Cleaning the chain - best practices?

[lemonade]

Just wondering what the best practice is in cleaning the chain, as I think I may be over doing mine and damaging the chain in the process as my chain cleaner is picking up a lot of metal bits on the magnet.

The way I do it is as follows:

1) spray bit of degreaser on chain and gears, then wipe with cloth the excessive oil and dirt, I crank the chain back as I do this.

2) Fill up the chain cleaner tool with degreaser + water, then I spin the chain back so it filters through it, pretty fast dozens of times. I do this twice, second time putting fresh water + fluid in, then running the chain through water only twice, to get all degreaser off. Then lastly I get rid of all the water by spinning the chain through a cloth pretty fast until its dryish, again no oil here.

Now the above is stripping the oil off, this means the chain is being spun without lubrication so getting metal on metal contact, which won't be very good for the chain or the gears. Am I doing this wrong?

How do you clean yours?

 

[Begbie]

Look at it, think that needs cleaned. I'll do it next week.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Amps]

Parktool cleaner filled with Paraffin (£1.73 Per Litre)
Spin Round a few times and then dry off with cotton rag. I then apply oil chain oil later that day and let soak overnight before removing excess.

 

[Showboat]

Not sure on degreaser on it, it can get into unwanted places and cause damage.
Parktool cleaner with cleaner solution, spin for a few mins, dry it off with a cloth and lube the chain.
Im no expert though!

 

[SoliD]

Baby Wipe after every minging ride, gt85 then re apply oil later in the day.

 

[nelviss]

old t-shirt grab the chain between the two cogs on the top, few turns till mostly clean, then gt85 at the t-shirt grab till nice oiled, then the chain wax (finish line).
thats like once a year for me but 95% road riding and some salt water from fishing

 

[One More Solo]

Fit new chain and cassette, clean your chainrings, use Rock n Roll Extreme Lube as directed. So much better than other lubes. It is solvent based so cleans your chain as you apply it.

 

[Andelusion]

I pretty much do what you do, but just use muc off instead of degreaser.

I get 12 months easily out of a chain (riding at least once a week, usually 2 or 3 times), I wouldn't worry about damaging it this way.

 

[robj20]

I take mine off put it in a tub of petrol and leave it overnight, hang it up to dry then refit and oil.

 

[BennyC]

Cover in GT85. Scrub/wipe cassette. Wipe chain rings and mech's. Wipe crud off jockey wheels especially. Rinse. Soak rag in GT85 and run chain through in a similar fashion to a cleaner tool.

I've a chain cleaner tool with which I have done similar in the past, several passes, throwing away the solution once dirtied significantly. But find the method above good enough for interim cleans.

Tend to just plonk GT85 on as 'lube'. If it's clean I don't care a great deal as long as it's not bone dry.

 

[lemonade]

Interesting. Few different ways of cleaning, I think I may be going OTT with my cleaning then, I like the idea of using GT85 to clean the chain, this might be useful for interim cleaning or after wet ride, as it can be a bit of a faff giving the chain a proper clean so often.

 

[BennyC]

I think, in my limited experience, it's more important to get all the dirt & crap out of the links, jockey wheels & mech's and to make sure your exposed cables and inners are lubed well (for decent shifting), than it is to worry about if every link in the chain has been meticulously oiled or not

Ultimately unless you're on one hell of a small budget I wouldn't stress so much. Making a conscious effort to reduce wear on components is all that's really needed. A chain will stretch but this is more so to do with accumulated use and being excessively dirty than it is not being impeccably well oiled I should think?

 

[Armageus]

I tend to clean mine every 4-6 weeks unless I get caught out with the weather and end up on muddy/wet roads:

1) Spray everything (chain/cassette/chain ring/mechs) with citrus degreaser - far more than you think you need.
2) Leave to "soak" for 5-10 minutes
3) Agitate as much as possible with cleaning brushes
4) Use sections of folded cereal box (or similar) shiny cardboard, to get between cogs on the cassette and remove as much crud as possible
5) Spray with more citrus degreaser, by which time most of the crud has dissolved/been removed
6) Leave to dry
7) Lube the chain from the inside with small amount of Weldtite TF2 Plus dry lube, changing up and down gears.
8) Leave to "dry" ready for use next day

 

[Jono]

Fit new chain and cassette...

You must get through a LOT of chains and cassettes.

 

[One More Solo]

I don't do that every time. My point was starting from fresh and using a decent lube from the start will make a world of difference to your chain cleaning pain. I used to use wet lubes like Finish Line green because they made everything seem quiet and smooth but in reality they accumulate a ridiculous amount of crap and make it very difficult to clean properly.

 

[FrenchTart]

Wet lube is horrendous. I hate the stuff.

I think taking the chain off and soaking it is massive overkill (and potentially not good for it depending on who you believe). I just use a chain cleaning tool with some degreaser, rinse a few times and a spray of gt85 to displace the water. Once it's fully dry I'll apply dry lube and leave for a couple of hours then wipe off the excess. If I'm lazy I'll wipe off the excess straight away but there's a very detectable difference in terms of how well the lube holds up when you do this.

 

[neil_g]

do you really want to be stripping all of the grease from the chain links? surely that will increase wear that a normal lube cannot provide.

personally i generally leave mine until it's winter service and then just scrub it in normal water. comes up like new. no major wear issues either.

remember cleaners such as muc-off are horribly caustic too, I've been advised away from that stuff by a component manufacturer.

 

[Jono]

I use muc-off drivetrain cleaner in a chain bath thingy, seems to get it nice and clean, brush off anything, rinse off with water, then spin it round a bit to get excess water out/off, then put some kinda water dispersal stuff on. Wipe off excess and leave it a bit. Then re-lube. I don't think running the pedals back a couple dozen times will cause massive amounts of wear with clean bits while it's not lubed up.

 

[mattyfez]

That's the thing, if you use a solvent to clean you need to ensure the fresh lube has fully penetrated inside the rollers. No point having lube that's just sat on the outside.

Anyone tried squirt, seems interesting Squirt Lube application instructions

 

[UTmaniac]

Muc Off degreaser and chain cleaning tool, rinse with water from fish tank maintenance, dry drivetrain with old tea towel before re-lubing.