Originally Posted by
cyccommute
As a chemist, I can tell you that diesel fuel should not have water in it. It can’t dissolve water to any appreciable amount. As I said, 3 tablespoons of water can dissolve in 100 gallons. If you have water in your diesel, the diesel didn’t carry it there. You have a leaky tank or you left the tank open and rain water got into it. In other words, someone screwed up.
The lab is one thing, the real world is another. IRL diesel has water in it, higher quality diesel has less water in it.
Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Oh, joy! Another “I use gasoline” post. And, as a bonus, an overly elaborate cleaning system that is at cross purposes to actually cleaning the chain.
Using gasoline is just plain dumb! There is no temperature where you safely use gasoline without an extreme risk of fire. Gasoline has a flash point of -40°F. It’s no more effective than mineral spirits but it’s a lot more hazardous as well as much more toxic. Mineral spirits has a flashpoint around 150°F which means it is harder to ignite and much less likely to cause a vapor plume. That’s the main hazard with gasoline. It forms a vapor plume which can ignite many feet from the source of the liquid.
Honestly, you have diesel so why not use it. Much less chance you’ll burn something down.
As to your cleaning system, why and how? Do you use the water after the gasoline and isopropyl alcohol? Why do you use hot water at all? Water, of any temperature, is ineffective at dissolving grease, oil (including diesel), or wax. Most all bicycle lubricants are water insoluble to an extreme extent…see the diesel water solubility above. If you were to use a water based degreaser followed water then followed by the isopropanol and then followed hydrocarbon solvent (other than gasoline), the water step makes at least a little sense. Or you could do a “one and done” by just skipping to the hydrocarbon solvent (again, not gasoline). Shake it in a jar, remove the chain, let the solvent evaporate, and go wax it.
Regardless of what you’ll read on-line or see in some YouTube video, chains don’t need to clean room clean to wax them. The wax is compatible with any lubricant commonly used on a chain. The wax will stick to the chain and will actually act as a solvent on its own. Wax and oil are part of the same group of compounds with difference in molecule chain length only.
I use gas because it's cheap and readily available, and it evaporates quicker than diesel. For a new or not previously waxed chain I put about a pint of gas in a quart jar, and gently slosh it around, then dump the gas somewhere there's not danger of catching anything on fire and drop a match on it. Repeat until the gas is fairly clean. For previously waxed chains I use water: 180f will not dissolve the wax but it will melt it out of the chain along with any debris. For all chains I spray them down with alcohol and let them dry before waxing. So far I'm happy with the system, but I've only waxed a couple of chains and it's likely the system will evolve.