Standard vs German timing chains

[richardthestag]

Hi All

Some of you may have seen comments made by me and responded to by others regarding Standard (ROLON) vs German (JWIS) chains.

By a coincidence I found the original set of German chains in my man cave, they were fitted June 1994 just after I first bought my car and covered 2600miles before I had to rebuild the engine. They were dispatched to the man cave because I was told that they could snap without warning, whether true or not I have run for over 30k miles on standard chains.

Chronology of Chain work on my engine is as follows;

June 1994 - 94,000 miles - fitted JWIS Chains, standard sprockets, guides and tensioners. To replace rattly standard chains, I recall that the sprockets taken off the engine were like vampire teeth, didn't keep them!

May 1996 - 96,600 miles - rebuilt engine, fitted new standard chains - on specialist advice, reused the tensioners, guides and sprockets. - probably against specialist advise because he wanted to sell me new

May 2002 - 108,000 miles - chains rattling IIRC long chain had stretched and hydraulic tensioner was extended. I binned them at the time I guess, cant find them but then I haven't been right through the garage yet

June 2013 - 127,000 miles - rebuilt engine again (started out as HGF ended up finding out that a certain supplier sells hardened cranks that aint), replaced chains, guides, tensioners and crank sprockets (sprockets because of my hamfistery with a slide hammer rather than anything else). The others were in good condition.

So in a nutshell
JWIS chains in the photos that follow covered just 2,600miles

ROLON chains in the photos that follow covered 19,000miles and did NOT rattle, the pic of the tensioners when fitted show the short chain to be good, the long chain was extended because I bent the cam sprocket support when jacking the LH head off broken studs. I have no reason to believe that the tensioner would have been out any further than the short chain.

Crank sprockets, tensioners and guides in the photos that were all fitted in June 1994 and had covered 33,000 miles, 2,600 miles with JWIS chains and 30,000 miles with standard ROLON chains

The worst guide was the quarter moon shaped one, tramlines were just under 1mm deep. The other guides, especially the flat guides had only light wear on the leading edge. I might have used them again and might yet if quality issues with 21st century items are proven!

The Tensioners were the worst, the tramlines are 2mm deep.

pics to follow.......

[richardthestag]

First pics are of the JWIS German chains, even having sat in a box for 18 years they cleaned up nice. I can see what people mean about quality, every single pin is peened over in exactly the same way. The roller more accurately fills the gap between the links.

BUT bear in mind these chains only did 2,600 miles

Short chain on bench
jwis short2.jpg

Bend test had it at 2.5cm
jwis short.jpg

Long chain on bench
jwis long2.jpg

Bend test had the long chain at 2.8cm
jwis long.jpg

[richardthestag]

Now pics of the ROLON standard chains that came off last summer, they had done 19,000 miles in 6 years

Short chain on bench
rolon short2.jpg

Bend test showed more wear 4.5cm but they didn't rattle, possibly would have soon though
rolon short.jpg

Long chain on bench
rolon long2.jpg

bend test again showed more wear - 5cm
rolon long.jpg

[richardthestag]

Next is the ROLON chains when fitted to the engine last year and shot during stripdown

First is a shiny roller pic on the cam sprocket
rolon fitted.jpg

Next is the Renold Tensioners as fitted. the outer (short chain) shows faily normal, would have been better had it not been for the deep tramlines on the shoe The inner tensioner is extended because I bent the cam sprocket support when jacking the head off <fnarr>
rolon fitted2.jpg

This is the tensioners when removed from the car, the groves are about 2mm deep
tensioners.jpg

This is the worst of the guides, the rest were barely marked! The tramlines were less than 1mm deep could see another few miles yet maybe
guide2.jpg

[richardthestag]

Next are the crankshaft sprockets.

To remind you these were fitted in 1994 and have covered 33,000 miles. Mostly on standard chains. Would have seen more miles had I not slightly mashed one removing it from my old dead crank. on closer inspection some teeth did have wear to them, highlighted in the last two pics..

