Could be salt they put on road? Otherwise, Josh mentioned in the video above that wax won't adhere well if moisture is present in the chain as it's put into the wax. Did you finish the clean with alcohol as mentioned to evaporate the water?

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Kiwami Racing Team

Nope, after the ride I sprayed the chain with water and then wiped with a dry rag.

That was all.

Didn‘t have the rust problem after previous washes so I‘m looking for a solution to get the rust of and then put it into the wax again.

Can i put the rusty chain into the wax?
If I use wd40 to get rid of the rust, do I need to clean the chain with mineral spirits again before putting it i to the wax again?

if you use a petroleum oil based lube, they usually have rust inhibitors in them but that negates the purpose of the wax which is a "dry" form of lube. The unfortunate issue with waxing is that you would typically have to relube after a abusive ride where the chain gets dirty... so the best option is to pop the chain off and clean and rewax.. that will guard against rust. If you insist on doing a ride in those conditions and do not want to go the clean and rewax route then try one of the liquid options, such as the Super Secret drip lube, or maybe the similar other such lubes. The other option for this is to use the new types of wet lube like the Silca Synergetic which should be better at protecting the chain in these conditions.

nope, don't want to ride in that conditions :) not when it's raining from above, not through ankle-deep mud pools in the forest.

i hear what you are saying but not fully understand.
so with pop off and clean and rewax it's the full process
clean petroleum oil based lube with rust inhibitors but then mineral spirit to get rid of the "wet lube" and prepare for the waxing again

I cannot use the wd40 for cleaning and then wax without the mineral spirit process inbetween.
that's what I'm trying to get answered.

thanks for your help so far.

sorry if my answer was confusing.
If you have a waxed chain you are sort of committed to a certain path. if you break the path then you may not get the exact benefits of the hot wax approach.

So I say no you can not got degreaser (I assume that is what WD-40 cleaner is) without rinsing it off and then reapplying the wax. What you have done is simply remove the lube (wax) with the degreaser, then you added water , you can not truly dry the chain on the bike so there was residual water as well bare metal exposed to oxygen, therefore the outcome is rust.

I am not familiar with the WD-40 cleaner. if it is a citrus water soluble cleaner, then it should remove most things but then again???? Really from what I have seen waxing may not be the best option for really tough situations like wet dirty rides. Read what Adam says at Zero Friction.

So for the situation you were in with a dirty chain that had been waxed then a full clean down and hot waxing is the only true way back. When you do half way options you get results that prove it was not optimal such as rust. That simply shows that the bare metal was exposed to oxygen and well rust was the result.

Sometimes there is no short cut. If that is your desire you need a new lube approach which is why I suggested the so called wet lubes. They are a bit more tolerant of the wet muddy conditions.

Anytime you expose your chain to water it needs to be dried, and that is the purpose of the methanol. Mineral spirits does not help with that and actually will push the water into the harder to reach parts of a chain. water and mineral spirits do not mix. So you need to go cleaner/degreaser, if it is water based then water, then methanol (methyl hydrate) to remove the water then you can go to mineral spirits if you wish though I would not, and then to hot wax... otherwise you have a bare unlubed chain.

The water gets trapped deep inside the chain so before you wax it you should put it briefly in denatured alcohol. That should push out any existing water and evaporate quickly. That allows the wax to adhere better. The shared video above from Josh of Silca shows things pretty well and is a great watch. The guy knows his stuff.

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Kiwami Racing Team

  
The water gets trapped deep inside the chain so before you wax it you should put it briefly in denatured alcohol. That should push out any existing water and evaporate quickly. That allows the wax to adhere better. The shared video above from Josh of Silca shows things pretty well and is a great watch. The guy knows his stuff.[/quote]


sort of right, yes the water gets trapped but alcohol does not push it but actually dissolves/ mixes with the water and dilutes it to the point that the water left is virtually 0, 2 -3 rinses would almost be zero water.

The other point of the discussion earlier was the temperature to use the wax, and that is another reason I go to 110-120 deg C so that if there is any residual solvent (alcohol) or water both are boiled off and the chain is dry and water/ solvent free and the wax can access just metal. When I put my chain into the wax I let it heat up to this temperature to avoid sputtering and mess, the wax bath sounds a lot like a french frier when you put wet fries into it so letting it heat until no more bubbles are seen is a fair sign that there is no solvent or water left.

The mineral spirits and alcohol baths are only necessary to prep a new chain or one that wasn’t previously hot waxed. But if you want to strip all wax, you do need to do that. My belief is that the multiple baths are needed to strip the factory wax or drip-on waxes, but once you do that you can get by just fine with a single bath of mineral spirits followed by denatured alcohol. Any residual molten wax will melt and remix into the vat when you re-dip the chain in freshly heated wax. I’ve found that you can continue to use the same batch of wax for re-dipping chains for at least a year, maybe more. But I just buy a new bag every year - it’s less expensive in the long run than the drip on waxes. I re-dip every 2 months or so and it’s been fine. Seems that riding in rain definitely reduces the life span of a wax job, but I rarely find myself riding in the rain.

It’s a labor of love for sure. Honestly the hardest part is tracking when to redo it on each bike if you don’t do them all at the same time.