Right,

So I ran out of degreaser, but needed to clean up my drive train before a ride tomo… so I used white spirit.

Anyone else done this? It made a good job of destroying the flip flop I was wearing!

all the time it's cheap and works.

I use white spirit in a chain cleaner thingy with the rotating brushes – does a good job. Not very environmentally friendly compared with the biodegradable degreasers though.

It did a bloody good job of the cleaning… Just wondering if I might do any long term damage, made sure I kept it well away from any rubbery or plastic bits.

I've always used white spirit as solvent for chains (as lubes were always spirit based). They get cleaned afterwards with hot soapy water, then rinsed with hot clean water. As with degreaser, I wouldn't advise using it to clean chainrings and cassette on the bike as it could easily end up running down into BB or wheel bearings and degrading the grease in them.

If you use a dry lube you should find that the rest of the drivetrain can generally be kept clean by just wiping with a cloth.

Hamish – that's what I did, tried to collect as much as I could in a cup, used to try and keep my other degreaser in a cup and filter out the crap… But I knocked the cup over. DOH!

White spirit + chain+jam-jar+shaky shaky = clean chain 🙂