attached to boat with (4) 5/8" bolts on 4 1/8" centers. Highly polished Type 316 Flat SS Chainplate is A fiberglass specialist will likely have the best advice here and I would ultimately seek their advice. Getting into a routine of regularly cleaning your bike chain will stop contaminants building up, which can act as a grinding paste in the drivetrain and accelerate the rate of wear. As well as degreasing and cleaning the chain, you need to dry it and then apply chain lubricant. Another type of chain wear is ‘slop’. This isn’t as easy to measure, but it is common with riders who don’t put a lot of torque into their drivetrain, or perhaps spin a higher cadence.

Arranging each nut and bold as well as the chain plate and it´s very own counterpart on a big sheet of paper stating to which side of the ship and which shroud each of the part belongs I will later insure that the parts will return to their respective place just where I took them off. Over time the chain plates have been adapted to the very shape of the surface of the beams. And how does the saying go? Never replant an old tree … L Attachments are integral with the chain outer plates. Normally they have one or two holes (L2 preferred), but for use on scraper applications they can be supplied without holes and with various box widths (LO Type). All bolts holding chainplates require frequent inspections. Fashioned from 304 stainless alloy (also known as 18/8), the threads on these fasteners can collect saltwater and they can corrode quite easily. When sailmaker Dave Beatson began to remove some chainplate bolts on his Creekmore 34, half of the bolt heads fell off when he turned the wrench. So when we bought a 20-year-old Mason 44, I decided to pull out the chainplates to see what, if anything, was going on. Also are there other Bristol owners (on the internet) that have had this issue and what was there fix?

Chain wear will lead to poor shifting and lost efficiency. Additionally, a severely worn chain is weaker, and there’s nothing fun about a snapped chain. Exactly how much wear your chain has will dictate your available options. On terribly worn drivetrains, the teeth of the cogs will begin to look hooked from the chain wearing high on them. I may just put the boat in the water and let her settle in for a while then go around the hull with a raft and refasten and re-bung as needed. Because if the boat has been dry for a while it will certainly change shape a good bit once swelled. I am sure other things will happen like maybe some of the seems may need to be re-caulked. You just won’t know until she is wet again and settled in. For this reason alone I think it is always prudent to wait until the boat is wet to caulk, bung, refasten, even paint the hull above the water line. A good raft can be a useful investment.

If you’re at this point, replacing just the chain isn’t really an option. Instead, you will have to replace the chain, cassette and likely your chainrings. Worn-out rollers increase the side-to-side play in the chain. As a result, the shifting is sloppier because the shifting ramps of the cassette or chainring need to work harder to derail the chain onto the desired cog. I began to unscrew the chain plates and take off screws, nuts and the plates themselves. I was surprised that some of the bolts have been screwed very tightly so that I had to put about a lot of power to get them loose, some of them appeared to have been screwed not as tight. Eventually I had them disassembled and took of the counterparts of the chain plates and had a look: Though made of stainless steel I could spot a lot of rust but I´m pretty confident that this is just superficial and wouldn´t be a problem to remove. Same with the rest.

What pieces make up a chain?

F Attachments provide a flat surface at right angles to the chain plate. They are used for securing pushers, scraper bars, etc.