Zach’s Garage

Chain cleaning

November 29, 2007 1:46 am Zach Maintenance

When I washed the bike to get all the crud off from my long ride last week, I also cleaned the chain. Until now I always cleaned it with WD40 before lubing it, but this time I took the advice of a few people on various message boards and used kerosene to clean it. The smallest container I could find locally was one gallon, so I’ll pretty much never have to worry about buying more again for years. I simply pour some into a small container and use a big toothbrush style brush to scrub the chain clean with it. It eats through all the gunk and gets it clean real well, just be sure to cover the wheel/tire/swingarm from splashes, you can see in the photo below I got my swingarm a little nasty from it. It’ll clean right off, I didn’t even notice until I looked at this picture. The chain looks brand new again. Afterwards its just a matter of applying your lube of choice, right now I’m using PJ1 Blue Label, I may try some kind of chain wax after this is used up to see if it flings off any less.

Also, I went out for a short ride today to try out the grip heaters. It was about 45F out. I wore my thinner summer leather gloves, and on the high setting my hands were almost too hot. I ended up alternating between high and low every 10-15 minutes or so. They work great and are easily worth the $30 or so.