Drives® 81X chain is manufactured with premium quality alloy steels, heat-treated and tempered for extended service life. Solid rollers, bushings and case-hardened pins work together with linkplates to create a high-quality, long-lasting product.

 

  • Solid Rollers: Solid rollers allow for smoother engagement with sprockets and rotate freely to reduce pulsation in conveyors.
  • Case-Hardened Pins: This chain comes with case-hardened pins unless upgraded. We offer a CHP (chrome-hardened pin) upgrade that decreases wear between the pin and bushing, reducing elongation and increasing wear life.

Looking for a Heavy Series 81X chain for your application? We offer 81XH and 81XHH, complete with heavier sidebars and through-hardened pins. Our Kiln Dryer Series chains (81XKD, 81XHKD, and 3000KD) are also available for specific use on dryer or wallboard systems.

Features & Benefits

  • Materials

    Starting with the best materials leads to higher strength and better wear life. Our manufacturing process begins with raw materials that meet exacting standards for metal grade, mechanical properties, carbon and alloy content to ensure minimization of impurities that impact tensile and fatigue strength.

  • Fabrication

    Drives designs each component to exacting dimensional standards for optimal performance. Case-hardened pins, solid rollers and bushings work in concert with linkplates to create Drives® 81X chain. CHP pins can be added as an upgrade to decrease wear between the pin and bushing, reducing elongation and increasing wear life.

  • Heat Treatment

    Strict control of atmosphere, time and temperature optimize the material properties – increasing strength, durability and wear resistance.

  • Shot Peening

    We shot peen our roller and link plates for greater fatigue strength. This adds a layer of compressive stress that helps components resist failure when exposed to repeated high loads. In addition, we press steel balls through the pitch holes in a process called ballizing – effectively optimizing bearing contact between pins, bushings and linkplates to increase chain fatigue resistance and pin retention.

  • Lubrication

    We use a proprietary lubrication process on all lubricated chains for enhanced corrosion protection and extended wear life.

  • Preloading

    Following assembly, all chains are preloaded to firmly seat the pins and bushings. This is to reduce initial run-in and extend the wear life of the chain.

Applications

Agriculture

Concrete & Aggregate

Forestry & Paper

General Industry

Choosing the Chain for Your Application

Use our Chain Configurator or Chain Engineer Mobile Web App for assistance selecting the right chain for your application. If you have a challenging demand beyond the scope of a standard Drives® chain, we would be excited to partner with you to provide custom-manufactured solutions to meet your specific needs.

Chain Configurator

Build and download a custom chain within a full 3D window with this state-of-the-art web app.

Chain Engineer

Explore our suite of mobile-friendly tools to help in the maintenance and selection of chain driven applications.