Tips on How to Clean Rear Sprocket(s)...
 

Just curious to see if anyone has any tips/tricks for a relatively easy way to get the rear sprockets good and clean on a road/mtb bike. I have the rear wheel off, but short of running a rag/paper towel through each individual sprocket, I'm out of ideas.

Any advice/thoughts would be welcome....
Thanks,
TB

If you find a short cut, let me know.

The white towels from costco (60 pack) are perfect for "flossing" a cassette while it's still on the bike. The edge is just the right thickness for a 9spd. Takes about 5 minutes, if you do it regularly so there isn't a big crud buildup. I do it once with solvent on the towel edge, and once with a dry edge. Quick and easy. bk

I've done several things over the course of time.
1) I've used the shop towel to 'floss' between cogs. Don't do that real often anymore but it seems to be pretty effective.
2) I've used a 'toilet brush' which has not previously been used as intended. Mainly any long, stiff bristled brush along with some warm soapy water. Seem to do this more often than the flossing technique.
3) Mostly just use the hose with moderate pressure to flush out any debris. I combine this with 2) if needed.

My type of mountain biking mostly gets the cassette cluttered with mud and sometimes grass/weeds.

I think bkaapcke is correct in that whatever method you use doing it often before it gets too crudy will prevent it from being too much work.

I recently bought an aerosol can of Carburator/throttle body cleaner for my Yukon XL. It has one of those tiny little red tubes that lets you direct the spray just where you want it to go, just like a WD40 can does. After using it to clean my throttle body on my truck, I decided to use it to clean my chain. Worked like a charm, and blasted all the links shiny clean.

It worked so well, I decided to try it on my sprocket. It absolutely blasted the dirt and grease away. In a couple of minutes, my sprocket looked brand new.

A couple of tips:

1. Work in a well ventilated area, as this stuff is dangerous to inhale and flammable.
2. Have old rags available to catch all the junk that will be flying and to dry parts.
3. Make sure to re-lubricate all parts immediately, as this stuff strips oil off completely.
4. Don't get it on plastic or cable housings, as it will melt it.
5. Keep it away from hubs, cranks, bearings and disk brakes/rotors.

Cheers.

Pull the cassette off the wheel. Put in parts washer. Scrub/rinse. Re-install. It works better than anything else. But I don't have one. So I floss the bloody thing when I have to with a rag and some WD.

How difficult is it to pull off the cassette? I don't know if that's above my skill set, but I'd sure like to learn. Being that I'm kind of lazy, I'd like to know how to pull it off and soak it, but if it's not easy or requires a special tool, we're back to square one.

I just want to get them good and clean before I put a new chain on. I don't want to get it all gunked up right away. I've 'flossed' the cassette before, but it takes forever.

Thanks you guys for all the replies...
-TB

I clean those tedious places on my bike by spraying with a degreaser, waiting 5 minutes or so and then spraying with the garden hose. Take bike for a ride to air dry.
This works especially well on SA 3 speeds that have a tendency to spray oil all over the spokes and wheels. Comes out almost squeaky clean.

A cassette is held on to the hub by means of a special nut called a lock ring . The lock ring uses a special socket that costs <$10 (first pic). You also need a chain whip to brace the whole works while you unscrew it (second pic, chain whip on right, wrench with socket on left. Note skewer is on to stabilize the nut for initial turn.) There is some technique involved and you should be careful about keeping the cogs and spacers in proper order. You will not find any spring loaded surprises. Really, it's easy and removal is about the only way to thoroughly clean a cassette. You can do this.

Park tool explains it in great detail here.

http://www.parktool.com/images_inc/r...-freewheel.jpg

http://www.parktool.com/images_inc/r...5andSR1use.jpg

Well, I think I'm gonna go for it. I'm headed to the LBS today to see if I can get a chain whip and the lock ring tool. No time like the present to learn! My roadie is 'off duty' right now anyway - just did my second MS150 this year, so I think I'm going to take the rest of the year and slow it down a bit.

I'll try and post some pics on how it's going later on! Thanks for the vote of confidence, CastIron!!!

Use a stiff, long bristled brush and plenty of Dawn & water. The brush gets pretty grimy, you may want to have one just for this job. Also, it splatters a bit, be careful & don't wear a good shirt.

Toothbrush

Car wash...

Well, so far, so good! I got a chain whip and the lockring tool and the cassette came off just fine. Everything is cleaned and I'm ready to reassemble, so now we'll learn if I was actually paying attention when I took all of it apart. Hope the pics came out!

Thanks again everyone for the advice - this really is a pretty simple job that everyone can do with the right tools. All told, I spent about $15 on the 2 tools, so no major investment there!

-TB

For a quick and effective cleaning between degreasing/regreasing I do the following:

Take the wheel off.
Hold the wheel horizontally between your chest and a wall, cassette side up
Run your rag between each cog, the freewheel will turn every other stroke making it nice and fast to clean between each cog.

I do what toThinkistobe does but use WD40 to spray then floss with a clean rag.

Yes, together with light use of paint thinner or kerosene. Then floss with rag. It's a 3 minute job.

This is a good approach using a safe type of cleaner. I routinely use this method at the bike shop frequently, including on my own bike. We also use the Simple Green foaming cleaner quite a bit. For severe situations, I bust out the Finish Line Citrus Degreaser (I call this "unleashing the wild oranges"), which will remove stuff that even our Safety-Kleen solvent tank has trouble making a dent in.

When using strong cleaners, use eye protection, protective gloves, and set up a fan to provide ventilation if you're indoors.

Well, I got everything back together and got a new Ultegra chain put on, and to be honest I hung my bike back up in the garage for a week so I could STARE at my pristeen cleaning job knowing full well the first time I went out for a ride it would be gone forever - well at least until I did this all again some time in the distant future.

My question now is this - would it be wise to have the derailleurs tuned up? I did a little test riding out in the neighborhood and my rear derailleur seems to be skipping or missing shifts. Maybe I just expect too much? My front did as well initially, but after a few minutes and several shifts back and forth form small ring to large ring and back, it seemed to settle in and it feels really good now, but I'm still not so sure about the rear. I guess it's possible I didn't put the cogs back together properly, but I would have expected a much more serious problem if that would have been the case.

Any ideas? I don't think I'm competent enough yet to adjust deraileurs and my only road bike is not what I would consider an ideal playground for this stuff, know what i mean? ;)

Thanks you guys....
-tb

I toothbrush it with regular grease fighting dish soap. No funky scents, and it comes out squeaky clean. THen hose it off, and use a hair dryer to dry the whole dealio. Works perfect.

I saw a brush by Pedro's at the LBS specifically for drivetrain cleaning. Had a short brush on one end (think grout brush) and longer bristles of increasing length on the other end. Priced at about five bucks. I'm going to pick one up myself.

Wrap a thin cloth around a putty knife. You can get to every bit of space deep between each gear.

Yes Dan, but the concepts I'm trying to show are the same. One has to work with the resources given.

Try turning the barrel adjuster (located where the cable comes into the rear derailleur) one turn one way or the other and shift. If it helps, keep working with it until it is smooth. See derailleur adjustment at the parktools website for more detail. This is really quite simple and you won't break anythng.