DropBarFan

Well one can avoid cycling in the rain or in areas with sandy roads. But as to idea of not washing w/solvent I'm not so sure. Rain & mechanical action seem near-guaranteed to get grit into chain recesses. I used to ride every day year-round, no way to avoid chain getting thoroughly dirty after 1 or 2 weeks.

DropBarFan

Solvent & grease are not black but what about other organic contaminants like soil, asphalt residue, auto tire/brake residue etc? Not disputing your post but to me pretty surprising that chain-wear metal particles can cause so much discoloration.

Delmarva

This is the way I've clarified paint thinner, automotive solvent and other solvents. It works.

Or take old solvent to the recycling center and buy new.

Looigi

Perhaps, but I haven't found it necessary. Once well settled, the goop stays put and its pretty easy to pour out the large majority of the liquid stopping short of getting any significant amount of the residue. Certainly plenty clean enough for job. But do it, try it, and see what method you prefer or find to be the best.

Little Darwin

I just started to filter my solvent through a coffee filter, although in reading this thread, I may add a magnet in my holding jar...

I think that is all that is necessary for me, since I will only clean the chain with solvent about once a month, and I will probably only use a chain for about 2 years before I will replace it anyway. To go through too much more effort when I buy a new chain every 2 years, with the $20 chains I buy, would be well into the realm of diminishing returns on my investment in dollars and time spent.

Plus I have 4 or 5 chains waiting in the queue...

cyccommute 

No real need. You are over thinking this. If you remove the particulates with a coffee filter, anything that remains is going to be benign in terms of chain wear.

You are headed in the right direction but just haven't arrived at your destination yet. Soil doesn't really contain much that is going to be soluble in mineral spirits. Soil is mostly mineral in nature with some large organic molecules called humic substances thrown in. The organic molecules are usually not soluble in a non-polar solvent like mineral spirits because they are more soluble in water (think tea). The more humic substances you have in the soil, the darker the soil will be and the richer the soil is. The humic substances are used by plants as part of their nutrient base so the humid substance need to have some way of getting into the plant. Water is the best way to do that. The small amount of humic substances that might dissolve in a non-polar substance are going to be highly colored...i.e. brown...so they would darken the solvent some.

Carbon black, rubber and brake residue are probably not going to be that soluble in the solvent either. However, any that did dissolve would be black and wouldn't take much to darken a solvent.

However, there are other culprits that you can blame for the dark color of the solvent. Asphaltenes...the "residue"...you mention are going to be dark in color. Motor oil, of which there is lots on the road way, is going to be dark. There could even be some nanometer sized iron particles in the solvent that would impart a dark color.

Finally, the chain's original lubricant isn't colorless in solution. I clean this soft wax off my chains before I ever put them in service. My solvent a strong tea color (i.e., dark brown) and it never sees a chain that has been used on the road.

But...this is all rather moot. None of the things that can be in your cleaning solution has a detrimental effect on the chain nor the solvent's capability to dissolve the lubricant on the chain. As long as you remove the particulate, it shouldn't matter. Removing the particulate is efficiently done with a paper filter and you don't really need to go to more extreme measures. Distillation, centrifugation, ultrafiltration, etc. are all wasted the minute you pedal away from your house.

I don't wash my chains in solvent except for the first time I install them. I never have problems with grit getting into the internal workings of my chains despite riding in sand, water, mud, cowpies and other disgusting stuff. That's because...wait for it...I use a wax based dry lubricant that doesn't serve as a vehicle to trap grit. I don't have to put it on every ( put some ridiculously low number here) nor do my chains wear any faster than wet lubed chains. I do have to reapply it if the chain gets wet but you have to do the same for wet lubricants too. I've also used a wax lubricant from dry Colorado to the Deep South in every condition you'd expect to ride a bike in...and a few you shouldn't. It does work.

noglider 

Cleaning chains is icky. I just replace a dirty chain. It is one of my very few wasteful practices. We compost, and we recycle everything we can.

Also, diligence with keeping the chain clean goes a long way.

DropBarFan

Thanks for the info, pretty interesting. Just now read (VeloNews) about chain lube testing, paraffin scored least drag! I've been using Rock 'n Lube dry for a few months, hadn't realized it was "wax based". It does seem to work pretty well at not building up friction between cleanings, so I guess that confirms your view that such lube avoids trapping/migrating grit.

I tried White Lightning wax-based a few years ago & didn't like it, chain would start squeaking after a couple of weeks. Perhaps I didn't apply it correctly.

