You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
So I went full in - Silca chain waxing pot and super secret hot melt.
How do people clean a dirty chain - have a Brompton chain that's been ridden on the road in the wet and it's covered in road grime. The advice I'd see was 'put it in boiling water'. So I've got an old pan, put it on a camping stove and now I've a chain that's still not very clean, and a pan of dirty waxy water. What do I do with the water for a start?
All depends on what you're trying to clean off the chain. Boiling water is great for removing wax but doesn't do much for oil and grime.
For a used chain, I use a combination of degreaser, turps and acetone. New chains are easier to clean and the easiest chain to clean is one that has previously been waxed
How do people clean a dirty chain - have a Brompton chain that's been ridden on the road in the wet and it's covered in road grime.
It'd be easier to start with a brand new chain to be honest.
Otherwise, some strong degreaser, a toothbrush and some scrubbing. Or a couple of rounds thorough a good ultrasonic cleaner.
The advice I'd see was 'put it in boiling water'.
That's for cleaning an already-waxed chain before you re-wax it. The boiling water gets the top layer of wax (together with any grit that's stuck to it) off. It'll do bugger all for actually cleaning a really grotty non-waxed chain.
For me, a quick rinse with the hose and a good wipe down with a cloth as soon as I finish the ride does a decent job of keeping the chain clean. Leaving it a bit long after the ride makes this less effective.
It turned out to be a bit of a hassle on bikes that get ridden a lot on slimy roads so I’ve gone back to Rock n Roll on the cargo bike and winter roadie. Will prob move to synergetic once my R&R runs out.
To be clear this is a chain that was stripped of grease and waxed when new. I’m asking about cleaning to rewax.
Also, how often do people replace quick links? As they’re being used a fair bit more than I would have done before .
Degreaser, then meths/white spirit in a jar with the chain.
Or just buy one that's already waxed/stripped and save yourself a lot of hassle.
Buy some Screwfix degreaser, £13 for 5 litres
Pop the chain into an old water bottle, pour in enough degreaser to fully submerge the chain, pop the lid on, give it your best cocktail shaker moves and leave for a few hours, then give it another 5 or so shakes and leave overnight
In the morning remove the chain and see how clean it is, next wash the chain off in the sink using washing up liquid, really lather it up on the chain, give it a scrub with a nail brush if needed, then rinse thoroughly, finally I boil it for a few mins to see if any small amounts of dirt or oil appear on the surface of the hot water, drain and leave to dry
This gets my chain pretty much spotless
So I went full in - Silca chain waxing pot and super secret hot melt.
How do people clean a dirty chain - have a Brompton chain that's been ridden on the road in the wet and it's covered in road grime. The advice I'd see was 'put it in boiling water'. So I've got an old pan, put it on a camping stove and now I've a chain that's still not very clean, and a pan of dirty waxy water. What do I do with the water for a start?
I agree with someone else on this thread - start with a clean brand new chain for best results
I tried cleaning my chain - really cleaning it and I just couldn't get it clean enough to properly wax. Bought a brand new chain and now I see what the waxing cult is all about
When you say the chain has been previously waxed, do you mean immersion waxed, or drip waxed?
Immersion, then boiling water should do it. Drip eax, depends on the wax. Smoove it squirt need a full thorough clean. If it's Silca super secret drip, again the boiling water should do it.
Swish in boiling water a few times, dry in a metal foil tray with a hair dryer then re-wax.
So I swish in boiling water in a good quality glass jar. Few goes and it’s usually pretty solid. Every 4/5 times I might soak in the silca degreaser but what’s interesting is not much comes off.
I assume you've already seen this site? It's got absolutely everything you could need to know on waxing
https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/
Every 4/5 times I might soak in the silca degreaser but what’s interesting is not much comes off.
Once it's been waxed a couple of times, it will pretty much self-clean. Once mine is on about its third full re-wax, it literally just needs a pour-over of boiling water, hang it up to dry and then immerse in the wax for 15 minutes. The actual time I spend physically doing anything is really just taking it off the bike, pouring water over and then 2 minutes to pop it on an old spoke and hang it in the wax. Then it's just a couple of minutes fishing it out, hanging it up to dry and re-installing it.
It's actually easier than trying to degrease it all, clean up the rest of the drivetrain and faff around with a regular bottle of lube. There's none of the usual gunk on the drivetrain, no build up of crud around the jockey wheels.
Loads easier. Totally agree.
To summerise, briefly, what ZFS says-
For initial cleaning, 2 situations-
Brand new chain: 3x agitated baths in 250ml white spirit (5 for SRAM) followed by 2x 250ml agitated baths of meths/denatured alcohol.
Used, greased chain: Strongly consider not bothering and using a new chain. If you insist, basically more of the above, anything you can do to remove as much grease as possible.
