Chain Cleaning/Re-lubing

[Ciaran]

After a muddy and wet weekend ride in Canberra, my chain is in dire need of a serious deep-cleanse.  I tried to clean and scrub it with a toothbrush but it is still pretty gunk-filled.

What do you do to clean you chain?  I've read info about soaking in solvents/degreasers/mineral turps, hanging to dry and then re-lubing but I am not sure how good this would be for the inner parts of the pins and rollers. 

Your help and advice would be great!

Cheers,


Ciaran

[Murphs]

Kerosene in a spray bottle, cover the drivetrain in it and use your toothbrush to scrub the chain, keeping it wet with kero. Once i've done that, i run the chain through the hose with a higher pressure sprayer nozzle to clean out any old lube. Make sure you clean your jockey wheels, cassette and chainrings too, but avoid using the hose with too much pressure around the bearings etc.

Recommend you clean it all with detergent afterwards (when you do the rest of the bike) or the kero will stink the place out.

[GrantF]

I'm sure you'll get as many responses as there are people on this forum, but I agree with your initial reservations - a REAL "deep clean" using kero or similar will leave your chain without any grease for the innards.
If you can get away with it, careful (mainly surface) cleaning using a few rags, a brush & some orange cleaner or similar will do the least damage.
If you must "deep clean", Diesel will leave the chain in a better state than Kero (which will completely dry it out).
I know there will be some responses re the pro mechanics using pressure cleaners, etc, but bear in mind that they'll replace chains on a much more regular basis than anyone here will, so it kind of doesn't matter if they reduce service life...

[daddio64]

I asked the local bike shop much the same question and their answer was to use one of the pressure can lubricants and absolutley soak the chain, then using a rag clean and dry it as completely as you can, repeat if required and then finish with a light lubricating spray. Don't know if it works because I decided it was easier to get them to service the bike and clean the whole damn thing.

[Bex37]

Yeh I believe Grant is right; everyone will have a different opinion.

I cleaned up the chain on my previous mountain bike and it worked really well. I split the chain and popped in an empty coke bottle - but if you're a pepsi person you could use a pepsi bottle I guess. Then, I soaked it in Shellite (white spirit used for cleaning metal parts and for camp stoves) for an hour, shook the bottle around vigorously and replaced the Shellite. Then, let it soak overnight and did the same next day. Took the chain out of the bottle and gave it a good scrub with a brush then put it in the bottle again and shook the hell out of it. At this stage, the Shellite was staying quite clean.

I was using oil on the chain in those days (using wax based lube now) so I put the chain in a shallow container just big enough to hold the chain and sprayed half a can of chain oil onto it. The result was the chain was now submerged in chain oil so I wiggled it a round a lot and left it there overnight and worked it around again the next day.

Gave it a good wiping down before fitting back on the bike of course.

So, I reckon that cleaned the chain really well and lubed it up well too.

On the other hand, now that I've written all of that and reminded myself how much effort and cost was involved, perhaps a new chain would have been a better option  

Just had the whole rear cassette off the bike and completely disassembled and cleaned up before the road race on the weekend too. Hmmm, starting to wonder if this behaviour is a bit obsessive/compulsive here   No, I had to take it off because it hadn't been assembled properly previously by someone else after a spoke replacement - 9th gear was bent out of shape because it wasn't aligned with the spline correctly. Anyway, now the rear cassette is gleaming. I've also worked out how to oil/wax the chain so it doesn't get dirty.  

As for the chain, I'm wiping it down after every ride. I'm using the Rock and Roll wax based lube for road use. After lubing, give it another good wipe down. The whole drive train seems to stay clean and no sign of shortage of lube as far as I can tell. I haven't ridden much at all in the rain though which is where I've heard wax based lubes are weak.

[Ciaran]

thanks for all the help guys.  Time for experimentation!

[Boostland]

The ShelBroCo Bicycle Chain Cleaning System is the best bar none.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

    It is well-known that proper chain cleaning is the most vital and important aspect of cycling. There are zillions of doo-dads and gimmicks out there intended to make this task easier for spoiled, lazy cyclists.

    Unfortunately, there's no "free lunch" in bicycle maintenance, and all of these existing systems are fundamentally mono-buttocked kluges.

    The only proper way to clean a bicycle chain is to disassemble it, otherwise there is no way to be sure you've thoroughly cleaned and properly lubricated the critical internal parts where chain wear occurs.

    Similarly, there's no way to apply correct lubrication to an assembled chain, since the rollers have different lubrication needs than the link articulation pins do!

spoke
 
Disassembly

    Use your chain tool to drive each chain pin halfway out. It only has to go far enough to clear one of the outer plates.

    If you will be using replacement pins or Powerlinks to reassemble the chain, drive the pins all the way through and discard them.



Cleaning

See the link provided above for complete instructions complete with more pics

[Bex37]

LOL

And here is another one of Sheldon's genius inventions:

http://sheldonbrown.com/fastercard/index.html

Sheldon
Brown    Proudly
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FasterCard Titanium, is the first credit card ever to be made from Titanium 3AL 2.5V alloy for light weight and durability. In addition, the FasterCard Titanium, is drilled out for increased lightness, without compromising the embossed numerals or the special rare-earth magnetic stripe on the back.
The FasterCard Titanium's magnetic strip, despite its light weight, is the sturdiest, highest coercivity magnetic strip available on any major credit card. Even after thousands of uses, it still registers on the first swipe 99.993% of the time, so you never need to waste time waiting for some sales droid to tediously key in your number manually!

The FasterCard Titanium is highly exclusive, too. It is only available to Real Cyclists like you, not to the hoi polloi!




  

[GrantF]

Has anyone tried this?  A bit like cleaning something with an oil bath I guess.
http://www.parker-international.co.uk/15933/Finish-Line-1-Step-Cleaner---Lubricant.html
"ShellBroCo" sure looks the go for a deep clean though

[Bex37]

I haven't used it but I'm guessing it's similar to other chain oils I used when I was racing go-karts. It's probably got a volatile solvent in the can mixed with the oil. It comes out of the can as a very thin liquid that's almost like water and then the volatile solvent evaporates and leaves the oil. Part of the philosophy is that the thin initial consistancy allows it to penetrate the parts take the oil in there too. If you wipe it off before the solvent evaporates too much its a cleaner. If you allow the solvent to evaporate it leaves the lubricant. Seemed to work pretty well on go-karts but very different application on bikes so not sure whether it would be good or not. The theory seems okay though.