How To Easily Clean A FILTHY Chain

you've got a filthy bike chain and you want to clean it I'm going to show you how to do this quickly and effectively I'm going to tell you the tools that you need show you a quick method and then also a more thorough way for when you have more time cleaning your chain will make your chain last longer it will save you money and make your bike more efficient before we get going if you find videos like this useful then if you haven't already please do subscribe because it helps us improve the videos that we make and well make better videos for you now to get going on the quick cleaning chain method you're going to need the following tools some Degreaser ideally bike specific a brush dedicated ones are great but an old toothbrush can work too a hose and a dirty chain I have a dirty chain here obviously this isn't on on my bike because my bike is so clean you could eat your dinner off it so I've borrowed size bike and he's someone who definitely isn't as conscientious when it comes to chain cleanliness sorry sigh I'm using a dedicated bike cleaning uh Degreaser which is ideal in a pinch you can use something like WD40 because the solvent carrier in that will um help dissolve the oily crap that's on your chain but it's not ideal because it also contains PTFE which will be left behind as a residue and isn't an Optimum lubricant and will contaminate other lubricants uh that go on your chain and also being an aerosol you get overspray so that is bad news uh especially when it overs sprays onto your brakes and contaminates those you can also use like full-on solvents like acetone or like petroleum ether and those two will remove the grease from your chain but they're pretty harsh um and also there's a good chance they will remove grease from other parts of your bike where you don't want them to as well so things like the bearings uh in your hubs um and in your wheels and stuff like that that that's going to be bad news so the best sort of stuff really is a dedicated bike Degreaser that comes in a spray not an aerosol start by spraying Degreaser on the Chain the easiest way to do this is to spray on the cassette and chain rings as you backpedal the crank so that you get Degreaser on every single part of the chain if you have a bike stand like this Park Tool pcs1 it's easier but if you don't you can lean the bike against a wall we're then going to leave the Degreaser on there a minute for it to do its thing chemistry time for you so the degreasers work use it using chemistry they're a special long molecule and on one end of the molecule it's attracted to the grease and it bonds to the grease when you get all these Degreaser molecules sort of helping loosen the grease and bonding all around it and then the other end of the molecule is what's known as hydrophilic it's attracted to water so when you spray the water on it then that end of the molecule bonds to the water and it drags it off and drags it away and cleans your uh well whatever it is you're trying to degrease but the next thing I'm going to do before I rinse is just get a brush and agitate everything with the brush because that helps take the dirt off even more you can already see the degreas has been doing a phenomenal job [Music] we've agitated everything now this is my favorite part we're going to rinse it off with the hose this is this is great it's really satisfying the way the dirt just drops off check this [Music] out now that's looking pretty good at this point you can dry the chain with a cloth and then rubricate it and you're good to go but for a bit more of a thorough clean I'd suggest just repeating what we've just done one more time um with another round of Degreaser agitation and rinsing off because you'll be amazed at how much dirt still comes off when you do um a second load of Degreaser there's loads of dirt still hidden sort of in Little Bits you can't see in the gaps in between the chain [Music] with your chain de Grease the next thing to do is to dry it you can use an Old Rag preferably a clean one um or a microfiber is the optimum tool for the job because it helps draw little bit of dirt away and dust as well so just simply backpedal again and just hold the chain and microfiber like so at this point you'll be amazed as well that there's probably still some residual dirt in the chain although you have got most of it off but you'll see it come out onto the microfiber final step is to lubricate your chain not all lubs are created equal I'd always recommend using a good Lube something like Silka synergetic that's going to attract less dirt make your chain last longer and stay cleaner for longer um so the best way to do this is to put the chain in the uh Big Chain ring and a big sprocket at the back so you sort of cross-chaining but it kind of like bends the chain across and opens the links up so you get a bit better penetration of the Lube in between the links which is where you want it and then we're going to apply the top of the cassette as we backpedal so we can get a good drop on every single link and [Music] roller I just backpedal the chain 12 times to make sure that the lube is properly distributed and worked into the chain and then you're good to go now that's the quick method with the chain still on the bike if you want to do a much more thorough deep clean of your chain then the best thing to do do is to actually remove the chain from the bike if you have a quick link if you don't have a quick link you're going to have to use a fresh pin chain link pin in in there which you might not have and you might want to get or it might just be worth just getting a new chain at that point um before you do clean your chain I should mention as well you should always just check what the wear of it is now Park Tool have a bunch of really useful chain wear indicator tools and if your chain is too far worn then if that's usually on most chains if it's you know at 75 wear or more than 0.5 wear then you should just change it and not bother cleaning it and the reason for that is it will actually then wear out your cassette and it'll wear out your chain Rings which will cost you more money because you'll have to replace those to but if your chain contains a quick link and it's not too far worn then this method is really useful for giving it a very thorough clean maybe this is something you want to do before an important race or event with the chain removed you can simply put it in a jar with some soapy water and shake it thoroughly you can then rinse the water off and repeat the process but this time with solvent or a specific bike Degreaser inside the jar acetone works well too now once you've done this you rinse dry and then reattach the chain with a fresh quick link and then relbe it right I hope you found this useful and well I hope s enjoys this clean if you've got a mate who has a filthy chain well be sure to tag them in this video name them and shame them I'm going to tag sigh love you bye

Channel: GCN Tech

Views: 333,461

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Id: 3UXdn0QQ1A8

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024