cleaning my chain with petrol

Is this a good idea. I have been doing this for years, but then again I seem to have more broken chains than most. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe the two are connected!

If not petrol, is there anything out there that will do the job that I can find off the shelf so to speak as opposed to buying specific chain cleaning “gunk”?

Organic degreaser works fine in a jar?

I’ve never had any issues with using petrol/solvents. Used to use some of the (relativelys safe) waste solvents from work, clean the chains, then take it back and put it in the waste solvent locker.

Just be sure if you are using petrol you dispose of it properly (i.e. the waste oil/hydrocarbons bin at the tip)

“Gunk” is what my Dad used to use to clean his motorbike chain.

you clean your chain? i havent bothered for years and never had any problems

Don’t degrease your chain. Keep it as dry as possible (no washing) – brush off the dust once dry and re-lube with “dry” lube. A lot less hassle, easier on the environment and the wallet, and your chain will last longer.

That’s my advice based on (long) experience.

Keep it as dry as possible

Ummm… have you ever actually ridden in the UK…? 🙄

Ummm… only for forty years. 🙄

I said as dry as possible. Not dry. Can you read? 🙄

I said as dry as possible. Not dry. Can you read?

surely it’s possible – you can get a chain dry ?

(Oh, and diesel’s a lot safer than petrol. Or if you enjoy risk, try ether or something – better sniffin’ too)

errrrrrr dry lube last about oooooooooooooooooo………..

this long >-<

Fine for trail centers, in the dry, when wrapped in coton wool, and left in the car while you ride a different bike with a decent wet lube on the chain.

My chain gets removed, shaken in a bottle of whatever is to hand (usualy some old 2stroke mix from the old lawnmower), removed, hung up to dry (2t mix is good for this as it leaves a greasy residue) then drip wet lube from the top untill it runs off the bottom.

Can you read?

Yes I can. Good, isn’t it? 🙂

I said as dry as possible. Not dry.

Which means really not very dry at all for nine months of the year…

Of course any sort of chain lubrication lasts about twenty minutes in winter – dry lube, landrover axle grease, whatever. But (personally speaking) I hate starting every ride with the grinding crunching sound of a transmission full of grit (even if they usually end that way). So I clean my chains properly. YMMV.

Agree about grit – that’s why I never wash grit into my chain.

Also agree that a post without rolleyes is so much nicer.

Still don’t understand why cleaning a chain is more likely to get grit into the rollers than riding for hours through muddy puddles.

I must be missing something here. My clean chains are nice and shiny and run smoothly with no crunching. Maybe I’m cleaning them wrong?

I try to avoid degreasing a new chain for as long as possible but after a while once all the original sticky grease has all but disappeared from the rollers I start degreasing and haven’t had any issues with premature wear or breakages. I prefer to use a wax based lube in the dry with the occasional top up of dry lube, wet lube only for when it’s wet…

Whatever – everyone has their own ways. I’ve had this discussion so many times, and without exception each person that disagrees with me does so purely on theory and principle rather than going by experience and empirical evidence. I suppose that if you degrease completely (OP – petrol) and somehow manage to completely re-lube then it might be ok. Over the years I have tried wash/degrease/re-lube (whereas I doubt you have tried the opposite to your own method) and in my experience it is at least not any better, plus is a lot of hassle.

Give up elliptic – you wont win 🙂

Somepeople think you wash grit into a chain that you clean with petrol etc due to the fact that the lack of ANY lube afterwards makes the noise the grit creates much louder. In actual fact your chain wont give two hoots about being washed in petrol so carry on regardless, just make sure you dont over-lube (due to dust sticking) or under-lube (by not getting lube into between the plates and rollers. You break more chains than most probably due to bad driveline alignment or shifting under load more, or leaving it un-loved after rides causing it to seize up.

I think lube gets into modern chains quite fast, so degreasing’s not a problem from that point of view (pretty sure the mighty Sheldon has explained why somewhere on his site)

But I also think that you could “fill” your chain crevices with some waxy, persistent stuff and then not worry too much about the outside until it wears out

those dry/waxy products that claim you can just reapply to a mucky chain seem a bit silly to me – that MUST wash kack into the chain as the new application works its way in

(isn’t TJ using some melty waxy stuff that he thinks is great, but each new application takes a while & is a bit messy (melted candlewax might do it too I suppose). I’ve had a go with chainsaw oil in the past – sprays on, very gooey but the hard bit is getting it off the outside of the chain once it’s got into the gaps – otherwise shite just sticks to it)

Interesting concept there GlenP.

Perhaps you’re missing the point – Full degrease of a chain removes anything that will make grit stick to, on or in a chains links, which means if you think about it, what goes in also comes out. Different people have a different take on how to remove the dirty degreaser that caries the grit out, but I’m sure you see the point.

I think you’re mistaken that your chain doesn’t have any grit in it because you haven’t ‘washed it in’. The gaps on the rollers are hardly sub-micron tolerances after all. I would agree that if you choose to use dry lube, then there will be little adherence of dirt/grit out on the trail though.

I can also see that running a dry chain would be better than running one constantly full of grit, but I imagine your drive train power losses would be greater than average; if that’s an issue to you.

Throw in riding style, shifting technique, local terrain, washing habits, choice of lube, rider weight and power output and of course it all goes out the window.

I happen to agree with Elliptic – co-incidentally we ride the same place – perhaps this has something to do with it.

Its easy to find the prevailing view of chain lubrication on the web (look for industrial uses since there’s little on mtb chains)

One final thing – One persons ‘dead’ chain is another persons slightly worn one, so this is all balderdash really – there’s no confirmed end point to allow comparison of how long a chain lasts under the myriad of regimes that riders use anyway.

Like elliptic says -YMMV. Just because it works for you in your riding paradigm doesn’t mean it will work for anyone else. Prevailing opinion both here and across industrial applications involving high torque, dirty conditions and slow rev conditions is against your limited and anecdotal advice though.