Originally Posted by
alcjphil
For bearings, as long as there is no remaining grit it is unecessary to remove any remaining oily film. After all, the bearings are going to be greased. Waste of alcohol in my opinion
Correct.
Originally Posted by
WizardOfBoz
+100 You can use WD40 to clean stuff, but then just wipe it off. Don't depend upon it for lubrication, cuz it's not. Works ok on chains to clean some of the crud out (I use Dupont chain cleaner myself, though).
I have to disagree with the statement that WD-40 is not a lubricant. It’s 25% mineral oil which is a lubricant. It’s not necessarily a
great lubricant but it does reduce friction.
I would also argue that it isn’t a degreaser, either. It will remove grease because it is 75% mineral spirits but it leaves behind the stuff you are trying to remove. Just about any chain lubricant will remove the old grease since most of the have 50% or more of aliphatic distillates (a high falutin’ way of saying “mineral spirits”) along with the lubricant. The solvent forces out the old lube (or at least dilutes it) and leave the new oil behind.
Originally Posted by
WizardOfBoz
There seems to be a number of proposed multistep theories (including an incredibly stupid one: gasoline/degreaser/alcohol). No benefit to these, much messier, more dangerous (NEVER USE GASOLINE FOR ANYTHING ON A BIKE), and, well, just stupid.
Min spirits is one step, works well, and doesn't need to be removed - it will dry.
I absolutely agree. People like to come up with complicated methods to do something that should be very simple. If it takes more than 10 minutes to clean a chain...which includes drying time for mineral spirits and removing the chain as well as reinstalling...you spent too much time on the process.
If you drill down mineral spirits and Dupont chain degreaser are essentially the same stuff: aliphatic hydrocarbons
with between 9 and 15 carbons perhaps with a little hexane as well. Alcohol (IPA or ethanol) are too hydrophilic
(water soluble) to be useful as degreasers, they will mix with gasoline (a C7-8 hydrocarbon) up to 10-15% but not
well with higher aliphatic hydrocarbons (greasese are in the C15+ range.) If you use water based degreasers then
alcohol will facilitate drying by mixing with the residual rinse water, but that is its only minimal benefit.
Finally FWIW WD 40 is mostly mineral spirits, not all, has some other stuff as well, but substantially mineral spirits.
The only quibble I have is the other stuff in the mineral spirits. The mineral oil means that it isn’t a “degreaser”. It’s a grease displacer.
Originally Posted by
stephr1
Thanks for the great feedback.
So, what I come away with (unless someone pops in with really innovative input) is that min spirits (which I don't have any of at the moment) would be the best, but nothing all that wrong with WD-40 (which I do have). Let dry (no alcohol needed), wipe down and grease. Nice to eliminate 1 step.
Brings up another related question (not to hijack my own thread
any suggestions/experience/cautions abt using more environmentally-safe cleaners/degreasers (i.e. citrus-based)?
You’ve kind of learned your lesson on the WD40. When you’ve used up the stuff you have now, buy a quart of mineral spirits and save some money.
As to the “environmentally safe” degreasers, they really aren’t, especially if you plan on using them for degreasing chains. For chains, you have to use a lot of degreaser because the solvating power of a detergent is much lower than a true solvent. A cup of mineral spirits will clean many chains. It will degrease a chain even if the mineral spirits is mostly previous grease. Water based degreasers require far more to do the job and then they need to be rinsed and, if you don’t want water on the chain, the water needs to be removed with another solvent. Cleaning a chain
properly with a water based degreaser can generate a gallon of waste.
And it should be considered “waste”. While the “green” cleaner is biodegradable, most of the lubricants you are using aren’t. The greases and oils don’t just “go away”. Flushing them down the drain just makes them someone else’s problem.
I use Simple Green as a detergent but I would never use it to remove large amounts of grease.