wintermute

I live on Long Island and we just got pounded by a nasty storm. The brook behind my back yard swelled and flooded one of my sheds up to about 2.5 feet. I have an 83 Panasonic in the shed that's been lying around waiting for me to do some tinkering. How bad is it to have a steel bike partially submerged for a few hours? Luckily it's stored on an angle, so I think the headset is high and dry, but the bottom bracket and derailers are doing their best U-Boot impersonation.

leob1

Hose the inside of the tubes with WD-40, it should be fine.

Old Hammer Boy

Another option would be to obtain a few containers of Heet, the gas line dryer and pour it everywhere where water might have been. All it is is alcohol and it likes to grab water and disperse it. Either way, that would be good for the frame. As to any bearings, remove, clean, lube.

wintermute

Thanks! So judging by this and other threads, I should remove the seatpost, turn it over to get as much water out as possible, dump some, let's say isopropyl, alcohol in it, swish it around, let dry, then hit with WD40.

Since I don't have a crank puller and I want to try avoid diassembling any hubs, does anyone know if circa early 1980's bikes typically had sealed bearings?

supcom

You need to buy a crank puller and disassemble the BB and hubs.

A 1980's bike would have cup and cone BB and almost certainly cop and cone hubs. And chances are that unless these were recently repacked they have little grease in them to resist water penetration.

I would pull the stem and headset as well, even if you don't think it got wet. A few hours work now may save many hours of frustration later.

HillRider

+1. You can empty the loose water in the frame tubes but I am nearly certain the bottom bracket is not a sealed cartridge and the hubs are cup-and-cone also. To save the bike, a complete tear down to nearly the bare frame is really needed and soon. You need to dry, clean and relube everything.

EvilV

If this bike was in useable condition, all of its bearings should have been well lubed anyway. Grease is pretty restant to water, as long as you aren't churning the bearings around endlessly under water and mushing up the grease into a watery paste.

I'd drain the bike as best you can (including the freewheel which might hold water - turn the bike on its side and drain it out) spray wd40 into as many tubes as you can get at, pull the seat tube and lube, put some engine oil into the freewheel and lube cables and gear change shifters if they have been wet. Basically, give it a good service lube as you would every now and again. I'd not be worried by bottom bracket and hub bearings. If a bit of submersion was such a problem, how come we can drive our cars through fords on a regular basis, submerging hubs and never worry about them. My car goes through a ford a foot deep at least once a week and the hubs are never touched. It's been driven through nine inches of sea water on a tidal causeway too.

Dry it out, give it a service and ride it.

evwxxx

Wheel bearings on cars are pretty much a sealed design, as opposed to BB cups and cones and circa 1983 hubs, which have a lot of room inside to store water, if it gets in (and if they are submerged for any length of time, the water WILL get in.

HillRider

I don't know about your car but boat trailer hubs are supposed to be serviced frequently or fitted with "Bearing Buddies" which are hub covers with zerk fittings so grease can be injected very often.

The bike in question doesn't have these.

sch

Disassembly and water displacement are a good first step, but to prevent
rust you need to coat the insides of the tubing with such as Frame Saver,
LPS3 or similar type rust preventatives. An exam of the chain and seat stays
may show small holes at one end or the other, these need to be examined for
trapped water and cleaned out and the innards blasted. Chainstays are
frequently but not always open at the BB shell. Seat stays can be difficult.
Ditto fork blades, check for holes at the wheel axle end. WD40 is a lousy
lube and marginal rust preventer, mainly because it just doesn't last. Such
as LPS3 can last months outdoors and weeks in saltwater spray testing
that WD40 fails in hours.

wintermute

I'm not too worried about the frame. If decent quality steel were that suseptible to rust, well, civilization wouldn't be what it is now. I'm worried about those moving parts. Any way to pull the crank w/o a crank puller?