The other sprockets, cams and jackshaft are still on the engine

sprockets.jpg

sprockets2.jpg

damage to some teeth - no idea if this is normal wear at 33k or damaged caused by standard chains
sprockets3.jpg

sprockets4.JPG

[richardthestag]

Lastly because I may be in danger of losing my audience if I ever had one

Two chains side by side

Top is 19,000mile old ROLON Standard
Bottom is 2,600mile old JWIS German

you can clearly see better quality in the near new vs near end of life chain.

The pins are better peened on the German chains,
The roller on the German chains are a much better fit.
The finish on the rollers of the German chains could just be because they have done a 10th ish of the mileage.
The links on both I cannot spot a Difference other than JWIS stamped one and ROLON on the other

both1.jpg

both2.jpg

thats-all-folks.jpg

[Ian Durrant]

I might be wrong but the finish on the edges of the "fish tail" plates on those "IWIS" chains don't look like the genuine IWIS chain I have used. There was talk on triumphstag.net forum of fake iwis chains being marketed as "German Chains".

[mike@thenook]

Hi Richard,
this is very enlightening, I wish I had kept and photographed my chains and sprockets after my rebuild last year but what I can say is that the chains would definitely have been Rolon as they were fitted by Hart Racing plus I am certain the tensioners too. I was tempted to re-use the sprockets as they all seemed ok, there was little slack in the chains but deep scoring in the tensioner guides. I used new sprockets and German chains from Paddocks but I re-built some original Renold tensioners using the new guides from the Rolon ones supplied by JP - just seem better made.
This rebuild took place after 25k and only as a result of HG failure so I guess I can safely say the Rolon chains were pretty reliable.
I wonder now how long the current parts will last, especially the guides which I am really not too confident about.

Cheers

[flying farmer]

If you get one chain and guides with significantly more wear on the rubbers than the other it is often a lubrication problem. On the engine for my project Stag there was a significant difference between the two, and the bad one had the oil hole in the tensioner blocked by a grain of casting sand!

I think the idea behind the move to the oil hole in the stem of the tensioners on the county item is to spray oil onto the chain before it hits the tensioner. This has got to help wear compared to the Reynolds system which adds the oil in the middle of the rubber.

The down side to this is that it is possible to over tension the chains and leave the oil hole in the stem still within the tensioner body which cuts off the oil flow and leads to high wear rates until the tensioner extends sufficiently to reveal the oil hole. This was the mistake I made first time I used a county tensioner many years ago. The position of the good tensioner in your photo is about the start position with a new county tensioner, if they had done 19,000 miles then they must have started with a much narrower gap. (I recall watching a demo at a national day nearly 20 years ago where the builder used a 25 thou feeler gauge to set the gap)

Wear on the crank sprockets is about what I would expect with rolon chains. As they stretch the load is taken by progressively fewer teeth on the crank sprocket which leads to the damage seen in the photos. What I don't like is the bits that are seen as burrs over the edge of the teeth tend to fall off after a while and these are small enough to pass through the oil strainer but large enough to score the pump.

This is why I prefer the idea of a better quality chain, to hopefully reduce this crank sprocket wear.

It will probably be a lot of years before I find out as I now have so many Triumphs on the road that non of them are doing big mileages any more. (MOT on the V8 Toledo yesterday, 330 miles between MOTs!)

Neil

[Ian Durrant]

Theres a close up pic on LD parts website which shows the edges, but having looked at it maybe its the lighting that makes the finish look wrong in your pictures. The IWIS chains have a notch on each curve of the fish plates and I remember reading elsewhere about that notch being missing on some chains that had iwis or jwis stamed on them.

http://www.ldparts.co.uk/shop/shop.php?c=viewproduct&pid=650&cat=96&maincat=1

[richardthestag]

Hi ian

Here are some better closeups of the jwis chains.

image.jpg

image.jpg

The jwis chain is a couple of thou narrower than the rolon chain. Not a lot in it but certainly not 1mm wider.

