Great: be my guest. On a long trip, be sure to carry whatever branded products the manufacturer suggests you use.

I know grease is not being driven out from behind my seals because my chains last as long as yours (I'm being presumptuous here, but someone's got to go out on a limb). If spraying quart after quart of WD40 on my chains were removing grease, my chains would wear out rather quickly, just like non-o-ring chains do.

I don't even worry about rust, personally. I use the WD40 as a cleaner: spray liberally while rotating the wheel and all that abrasive sand falls off. Give it a quick wipe with a rag if I'm feeling thorough. Life is good. My chains go 15-20,000 miles without problems. Sprockets last twice that. Considering I'm very haphazard in even bothering to spray my chains clean, I think that's evidence I'm doing the right thing. At least, it seems to be working for me.

If I ran only on nice, clean pavement I might use a chain lube. Sadly, wherever I go the pavement is dirty--sometimes filthy. And for some reason I always seem to find sand, mud, clay and other stuff along the way. Like I said, when I used to use lubes, greases or wax my chains didn't last as long as they do now--and I was spending a lot more time and money trying to take care of them.

Your experience may vary. I don't mind that in the least. If you tell me that your chosen chain-care regime yields longer chain and sprocket wear than I'm getting, I'll gladly bow to your obviously superior knowledge and dedication to proper maintenance....but I'll keep doing what I'm doing, since it sure does seem to work.

I do get irritated periodically at reading silly stuff about how WD40 "rots" o-rings. Why do you suppose the RK instructions you quote above recommend using WD40? What do you think the Tsubaki instructions are telling you to use? Why would they do that? You really think they want you spraying your chains with something that causes rubber to rot and grease to run out on the ground? C'mon.

A good chain lubrication thread once every few months feels remarkably similar to belching after a big meal. Not as fattening, though.

Safe journeys!

Mark