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- The chain is one of the most important parts of the bike.
It has to go through a hell of a lot of stress.
If it wasn't enough that it has to put up with
the torque that your leg power puts through it
is also has immense twisting forces
from all of the gear range.
So, it's not surprising that here
and there you snap the chain.
So here's three ways to rejoin your chain.
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Tools for the job: you'll need a chain tool
or a multi tool that's got a chain tool on it,
particularly one with a second set of jaws.
You'll also need a bent spoke or a third hand tool,
a Shimano joining pin, a master link
and a pair of pliers.
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So there are three ways to rejoin your chain
using a dedicated Shimano pin,
using the chain tool itself
or using a powerlink.
Now, these are really handy
because you can pretty much just
snap together a chain quickly.
Great if you're out on the trail in the rain,
perhaps in a race.
They're also really good because
you can use them on different branded chains.
This one is made by Connex
and is compatible with Shimano and SRAM.
SRAM and Shimano also make their own respective ones.
This is how you use them.
To start with, before you use the powerlink
you need to make sure you've got
two male ends of the chain.
If you've snapped your chain
you may have twisted part of the link
so make sure you remove those.
Also, take note if you take out too many links
you're not gonna be able to use all of your gears
so just be cautious of that.
With the opposite sides of the link in place
you simply clip them together and you pull them tight.
As you can see, this one isn't pulling tight very easily
so I've got a nice little trick for you to do this.
Cycle the chain until this link is on the top
and then you can use the force of the pedals
to click it into place.
Here we go.
Now you want to hold the back wheel.
Ideally you would do this stood over the bike.
This is just for demonstration.
And you just push down on the pedal.
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This method is a classic method of joining a chain
using a proper chain splitting tool.
I always prefer to look for one
that's got two sets of jaws on it.
Reason for that is you've got
one set that's splitting the chain
and the other set is to remove a stiff link.
I'll show you how to use both of those right now.
When you're splitting your chain
and when you're tightening it up
in order to rejoin it correctly
make sure you don't draw off the pin all the way out.
You need to have enough on the inside of the link here
so you can snap the chain links back together.
Nice little tip for you to do at home here
is make sure that you drive it out
towards the outside of the bike which means
you've got access to the tool from this side.
Now it's a case of snapping the links together
as you can see here.
There we go.
The next stage is to drive the pin
back through using the chain splitter.
The objective here is to drive the pin
back through into the chain.
Now you've got to be careful here.
You don't want to come out too far on the other side
so the chain pin isn't staying into the outer link.
So just monitor it as you drive it through.
You will feel a slight hard push
as it locates on the far side.
It goes in nice and easy up til here
and I can feel it just about to grip
and push into the back side plate.
Now I can see that and it's equal on both sides.
If you look here, you'll see the chain
looks like it's new almost.
Now sometimes when you're rejoining a chain
using this method you'll get a stiff link.
This is caused when you're pushing the pin through
and it actually pulls both the outers together
quite tight on the inner roller.
To remove that, what you do is you
lay the chain into the next set of jaws
which is a further away set
from what you were just using
and by applying pressure on the pin driver
you'll actually pull the outer plate slightly further away.
You only want to do this a minute amount.
Literally like the tiniest hair of a turn
will be enough just to free the link.
As you can see that is nice and free.
Ready to ride.
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The third method for joining a chain
is by using a Shimano joining pin.
With a Shimano chain it's important
to use a joining pin or a master link
rather than rejoining the chain
using the existing pins in it.
Now the reason for that is the profile of the Shimano pin
is slightly flanged at both ends
and if you drive out an existing pin in the chain
and you push it back in again
you'll find it's minutely smaller.
The chain will still join
but it will be a weak link
and at some point it's definitely gonna fail.
This is why Shimano have these dedicated pins.
They're quite long and you push them into place
and you snap off the additional material.
So to join a Shimano chain
using a dedicated Shimano joining pin
you need a male and a female end of the chain.
As before, if you snap your chain
and it's damaged in any way
you need to remove those damaged links.
Again, if your chain is shortened by doing this
to an extent that you can't use all of your gears
just be cautious of that
until you can add in some more links.
Now it's just using your trusty third hand tool
to help you join the chain up.
That's holding it nicely for me
and I'm ready to put the pin in place.
Note that all of the existing pins
here on this chain this is how they look.
See this darker one?
This is an actual Shimano joining pin.
One that was probably used to start with to join this chain.
I'm just lining the chain up.
Then I'm just gonna push the pin into place.
As in the case of using the chain tool
you want to drive the pin through
and you'll feel a natural resistance where it stops.
Stop right there.
Chain is sat in the first set of jaws here.
I'm just gonna drive this pin into place.
As I said, you've gotta pay attention
when you're doing this
and you'll feel it push all the way through
and there'll be a nice, natural resistance
when you get to the correct position.
Which is...
about there on this chain.
So the chain is joined at this point.
You'll notice there's a large part
of the Shimano joining pin poking out the back of the chain
so if I move my third hand tool here
I should be able to see this a bit easier.
This piece simply snaps off.
You've gotta be pretty careful doing this.
You want to hold the chain with both hands ideally
because you don't want it to risk twisting, okay?
Now use a pair of pliers.
If you've got a multi tool in your trail pack
it's kind of good to have that sort of thing.
And you just gently snap off the end.
I'm going with the direction of the chain here
so it can't add any sort of twisting stress to it.
I'm just gonna snap this off.
And there we go.
So the chain is joined successfully
using the Shimano joining pin.
However, just like any other joining system
you still need to check that
you haven't got a stiff link.
Chances of that are pretty slim
because of the design of the pin
but here we go anyway.
As you can see it moves nice and freely.
Job done.
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If you want to find out a bit more
about replacing a chain, click up here.
If you want to find out
how to clean your drive chain, click down here.
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