This is actually very typical of what Simple Green does to metal over long exposure periods.
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After spending hours getting two chains spotless and ready for wax I’m convinced that if I every do this again, I have to get an ultrasonic cleaner.
How fast does ultrasonic work? Is it like 5 or 10 minutes and the chain is done and ready for wax?
I see, yes it appears I was wrong, longer exposure to SG can cause metal to become brittle, causing chain links to snap. Sorry that happend @JimA - thanks for sharing your experience!
Mike
Not sure why it took you hours. They don’t have to be spotless. Just shake them around in some mineral spirits for a few minutes and repeat until the solution is clear or don’t, I doubt it matters that it’s that clear. If you have waxed the chain before, a few minutes in a pot of boiling water prior to the spirits should be enough. No scrubbing or cleaning required.
Are you talking about the time to do the initial cleaning of the factory lube being hours? As you do more chains I think you will find it gets easier IMO. An ultrasonic is not going to be very good for the initial stripping of a new chain.
I usually put my chains in the US cleaner for 10-20 minutes with the heat turned on. As @russell.r.sage mentioned I now generally clean with hot water only. A few minutes in boiling water seems to get the chain almost as good as the US cleaner and then it goes into the wax and I can dump the hot water down the drain.
I just cleaned three chains - the first was a brand new Campagnolo chain and the second was my old chain which I never got clean enough the first time around I put Smoove on it. My understanding is that for wax, the chain needs to be grease free and basically clean enough to eat off.
By hours I mean, spray the chain, scrub it, let it sit, repeat, boil it, repeat, scrub again, boil, final alcohol rinse. Maybe each step takes 5 or 10 minutes and then there is a lot of waiting in between. It was still very time consuming and adds up. The second chain contaminated with both factory grease and Smoove was the hardest.
Also, these Campagnolo chains seem to have extra thick factory grease. The third chain I cleaned was an Sram chain and it came with much much less factory grease installed. It cleaned up much more easily with citrus de-greaser and a scrub.
@MikeMckinney
No worries. Clearly I had no idea myself.
Spray what? All the cleaning steps should be submersion in various liquids. Spraying is only ever going to be superficial.
Spraying it with citrus degreaser and then scrubbing it with a brush.
Maybe it’s easier with mineral spirits but in the first post at the top I see that Jonathan is doing 6-8 baths in mineral spirits. That doesn’t sound much easier than what I’m doing. And honestly, I’m not that keen on tossing out that much solvent into the environment just to clean a chain.
I’m going to give waxing a try and I’ll probably buy an ultrasonic cleaner.
All this does leave me wondering if the cleaner/lube method (like Rock n Roll Gold) isn’t the superior method or at least the easier method. I never even took the factory lube off. Just clean it with Rock N Roll Gold once a week for six months and then toss it in favor of a new chain.
My general approach (I have a cheaper ultrasonic cleaner without a heating element): heat water in an electric kettle to 65C (which is just a couple of minutes) then pour it into the ultrasonic cleaner with Simple Green HD. Turn on the cleaner and let it degas for 6 minutes, then put in the chain for 6 minutes, then flip the chain and let it run for another 6 minutes. If you do a second round in the ultrasonic cleaner, that adds another full 20 minutes at least.
With a larger ultrasonic cleaner doing multiple chains and only one pass, that can be pretty fast. With a smaller ultrasonic cleaner doing multiple chains multiple passes, it can still take a long time. On the other hand, you don’t have to be laser focused on the process the whole time.
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Spraying and scrubbing isn’t going to get all the grease out of the internals, which is more critical than the external surfaces.
Your rock and roll method is what I’ve been doing for years. It’s a great wet lube, but you can’t avoid the mess with wet lube. There is no way to remove the dirt and grit without pulling everything apart and cleaning it. I got sick of the mess and gritty drive train, so I’m trying the wax thing. I can swap out to a freshly waxed chain in a couple minutes, which is about the same amount of time it took me to do a quick wipe/lube. The quick wipe/lube still leaves me with a gritty drive train and dirty hands, so hoping wax will be like a new chain and clean hands each time.
I do the wipe/lube 2-3X and I don’t seem to end up with a gritty drivetrain. I wear some gloves and use a disposable shop towel each time so my hands stay clean.
Once every month or two I give the bike a full bath with soap and water followed by wipe/lube routine.
