being a PITA working outside or in the garage, and having to open doors and windows, and freezing.
I partially remember a story told by an older man who was taking about how they worked on cars ‘back in the day’. That they would use ether to set the beads on tires (might be wrong on the ether) but they would put some in the tire, seat the tire on the rim and light a match. The ether either blew the tire off, or set the beads perfectly.
White lightning is terrible. I think it’s the lube ZFC uses for chain longevity testing - literally because it’s the one that will wear the quickest, so it speeds up the test!
And like I said the caps shatter, and the stuff evaporates and smells like a Superfund site. I dropped their stuff years ago, and finally threw the bottles out last year. (Junk boxes/bins shield/hid a lot of things)
(Hopefully not as bad as the model airplane glue I used to build a ton of those plastic models as a kid 
)
Who knew…