CHAINSORE

The three drive chains were in such a bad state that I had fully expected to buy new. They were rusty, partially seized and full of crud.  I had assumed that a chain was a chain was a chain but the number of types and sizes is bewildering coupled with inconsistencies in the way suppliers use varying reference numbers or names to identify different sizes and types. Anyway as I’m keen to restore rather than buy new wherever possible I thought I would do my best to clean up these chains. They were first soaked with Gunk followed by neat washing up liquid, thoroughly scrubbed and then all the individual links were methodically cleaned up with the rotary wire brush attachment on my bench grinder. (Don’t try this at home folks, very sore fingers despite wearing thick leather gloves.) Finally they were buffed up with an emery pad and sprayed with oil. Although this task took several hours the end result is indistinguishable from new. All I have to do now is to remember to fix these chains onto the drive cog wheels prior to assembly.