Bmx Blue

Bmx Blue
How do I take my old chain off my BMX and replace it with a new one.?

At the moment it has a normal silver chain but I now have a blue chain to match the bike but how do I take the old one off and fit the new one?

Man, fashion fashion fashion. Hate for the chain not to match the bike. Well, at least you are willing to do the dirty work yourself! All the answers are fine (well, except taking off the back wheel one, that was pretty silly).

If you have a master link, it is pretty easy to pop the old one off. Actually, if you are going to throw the old chain away, you could hacksaw that right off…no harm there. But to get the new chain on it will either have the master link (just look at it), or you will need a chain link remover tool. Actually, you will probably need the tool anyways, to adjust the size of the chain. Before you throw the old chain away, lay the two chains next to each other, and compare the number of links there are. Probably you will need to use the chain link remover tool to take a couple links off. It’s pretty easy to use (do these steps if you need to resize the blue chain by making it smaller):

Line up any pin in the blue chain with the pin extractor in the tool.
Then turn the handle until the pin comes almost all the way out. With a little wriggling, unhook the link. It is best to leave the pin just sticking inside the link though, as it is a beatch to replace the pin once it is out. In the past, if I screwed up, and the pin came all the way out, I would just go to the next link and start again. Usually if you are one link off the chain won’t know the difference.

Now put the chain on the bike (it is just one big snake right now). Loop it around the chainring on the front and the sprocket on the back.

Then reinsert the first link/pin into the other end. Work the pin into the hole using the same tool again.

Finally, you should grasp the chain on each side of where you put the pin in, and wiggle it back and forth, up and down, to remove any stiffness in the connection (it will likely be stiff, and you don’t want that).

Hope this helps…good luck! Email me if you have any difficulties, I would be glad to help if I could.

Andy Ruffell & Tim March BBC Blue Peter TV Live Old School BMX