Lube the Kart Chain Before You Get to the Track

A kart chain fails from the inside. If you only spray it in the grid, you are late.

This is not a pitch for a brand of chain lube. It is the process we use so the chain lasts a weekend and does not dump oil into the clutch.

#219 and #35 are not roller chain

True roller chain starts at 1/2 inch pitch. That is #40, #41, #420, #428, and up.

#219 and #35 do not have rollers in the same way. The chain binds at the pin and the inside of the link, not on the shiny outside plates. Spray on the outside does almost nothing. The gap between the connecting plate and the fixed plate is the path into that joint. The larger that gap, the easier it is to get oil where it belongs.

The job is simple. Get oil between the pin and the plates. How you do it, when you do it, and what you use decides whether the chain is free or tight on Sunday.

Do this at home, not on race morning

Take the chain off the kart.

Clean it with WD-40 and air. Skip brake cleaner, solvent, and gasoline. Those leftovers will ruin the oil bath you are about to make.

Use a continuous chain when you can. A master link is the weak point. That is the link that lets go at the worst time.

Oil and wax bath

You need:

  • A coffee can
  • About 2 inches of 30 weight petroleum automotive oil (or scale the batch to 32 ounces of oil if you want a reusable can for the season)
  • Half of one paraffin wax cube from the grocery box (the box has three cubes)
  • Optional: WS2 nano lubricant (tungsten disulfide powder) mixed into the wax

Macro close-up of WS2 nano lubricant powder texture, showing the fine dark gray particles in a loose pile.

Close-up of fine dark WS2 nano lubricant powder mounded in a clear glass dish, showing the dry powder texture.

Pile of charcoal-gray tungsten disulfide WS2 nanopowder in a shallow glass dish used for mixing into oil and paraffin chain wax.

Set the can in a frying pan with about 1/2 inch of water in the pan. That is your double boiler. No direct flame on the can.

If you are adding WS2, melt the paraffin first, then stir in about 10 grams of WS2 per 32 ounces of oil. That is roughly one third of a 28-gram jar. Mix the powder into the soft wax so it wets before it hits the oil. Too much powder just settles and flings off; 10 grams is enough to darken the bath without turning it into paste. Then stir that wax into the oil.

Put the chain and the sprockets in the oil. Heat on medium, about 180 F, for 30 to 45 minutes. Do not boil the oil. Heat opens the joints. Boiling breaks the oil down.

When the wax melts into the oil, you are done. Pull the parts. Hang them over the can so the extra drips back in. You can reuse that bath week after week.

Why heat works: oilite bushing plants heat the oil and pull air out of the pores so oil moves in. A new oilite bushing is about 15 percent oil by weight. You are doing a shop version of the same idea. Heat drives air out of the pin joint. Oil takes its place. The wax sets up as a light seal so the oil stays around the pin instead of slinging off on the first warm-up. WS2 plates into the pin joint as a dry film once the carrier thins out under heat and load.

Let the chain cool. Bag it. Do not wipe it dry. Mount it at the track. There is enough lube in that chain and on the sprocket for a normal race weekend.

Keep extra oil off the clutch

At idle the clutch drum moves air like a small fan. That air cools the shoes. It also pulls loose oil off the chain and into the drum.

Check the engine blow-by line. It has to seal. A wet, poorly hooked line puts oil in places you do not want it. Do not use the blow-by line as a chain oiler. That shortcut costs more time than it saves.

Back to blog