Originally Posted by Jarery
I commute daily 50k (total) and especially during the winter my drivechain is a dirty mess. Rather than spend a day outside in the cold cleaning, i want to just swap chains, quickly.
I want to drop the old chain into a container with a solvent of some sort, and just leave it till the following weekend. Where i remove it, blast it under the hose, hit it with wd40 to remove the water, install it and re oil it.
I recall a thread i read a while ago that said most citrus cleaners were bad for extended soaking. There was a reply by a chemist who had a suggestion for what was good. Unfortunatly at the time i didnt have 2 chains, so I only glanced over the thread quickly. I tried searching but cant seem to find it.
Can anyone help me in what I can safely clean my chain for extended periods is ?
Paint thinner works. Kerosene works. White gas for camping stoves works (I have a couple of gallons that I use since I hate the stove the fuel was bought for
) Paint thinner and white gas are a bit more volaitile then kerosene so they are more flammable and they evaporate faster. Kerosene usually doesn't completely evaporate from the chain. My chain cleaning method is to put the chain in an old Gatorade bottle, shake it, pour off the dirty stuff, add clean and repeat until I'm satified with the chain cleanliness. I then remove the chain from the bottle and allow it to stand in the sun for a while. This evaporates the solvent. I then put the shiny clean chain on my bike and use White Lightning for lubrication. In dry Denver, this lube is about the best one around because we don't have to deal with wet conditions much.
To dispose of the used solvent, I have an old barbeque grill that I burn the stuff off in.
All of this should be done outside with adequate ventilation, of course.