If your chains get rusty, easiest way to clean em is to put em on and go run through some sand for while pull em off, hose em off , lay in sun to dry and then hit em with WD 40 and bag em for next season.

Last comment on mud. I once had to go track a lost kid in the California San Bernadino Mountains after a storm.(I was a tracker trainer for the SanBernardino County Sheriffs once) Road was soooo muddy, that if you stopped and leaned against your truck, it would slowly slide right off the road, no kiddin and where he was lost, off the road was a damned dangerous place to be... I and a local guy named Dick Wilhouse (chief tracker then) put chains all around on DodgeZilla and pulled a trailer with 2 good horses in it up a road you couldn't hardly stand up on. Everyone else came in by helicopter. nuff said.