Anyone used ultrasound cleaner for chains?

[TOMAS]

Cheapest/easiest way... 1x large flip lid pasta jar... 2 pints of petrol, dump chain in and leave it for 24hrs, hook it out with a large pic/spoke... few sprays with Elbow Grease and then rinse with water. Dry with a rag and away you go...

When you calculate the time (hours) spent cleaning etc, just go with the basic clean method above and bin/replace your chain frequently... from a financial/time perspective it makes WAAAAY more sense.

I frequently get asked by customers "whats the best lube" - I now actually emphasize that cleaning thoroughly is far more important than what lube is used and golden rule with lube as mentioned above is that a little goes a long way AND makes cleaning easier when it comes to it... i've had customers liberally apply Muc-Off Dry for months and not clean the chain, they've killed the chain in less than 800 miles and I can tell you that not even petrol fetches the Muc-Off stuff off, it's horrible nasty stuff imho.

 

[pw_pw_la]

How frequently are people cleaning/replacing/waxing/lubing their chains, just out of curiosity?

I'm historically pretty lazy/haphazard with some of my basic maintenance, and am trying to improve this practice in general!

 

[Mickeyspinn]

Ohh the sleepless nights worrying about chains!
The tart in me is drawn to the wax malarky I must say...i do like my drivetrain clean and quiet.I tend to do two big cleans on a chain with the old rattle and shake technique then pull it for a new one probably at about 800 miles then the old one goes onto a dog bike.seems to make all my cogs and rings last.....but....however I do now look at bikes with chaincases and hubgears thinking hmmm ..not a bad idea really ....what you can't see and all that! except for the fact you can see a chaincase! ...
So how many miles does a wax job last ?

 

[GeneralOsik]

I currently have an old Sachs chain in a jar of mineral spirits, sitting in a nice hot ultrasonic bath. This is the second go in the bath, since there was still some dirt on the inside links, so I scrubbed it with a wire brush, and now it's back in for a few hours. Once it's done, I'll wipe it dry and clean, and then blast it with a hair drier until it's scalding hot and all the spirits have flashed off. Then depending on if it's going back on a bike or in storage, it'll either get a good oiling with Rock N' Roll Gold while installed on the bike, or I'll hit it with cheap WD-40 bike specific lube in a plastic bag.

 

[eightyeight]

How frequently are people cleaning/replacing/waxing/lubing their chains, just out of curiosity?

I'm historically pretty lazy/haphazard with some of my basic maintenance, and am trying to improve this practice in general!

Yeah I'm interested in that too. I mostly ride fixed so don't use split links and, hence, remove the chain as little as possible and it sounds like removing chain is the only way to rewax it.

 

[sminchnz]

Yeah I'm interested in that too. I mostly ride fixed so don't use split links and, hence, remove the chain as little as possible and it sounds like removing chain is the only way to rewax it.

Yeah, to do an immersion wax you need to remove the chain so quicklinks are the way to go. You can use a drip on wax lube like Squirt, though - 90% of the benefits without that part of the process.

How often I rewax my chains varies hugely. In summer it'll be a few weeks between swapping chains, so maybe once a month or every six weeks even because I have a few chains in rotation. In winter it can be after a single ride. When I did a 12 hour race in the mud I actually swapped my chain a couple of times.

 

[Tootyred]

Wow....im waxing mine probably once a year in the spring! But i suppose its really mileage and usage dependant!