Apologies for the million and one posts. Its a hell of a lot harder than it looks fitting these stupid rivet links. Finally got it on, quite freely and the bloody thing split when I was crushing the rivet. Im going to order one later but seeing how sunny it is is this safe to use until the new one arrives?

These look like hard rivets. If so you will need a Whale chain tool as other chain tools are designed for soft rivets, and your picture shows what happens. These do cost around £70+ though, so you may want to ride to a garage to get your new link staked. If you have a clip-type link I'd use that rather than your broken link to get you to a garage.

Thanks for the reply. I will probably book it in at my local garage to have the link fitted then. I was wondering though, whats the difference between the whale tool and the cheap £18 tool I bought, they look very similar and fron what I can tell work the same way aswell.....

I don't know, I don't have one but it's the only one I'm aware of that can stake hard rivets. Yours obviously can't!

Hi. Just changed my chain a couple of weeks ago, using the supplied link. I bought a cheap £18 splitter/riviter from ebay. I took the advice and ground the original rivets back while splitting. due to my chain tool being cheap and knowing how fragile it may be.

But the biggest advise i think i can give if using a cheapo tool is to take your time, check position, double check then a turn or two. Take it off check and repeat several times until done. You only have to spread the rivet enough to stop the plate coming off. Basicly until the flat of the bit is flat too the rivet. I tended to use a rachet spanner instead of the supplied handle but it worked fine. But i repeat take your time, keeping as central as possible. Then again a shop maybe easiest for you if you dont feel comfortable retrying it.

Edit: if you have feeler gauges check the play on a fixed link and try and repeat this play tween your manually riveted link. Doing this way may stop you over tightening the link and splitting it. Also check the link moves once done.