Its that time already for me. Was wondering if any of yall went with aftermarket or stuck with Harley brand

 

Next chain for me will be one of the DID or similar ones with the gold passivated outer links. Just for corrosion resistance.

How many miles do you have on your bike to need a new chain and sprockets? Mine is at 5K and shows almost zero wear.

 

I've got 21k right now. My chain is trashed. I didn't notice anything really until 15k-ish

 

Hmm...I would think 20-30K should be an average motorcycle chain life, so yours is kind of within tolerances.

Have you maintained it well over the 21K miles (i.e. adjusted and lubed it regularly), or just ignored it - also, have you done much off roading?

Sorry for the questions, just trying to get an idea of what to expect from mine.

 

I cleaned and lubed it weekly or bi weekly and adjusted it whenever there was slack. Currently its FUBAR and adjusted to a ridiculous amount just to keep it going. It saw a bunch of highway/city miles, riding in the rain, mud and lots of off road in Texas. The techs told me 25k for that chain is the maximum life if I was gentle and lucky.

I mainly dealt with stretch and nothing else regarding the chain. It surface rusts very quickly when you're touring multiple states so carry a can of spray lube if you decide to do that

 

anyone know off the top of their head what size chain we need?

 

Thanks. That's pretty much my maintenance regime as well. Lots of riding in the rain here, so I know all about the surface rust. I figure if I get 20K miles out of it I will be fine with that - and will replace it with one that doesn't rust on the side plates!

 

15 to 20K on a chain when I was running them on the shovel, less if I was hard road tripping or hot-rodding and that was after I started spending big bucks on the high end o-ring chains. Before that 10k tops they were trashed with religious care. I just tossed a foot tall stack of old worn out rear sprockets from those days.

 

Reviving this thread, my chain went **** up on Saturday in Mississippi (18,500 miles). Long story but had some monster rain I rode through Friday getting there and the chain was nasty, I should have adjusted and lubed it (I'm lazy, I know) before I left... adjusted it Saturday morning and notice a couple links binding.

I had it replaced with 2 cheapo chains I bought at a local powersports motorcycle shop so I could get home. They didn't have a 120 in stock so we got 2 of the smaller and joined two 60 sections together. Made it back from Mississippi no problem after that but I want to get a better chain now. No idea the brand but they were $50 a piece from the dealer so they were cheapo's (I never saw the packaging).

So what I know, it's a 530 chain and assuming it's 120 links (as they said it was 2 x 60 joined together) but need that verified.

I'd like to know which brand and model chain you guys are looking at and why.

 

Hope to hear more about the direction you go. Was curious if anyone would start playing with different sprockets. Gearing up or down. If someone is bias to highway or an off road you may consider different gearing. Seems to be setup for best of both worlds right now.