I doubt they are fake, bought them from soc spares

Unless their supply chain was rogue!

[Bob Heritage]

Bought mine from SOC Spares as well, a few years ago, all seem good so far.

[Ian Durrant]

Yes they look like mine in those pictures. Are they 12mm wide as in the LD Parts website?

[richardthestag]

Nope 11mm and just a couple of thou narrower than the rolon chains. Maybe 12mm is a 21c thing

[Ian Durrant]

Nope 11mm and just a couple of thou narrower than the rolon chains. Maybe 12mm is a 21c thing

Ok I had some time during the day for a change and so I had a look back through the discussions on triumphstag.net

It seems there may be two genuine IWIS chains of the right lengths one which has blued or blacked fish plates and one which has silver. Yours look like the blue and the ones LD parts are the silver. Therefore its entirely possible that one is 11mm wide and the other 12mm wide.

The chances are that the 12mm will have a higher breaking strain and also supposedly better finish to the chain edges. (There is a suggestion that the rougher edges are more responsible for tensioner wear but that can't really be that important as once the grooves are made its riding on the rollers anyway.)

The relevant post said :-

"Don't throw your chains away yet!! This info is primarily for the Aust market, but with the internet and E bay - well, they can go anywhere.

Seeing I bought my chains from a IWIS distributor referred from their German website (in Aust) and he was very informative and helpful and seemed very knowledgable, this seemed at odds with the "all non silver are fake" idea. This same distributor assured me they use these chains in drag engines and racing engines, and was adament I'll have no trouble with mine as supplied.

Seeing he was so convincing and helpful, and his service and delivery so professional, I believed he was doing the right thing, so I sent a "don't want to seem picky, but could you confirm or dispel" message to IWIS in germany, via their website. This is the reply;

"thank you for your mail.
Yes there are two Timing Chains that fit into this engine:
1.) With blue and silver plates
2.) Only with silver plates
No. 1 is specially made for our distributor in Australia because he is making also the sprockets for these sets.
No. 2 is a Timing Chain that you will find in other applications like for Daimler or BMW too.
The difference between both is that No.1 has a seamless roller and No. has a seamed roller.
There are customers out there that are prefering No.1 or No.2.
FYI: We have never had any problems with both chains in this application."

This is direct from the factory (helpful German guy) and I inserted a pic of my chain for them to see. (I'd enclose it here, but being a computer numpty, well, but if anyone wants to see the pic, e mail me at blanked out I did notice the "silver" chains in the pics have seemed rollers, which I had never seen in the chains I had used before (all AE, except once ROLON).

So I'll use these now, or next change, and monitor the flex every so often.

Hope that helps; "

I dont think breaking strain is the point anyway though. As has been said nobody seems to have experiences a chain breakage without jackshaft seizure anyway. What I want is to have chains that don't wear as fast for the reasons Neil has said and because I just want to stick my £40 snakescope usb cam down into the timing cover and if the tensioners all look good a days work is saved and I don't have to sod about trying not to damage the head gasket and sump gasket and sealing the leaks that causes. Having said that though as soon as Peter has some of the 12mm back in stock I'll buy some as a bit extra strength can't hurt and the extra surface are should slow the guide wear slightly.

Oh and I still think the "German chains snap without warning because they are pre-stretched is a myth and doesn't stand up to the barest scrutiny especially when teh 12mm must clearly be stronger". However its been shown on here that a very worn chain can actually end up touching the same chain the opposite side that's on its return journey which certainly seems like it might cause a calamity at high RPM. So a slower wearing chain is what I will be staying with. I swapped some NOS Renolds back to SOC spares IWIS a few years ago when my "recommissioning" turned in "re-restoring" and I'll swap for the LD parts ones more than likely before it get back on the road.