I have this strange habit which more of you guys perhaps also have but others (about the rest of the world) doens't understand: my old & new bike parts need to be clean.Not just a little bit, no must-clean-totally-sigh! I work a lot with some old clothes, chrome polish and or glassex (that's the brand i think, well anyways, the cleaning spray to clean glass etc). Even better is the very agressive, expensive and environment unfriendly Brake Disc Cleaner for cars. All this works moderate and I am sometimes happy with the results, but if I see some bikes here in the vintage section.. omg. Like the topic some days ago about the derailleur without a lug/pat. Is that all NOS or do you guys have some magic tricks?

The closest i got was with an ultrasonic device on my work. I could rinse some small parts thoroughly.
I think one part of the problem is I mostly work with parts which are allready semi detoriated or rusty etc etc. And the most frustrating part is when you did some satisfying cleaning and after one small trip the drive train parts are allready dirty again..

For the record: all non-bike things in my life a kinda messy but my bikes are my beloved ones (besides my girl ofcourse ) and it gives me a good feeling when they are like brand new. In the end its about cycling with bikes and not about cleaning so i agree on anybody who's inserting that argument here. Any tips welcome!

The obvious solution is to buy some brand new bikes, and send me all your old ones.

Have you tried spray waxing the parts after you've cleaned them off? It helps slow down the process of dirt re-accumulating, and makes cleaning up again quite a bit easier.

yeah but i dont have to explain to you, my friends, that buying new bikes is beside the cost (i cant afford new bikes) no fun at all

one of the most frustrating parts are the rims where the spokes enter them. Especially the rear wheel. I never tried spray waxing btw.

in the u.s we call it ocd- i call it attention to detail, sometimes over and over again- some say obsessing- simply put: dont ride your bike and put your loose parts in a covered container. problem solved.

One of the best things I've ever learned is that you can take quite a bit of rust off of chromed steel by rubbing a crumpled piece of aluminum foil on it. It's been a tremendous amount of help in keep my old bikes looking new.

Of course, if you are working with bicycles from the aluminum parts era, this may not be so much of a help.

you wanna clean my bike? ill make the coffee.

I've recently experimented with, to great success, soaking my steel parts in vinegar for a couple of days. It does a great job of getting minor rust, calcium deposits, etc. off of the parts.

ah nice tip! will try but for my rims i need a huge container and a lot of bottles

for grime I use kerosene (sp?).. yes it is bad, I use it on my chains to or put some on a rag to wipe stuff off. I know what you mean about spoke nipples. Some may warn against this but I use steel wool and even sand paper on old spokes.. I have a nice set of vintage wheels (japanese but still nice black hubs and rims) with very corroded spokes I started to clean them and now am thinking to hell with this I'm going to relace them with new black spokes, they'll look way better anyway... I am going to try vinegar though to get old parts shiney again.

You're welcome! And I know what you mean....I'd like to soak one pair of rims, and am trying to figure out how I'm going to soak the chrome fork from my 'new' Peugeot.

Please do note though, this is entirely experimental for me....as in the last week or so. It worked well at getting little bits of rust off of a full seatpost assembly, and I have a few bits from the Peugeot soaking right now. I can't, however, speak for the long-term effects this might have on parts. I can't imagine it will be much of anything, but it might encourage rust. I'm going over everything I soak with a good coat of metal/chrome polish that has rust inhibitors in it. Also making sure to rinse everything well and expose it to some kind of a base, like a baking soda-water mixture, to neutralize the acid.

I have no idea what effect this might have on colors, stickers, or non-steel parts. Let me know what happens if you decide to try it.