Avoiding water damage?
 

Hello everyone,

It flooded over the weekend here in MA, and I store my bikes and tools in the basement. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to the punch moving things, and some stuff got pretty darn wet. One bike (steel) had its BB submerged, and an old Raleigh steel frame/fork set had the fork (off the bike), chainstays, and BB submerged. The worst, however, is an AL MTB frame that's upside down, so the head tube and top tube are totally under (still can't pull it out w/o electrocution risk). I'm freaked!

To start remedying the problem, I've poured out all the water I could out of the bikes (thank God for drain holes), and placed them in a dry out-of-the way place with a fan blowing on them 24/7. I'm guessing I'll have to replace the BB that was submerged, as well as the submerged headset when I get the MTB free.

Am I doing the right thing? Can you see any other potential pitfalls? Will it still be safe to use these frames?

John

Sorry to hear about your problem, it was quite a storm here in New York too. Don't risk electrocution to salvage a bike.

Before you dry the bikes, rinse them thoroughly with fresh clean water to flush out any contaminants (use the garden hose if necessary). If you dry them first this will be harder to do. Next use either warm air, or an alcohol rinse to dry them. Lastly spray with a water displacer such as WD-40. (If alcohol or a good way to dry them is unavailable use the WD-40 after the rinse, and dry them after) This will stabilize them so you can later do a complete exam and bearing service in a non-emergency atmosphere.

With any luck you'll escape with little or no damage, save for your time in servicing them.

BTW- also call your homeowners insurance company, not to file a claim yet (if ever) but because most companies offer excellent advice on salvage and damage minimization. They have expertise in the field and can be a great resource. Many years ago my warehouse suffered major storm water damage because of a roof problem. Within hours the insurance company had an agent on site, who organized the drying process, hired specialists to do the work, and later worked with me on damage assessment and salvage.

When it was all over they spend over $20,000 to properly dry out the building and contents, and reduced what could have been over $100,000 in damage to $8,000.

Thanks for your reply, FB! I quite literally had a flood of problems, so this put me at ease. I also forwarded your response to my housemates--they had much more damage than I did.

John

Disassemble and cleaning should take care of the headset. BB, slightly problematic if sealed, as water
likely penetrated the seals. If plastic seals, they are easy to pry out and replace, allowing the bearings
to be cleaned and relubed. Metal seals are not removable. You could drill a small hole (1/16th") in the
seal and use a needle injector to load some more grease in the bearing, two holes better so grease
can extrude from the other hole, too much grease is not helpful, but not really bad in low speed bearings
like BB. Rotate the bearing slowly as you inject. This is not an automatic R&R, just keep an eye on how they work, but new BB are not horrendously expensive. More worrisome is the steel frame, and a complete disassemble, rinse out with isopropyl alcohol as suggested, warm air dry and frame saver would be a very good idea.

First thing you should do is blast all the parts that have been submerged with copious mounts of WD40 to displace all the moisture on the ferrous and aluminum parts. you can use the same drain holes in the frame and fork to introduce the WD40 through the straw spray attachment you get with the can. It's the oxygen that starts/speeds up corrosion, so if you can spray the WD 40 on it immediately after you had drained the water from the frame and parts, you should be able to avoid most of the corrosion problems that might come up. Thing is, you already air dried your parts and frame and it might have already created some "flash" rust on the parts that could get worse as time goes on. If this is the case, you will have to arrest the rust that might have already started. there are chemical products in the market that neutralizes rust and transform it to an inert black substance that will not further eat into the steel. for aluminum, the anodizing on the aluminum parts should generally protect them from oxidation, if the exposure is not too prolonged....better find a way to get that MTB out of the water asap. For steel bearings and parts, the chrome/nickel plating on most steel parts should help it fight the rust and they should be mostly OK if you get them dried out and sprayed with the WD40 asap. The steel bearings usually have a hard chrome plating on them and the grease that coated them originally should keep them from developing rust that quick. Just dry them out too and re-grease then asap.
I think you can definitely still save your bikes from ruin as long as you act on drying them and lubing them up asap.

Chombi

I'm curious as as to why you couldn't shut off power to the basement. Is the main circuit breaker down there? Did you try calling your utility company and ask if they could turn off only your home even further back?