Clean your chain with cooking oil?
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:23 pm
found this on another website...tried it, its actually surprisingly good, and i cant imagine it doing anything disastrous to the chain/sprockets/paintwork/metal...so a bonus and its cheap!
basically you mix together cooking oil with a fair amount of washingup liquid and a small amount of water to make an emmulsion, then attack your chain and sprockets with a heavy duty nylon/plastic-bristled brush, it lifts the crap off your chain, but as its not a runny liquid like water it stays on there. then after you have finished simply use soapy water and a sponge to remove the oil, my chain looks a hell of a lot better than before, and my sprocket has gone from black to gold, i.e. the colour it should be.
i have then sprayed my chain with commercial chain cleaner followed by commercial lube, looks 100x better than it did before, i suppose you just need to be really careful at making sure you dont leave loads of oil on your rear wheel, but 5 minutes of washing sorted that out.
anyone else tried this? asi said up top, i cant believe it will do any harm, cooking oil is a hydrophobic aliphatic solution so it disolves grease, the dishwashing fluid and water help to make it flow a bit more and also increase the surface area of the oil by creating lots of oil micelles, and they you wash the whole thing off with soapy water before adding fresh lube...ill let you know how it goes on.
even is it makes the chain go FUBAR thats ok, the chain and sprockets need changing, they are well work and the chain has so much slack its unbelievable...gonna go to a mates next weekend and change it.
basically you mix together cooking oil with a fair amount of washingup liquid and a small amount of water to make an emmulsion, then attack your chain and sprockets with a heavy duty nylon/plastic-bristled brush, it lifts the crap off your chain, but as its not a runny liquid like water it stays on there. then after you have finished simply use soapy water and a sponge to remove the oil, my chain looks a hell of a lot better than before, and my sprocket has gone from black to gold, i.e. the colour it should be.
i have then sprayed my chain with commercial chain cleaner followed by commercial lube, looks 100x better than it did before, i suppose you just need to be really careful at making sure you dont leave loads of oil on your rear wheel, but 5 minutes of washing sorted that out.
anyone else tried this? asi said up top, i cant believe it will do any harm, cooking oil is a hydrophobic aliphatic solution so it disolves grease, the dishwashing fluid and water help to make it flow a bit more and also increase the surface area of the oil by creating lots of oil micelles, and they you wash the whole thing off with soapy water before adding fresh lube...ill let you know how it goes on.
even is it makes the chain go FUBAR thats ok, the chain and sprockets need changing, they are well work and the chain has so much slack its unbelievable...gonna go to a mates next weekend and change it.