For maintenance-
Either, flush with boiling water, dry, reimerse. Or, use a 2 pot system, chuck dirty chain in pot 1 with wax, agitate, put it in pot 2. After 30 chains, pot 2 becomes pot 1.
Also, how often do people replace quick links? As they’re being used a fair bit more than I would have done before .
Anywhere between 5-10 uses out of a quicklink for me. When it starts to feel a bit vague on the click when it installs I go for a new link.
For quick links I just use them 'till they snap. That's probably only a few times out of 100s of installations and removals (but that's across 4 bikes, some used more than others). Let's vaguely guess that it's about 30 installations+removals per quick link
You should be regularly wiping the outside of the chain down (either a dry microfibre towel for dust/dirt or something like a Silca gear wipe if it's a bit grimy, which only really happens if it's been through water or mud IME). So that should mean when it comes to rewaxing you just use the boiling water method. If it's gotten to the state you can't just wipe the outside grime off then you probably need to do a full degrease as if it were a dirty oiled chain.
If you're regularly riding in the wet Silca did post a video that suggested adding a couple of squirts of their synth-e lube (or synergetic) to the wax pot as it helps with preserve the wax on the chain (I'm planning to try this once the weather turns). I'd also add an Endurance chip to your pot if you're not already (I've always done this so hard to say how much further you get between waxes but there's some independent testers out there that back it up as being worthwhile).
Degreaser, then meths/white spirit in a jar with the chain.
Or just buy one that's already waxed/stripped and save yourself a lot of hassle.
Try liquid paraffin - it's good at dissolving grease/oil, with no need to rinse with water. Decant the used/dirty stuff into a container, and take it to your local recycling centre for disposal.
https://www.diy.com/departments/bartoline-paraffin-4000ml/
Many go through quite a lengthy process to get a brand new chain degreased, for example... but it literally takes only one step with paraffin.
Not sure about a previously waxed chain though - an additional step is probably required to de-wax it.
If it's really filthy I give it a swish in a big glass jar of white spirit*, then pour that back into the bottle through a few layers of cloth (coffee filters are too fine) to sift out the worst of the muck and metal particles. After that a pan of boiling water with a splash of degreaser gets it clean.
Some people do obsess over using 'clean' baths of solvent/degreaser each time, that would be applicable if you were cleaning cast/machined parts to go into an engine where it's spotless and lives it's life in filtered oil. It's irrelevant to a chain.
It is worth giving it a long soak in white spirit with lots of agitation before the first waxing. The wax generally sticks to bare metal pretty well, but it won't stick to an oily chain anywhere near as effectively (although shimano grease and putoline makes a lovely black mess that adheres to a singlespeed chains for months 😂) . There's not much point in changing the white spirit each time you shake it, just let the grease dilute into a full jar.
*It's actually horrible looking waste solvents I've used, there's petrol, white spirit, diesel, paint thinners, acetone. It gets used as a first rinse for everything from oil paintbrushes to car engine parts.
Based on the above I’m in the minority….but I don’t bother cleaning my chain before rewaxing
i use an Argos deep fat fryer with Putoline and pop the chain in at 180 (max temp) for 15 mins, which seems to boil off all the muck. I then drop to 130 for 10 mins which thickens up the wax and means it stays in the rollers
Dump out onto an old towel, carefully wipe the wax off the outsides of the plates and then leave to cool
Based on the above I’m in the minority….but I don’t bother cleaning my chain before rewaxing
i use an Argos deep fat fryer with Putoline and pop the chain in at 180 (max temp) for 15 mins, which seems to boil off all the muck. I then drop to 130 for 10 mins which thickens up the wax and means it stays in the rollers
Dump out onto an old towel, carefully wipe the wax off the outsides of the plates and then leave to cool
That's exactly what i used to do, and TBH it works, and grime is just diluted into the liter or so of putoline where it's irrelevant.
It's only really worth cleaning if it's either got really bad or I've used some other lube to top it up that then hangs around and turns to a gunky mess with more wax, or stops wax sticking top the chain properly.
Once it's been waxed a couple of times, it will pretty much self-clean. Once mine is on about its third full re-wax, it literally just needs a pour-over of boiling water, hang it up to dry and then immerse in the wax for 15 minutes. The actual time I spend physically doing anything is really just taking it off the bike, pouring water over and then 2 minutes to pop it on an old spoke and hang it in the wax. Then it's just a couple of minutes fishing it out, hanging it up to dry and re-installing it.
It's actually easier than trying to degrease it all, clean up the rest of the drivetrain and faff around with a regular bottle of lube. There's none of the usual gunk on the drivetrain, no build up of crud around the jockey wheels.
Exactly this, so easy.
Hang it on the swisher and pour over direct from the kettle so your chain isn't sat in a pan of waxy water, most I've ever had to do was two passes.