My biggest problem this year with wipe/lube has been on my gravel bike. It’s been so dusty that I have to hose off my bike and do the the wipe/lube routine after every single ride. I want to try wax on the gravel bike more than on any other bike.
Dude, to be completely honest IMO 6-8 baths is excessive. I run wax on all my stuff and I do max 3 baths, this last one I did it in 2 baths because I was lazy and I try to re-use my mineral spirits on the factory grease. I left it in the first bath for like 2 days and then the second bath for 2 weeks (just never got around to finishing it) and then did a bath in acetone before waxing it. Unless you are looking to eek out every single watt, 2-3 baths really should be all you need.
I think we obsess about getting every single ounce of speed from our equipment out when really what is 1-2 watts going to net us? If you are that hungry for watts buy the Ceramic Speed pre done wax. As long as you can strip the factory grease from the chain the wax can do its thing.
Anyways I will be happy to be proven wrong here, but I have been doing this for a long time now and I am just way too lazy to be doing 4+ baths on my new chains. I would rather put in a bit of extra time on the bike and put down the fork a bit and see performance that way. I don’t enjoy fiddling around and inhaling chemicals more than I need to.
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Plus IMO if you run the chains a few times and do the rewaxing, you will inherently work the grease out over time (if you have any left, assuming 2-3 baths don’t remove enough, which I really, really think will remove more than enough). Even if you remove 95% of the grease, you should have enough wax adhesion and by the time you wear through the chain a bit, you will get 100% adhesion from sequential baths. As it is, a slightly worn chain is faster than new anyways so it really, really dosnt matter. Just make sure you strip the grease. You do not really need a 99.99999% clean chain. 95-98% or whatever should do.
And to beat a dead horse I use paint thinner, as I cannot get my hands on mineral spirits where I live. Again you can chase perfection all you want, but if you are within 95% of “perfection” (whatever that is) I deem it as acceptable, as eeking out the remaining 5% is exponentially more time intensive and tedious. Diminishing returns.
In engineering you can see this in bearings. You pay exponentially more for the 99.999 vs the 99.99, seems familiar? (cough ceramic bearings, not that I am bashing them or saying you should not get them either, but there is a time and place and importance for the extra thousandths, going to space is one of them, your bike… not… so much?)
Just read the horror post about a chain disintegrating after having been left in SG for too long. Just left 2 brand new chains in diesel for 3 days now. Safe to use?
6-8 is excessive. I do 1, maybe 2. It works out fine.
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The Simple Green horror post is me. My guess is, you’re OK, or more specifically, your chain is OK. After all, diesel sits in gas tanks and fuel lines for days without causing corrosion whereas SG is not designed to be a “storage” bath for metals. I’m not implying that diesel is perfect — water and ethanol contamination can cause diesel to become corrosive. But this tends to occur in diesel storage tanks and engines where fuel sits for long periods of time. I can’t imagine 3-days in a diesel bath would cause any problems.
If you have any doubts, give your chain a good look over after cleaning and before waxing. Maybe use it on the trainer first before going outside, and then look it over again. I’ve read that the process that seemed to affect my chain is called “hydrogen embrittlement.” And indeed, it was brittle. Clear as day it has many cracks. I wasn’t looking for cracks before I dipped it in the wax bath, so I have no idea if they were visible then. For what it’s worth, after waxing I used that chain on a Ramp Test, Carpathian Peak, and was 29 miles in on a road ride when the first break occurred.
Incidentally, SG also offers an aircraft grade cleaner that contains an anti-corrosion agent to “battle corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement.”
And, no surprise, concern around SG and bike chains is nothing new: Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - Not-so-Simple Green - VeloNews.com
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I can’t speak to how mineral spirits behaves, but I’ve been using gasoline to strip new chains and haven’t thrown any out yet. The grease settles to the bottom and I can pour off the majority clean layer into another jar. With 3 jars you can accumulate the grease dregs in one. Not sure what I’ll do with that jar when it gets full, but I’d estimate I’ve got about 10 years to think of something.
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Way excessive, at least for my chain usage.
When I get a new chain, which isn’t very often since I have 4 in rotation, I put it in 4L plastic wide mouth plastic jug, add just enough mineral spirits to cover the chain and shake vigorously. I generally let it soak over night and will give it a few more shakes periodically. Take it out to dry and do a final alcohol bath to remove any mineral spirits that may remain. As far as letting it soak, the mineral spirits come in a mild steel can that will last for years without degrading so I figure a chain soaking for a few hours is pretty safe.
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