DropBarFan

Heh, that solves the problem! Plus no guesswork about when to replace worn chain. I suppose one could sell lightly-used chains on EBay. I rarely patch tire tubes which is a bit wasteful but the task always seems to be low-priority & I don't trust my patch jobs very much.

I look forward to belt-drive becoming mainstream, I think it would help increase popularity of cycling to eliminate the dirtiest & most maintenance-requiring component. Look at the millions of Sunday recreational riders, from what I've seen 99% don't ever clean their chains, maybe they add some lube once a year.

capsicum

Actually the lubricant films found on bicycles, including chains, are sub one micron.
This is true.
...unless you use wax, maybe.

cyccommute 

Got a source to back that up? The gap between the chain plates certainly doesn't have that small of a gap and the lubricant is flooded into that gap. I doubt that the pin/plate gap is that small. The tolerances are tight but they aren't that tight.

tanguy frame

Why is running a stream of lube over the links a bad thing? It takes a lot of patience and attention to place a drop on each roller. How is a stream different from a drop, except for excess lube to remove?

leob1

A stream of lube over a moving chain or a non-moving chain?
Drip a stream of lube over a moving chain and see what happens. It will take a while to clean things up. If you use a goopy lube, like undiluted bar oil, or that stuff somebody here sells, you'll get lube on half the links, and the rest will fly around the room. A bigger mess. And it won't have time to wick into the spaces between the links and rollers, where it's needed most.

Relax, put a drop on each roller, let it sit, wipe off excess. It doesn't take that long, and it's cleaner.
Show your bike some love.

tanguy frame

Around every 200 miles I run the chain very slowly and aim a stream of cheap home brew over the rollers on top of the cassette, then wipe down with a rag. Drippage is minimum, flingage is zero, and spillage is minimal and lands on a newspaper on the garage floor. Are you saying the lube is not getting to the rollers? I tried your method once and noticed no difference, so I reverted to my old style. Ask my wife if my bike doesn't get enough love!

Centaurious

Put your contaminated solvent in a closed mason jar and set it on a speaker magnet you've salvaged from a bad speaker. By the time you need the solvent again everything has settled and you can pour the solvent into a container for use. When your jar gets 1/2 full dispose of properly.

capsicum

Yes, but the full equations are a bit beyond this particular issue.
The basic concepts and rule of thumb however are a basic part of lube engineering. The lubricant film thickness has very little to do with the pin-bushing-roller size allowance.(as long as there is at least a minimum room for the film)

Even at high cycle speeds using the 12t sprocket there is only 30 degrees of rotation each direction per wheel revolution which at 500rpm(about 40mph) is 20deg/sec or 1250d/min (about 3.5 rpm)
Average roller diameter outside is .303"[~7.7mm] which equates to a bearing velocity of only 0.28 feet per minute.
Though, the pin .14"[3.6mm] dia is really what takes the wear, so 0.14 ft/min
Anything less than about 10-30ft/min[5-15cm/sec] OR in an oscillating partial-rotation manner is considered extreme duty as it operates firmly in the boundary condition, never achieving a fully formed hydrodynamic film, which is to say that the high points in the microscopic surface finish roughness will touch without a solid lubricant.
Note that lift off occurs when fluid pressure is high enough for the film thickness to exceed the combined surface roughness of both bearing surfaces which tends to be in the 0.1-2 micron range depending on design and manufacturing needs.and solid lubricants are generally milled to the single digit micron size as well.


Journal Bearings and Their Lubrication

page 3 https://www.metalstop.com/engine/Bear...sign_Guide.pdf

https://www.stle.org/assets/document/...l_bearings.pdf

Kinetic Friction in or Near the Boundary Region. II. The Influence of Sliding Velocity and Other Variables on Kinetic Friction in or Near the Boundary Region

capsicum

Oh and lubricant is not flooded into any gap in the chain as bicycle chains have no seals or continuous oil bath, so they could only achieve a thin film at their best.

DropBarFan

So I tried decanting the bottles of mineral spirits. As previous posters noted it's much easier than filtering. Had been confused before since if one looks at used mineral spirits bottle from an angle, the whole liquid can look blackish; but from a side-view one can see the clean upper layer. Removing/scrubbing chain with mineral spirits got the chain cleaner than Pedro's Oranj Peelz/hose spray. But Pedro's pretty good for friends' lighter-use bikes that lack quick-links.