If you are going to remove your chain for cleaning, then nowadays you have to have a master link as far as I am concerned, because the chains are so narrow and the pins extend out, only such a small distance from the plate, that they won't hold up if you push your pin out and clean the chain and then push the pin back in. But a master link, yeah, if you want to clean your chain off the bike, then a master link allows you to do that.
It has like sort of a keyhole slot, where there is a pin; the two pieces are symmetrical. There is a plate with a rivet attached to it and another plate with a rivet attached to it. So this rivet that's coming out toward us here, one that's got a little groove near the top, that is what engages the edge of the brake plate.
So you have to do two things. One is, you need to provide pressure to squeeze the link plates toward each other, and you need to push the two pins toward each other, and that's what allows the pins to move inward. Okay, that went.
Beauty of this is that if you are on the trail, and for instance, you get your changed end somehow with the master link, you can just unhook it and put it back together.
Now I am going to move my chain to a small cog and the small chain ring in the front. You see the groove in the pin and see that keyhole slot in the plate, and it goes over that and clips in there. Put it one side, and then do it on the other.
Again, this is way harder with gloves on than by hand, but its pretty messy. So you see how I pushed the pin through. On both sides, I have now made the pins come out through the large hole, and then I simply provide tension, and it snaps in, and the link is in place and you are ready to ride again.
Another chain that you might run into is a Wippermann. Wippermann also uses a master link. I want to talk about this master link, because even though its assembled similarly to the Shram, its actually not a symmetrical one, and it really matters right setup and upside down. So like with the Shram, you squeeze it together and you push the ends in and it pops apart. You assemble it this way, push the pins in through the large hole, further toward the center, and then pull out like that.
The most important thing to notice is that this master link, no matter which side you are looking at it, has a concave side and a convex side. You want this to be running over your cogs and chain rings. The reason for that is that when you get down to the smallest cogs on your cog set and if you have the chain running this way over the cog, this bump will actually be running on the spacer, so in like a 11/2 cog, maybe even a 12/2, this will be lifting the chain off of the tooth and it will skip.
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