Why would you want to take all of the oils out of your chain? Wouldn’t it be smarter to remove the dirt from the chain and leave the lubrication in the rollers where it belongs? Then just add a light coat of lubrication to the chain when done cleaning.
Something to think about.
jaretj
That’s the principle behind Prolink. While I don’t purport to understand “how”, they (and others) claim that it displaces dirt and sludge before bonding to the metal - thus lubricating and preventing further accumulation of crud. Re-application serves to “flush out” any dust or dirt that may have stuck to the rollers as well as “touching up” on the lube that’s bonded to the metal.
Sounds highly unlikely, but I will say that since switching (very recently) my drivetrain has never felt so good and there is no accumulation of sludge. (It did “sweat” crap for the first few rides though - I am ssuming it was the old crap working its way out)
I the good ole days , you would wash the chain in solvent-dry – throw it in hot paraffin, to relube which was OK. But since the wear is on the pin and side of the link, wiping – oiling just gets on your socks, leaving the pins / inside of the link dry. If you soak it in a thin oil fuel / kerosene, you will get some of the fine dust / grit to soften – loosen. The kerosene will evaporate after a while leaving some internal lube.
I’m with Helitech on the kerosene recomendation, with the important caveat that some of the newer chain lubes seem to react unfavorably with it. Some of the synthetic wax or plastic based lubes won’t bond well to a chain with kerosene residue on it. They still work, but messy…
Do you feel confident that you are lubricating the pins and rollers? Most people that soak their chains don’t and the chain wears out just as quickly as it would if it was not cleaned at all.
While Prolink is a great product everyone that soaks their chain should keep in mind that they are flushing the lubricants out of the pins and rollers and it needs to be replaced. Simply spraying on a lubricant doesn’t replace it. The chain needs to be soaked in a lubricant to get it back to where it belongs.
jaretj
I started using simple green after a buddy told me about it. However, it seemed like I had to really work at it to get grease/grime of the chain and carbon fiber frame. A while back, when I was into roller hockey, we used this citrus cleaner to clean the swiss bearings. I found this Orange Cleaner, that is similiar to the roller blade stuff, at Walmart and it does the job in like a 1/4 of the time and very little effort compared to simple green.
-snip- "Wow, I wouldn;t use any of those. Very dangerous and also you have to be concerned about the disposal. It can;t go into a storm drain or onto the ground.
We use Simple Green. It is inexpensive, much less caustic, and is biodegradeable. That’s our recommendation"
Eco-friendly myth buster #1
Simple Green is biodegradeable
Yeah - sure it is. Right up until the first second you use it.
The moment you use a biodegradeable cleaning product to remove a non-biodegradeable material, you no longer have a biodegradeable product.
If you use simple green (or similar) to clean your chain, you still need to dispose of it in the same way as you would any other industrial chemical. You can’t just flush it down the drain - illegal to do so in an industrial/business context, and, well, just not very darn “green” for the private individual.
I’ve heard of some people who like to soak their chain in Prolink (and even one who uses a Park chain cleaner full of it), but frankly that’s a little expensive for me. I used to use wax, and needed to soak/agitate the chain to get all the gunk and crap off of it. Since switching, I’ve not needed to soak it. While I can’t say for certain that I am getting lube into the pins and rollers, my “clean looking” chain still occasionally “sweats” crap - so my hope is that I’m driving it out of somewhere, and replacing it with Prolink. Either way I’ll replace the chain if and when I need to - but for the time being, surely do enjoy the near-frictionless drivetrain I’ve got.
I’m still not convinced that varsol is anything less than my #1 parts cleaner though!