What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

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Smousley1995
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by Smousley1995 »

I'll keep an eye out for it, although it's probably carcinogenic :pmsl
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by banner001 »

for some reason here at work (spotlessly clean scientific research building) we have swarfega and swarfega with grit in our stores department, both are fantastic for cleaning your hands with.
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by cargo »

banner001 wrote:for some reason here at work (spotlessly clean scientific research building) we have swarfega and swarfega with grit in our stores department, both are fantastic for cleaning your hands with.

spotlessly clean ?.................WTF do you need swarfega for then ?

Prob coz all the nitrile gloves went missing
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by KwakKwak »

My neighbour is a nice retired farmer, he sees me doing many many oil changes, even on my cars, I'm that good, he gave me a tip for old engine oil, keep it and mix it into creosote for my fencing, works lovely, smells good too. Although I was lazy last week and took my scooby to a dealer for an oil and filter change, £100 shocking , and the fooker didn't even give me the old oil back, he races bikes, his son races cars, he also has alot of fencing.

And you Smousley, stop starting arguments with your bloody stupid chain questions, just clean it, lube it, and stay very silent about it :pmsl

sofa
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by cargo »

KwakKwak wrote:My neighbour is a nice retired farmer, he sees me doing many many oil changes, even on my cars, I'm that good, he gave me a tip for old engine oil, keep it and mix it into creosote for my fencing, works lovely, smells good too. Although I was lazy last week and took my scooby to a dealer for an oil and filter change, £100 shocking , and the fooker didn't even give me the old oil back, he races bikes, his son races cars, he also has alot of fencing.

And you Smousley, stop starting arguments with your bloody stupid chain questions, just clean it, lube it, and stay very silent about it :pmsl

sofa
:pmsl
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by banner001 »

cargo wrote:spotlessly clean ?.................WTF do you need swarfega for then ?
thats why i said "for some reason"...i dont understand it. our lab is a CAT 2 lab (salmonella, c.albicans), and a few of the areas are CAT 3, so thats things like smallpox, ricin...i dont understand why we need swarfega either.
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by cargo »

banner001 wrote:
cargo wrote:spotlessly clean ?.................WTF do you need swarfega for then ?
thats why i said "for some reason"...i dont understand it. our lab is a CAT 2 lab (salmonella, c.albicans), and a few of the areas are CAT 3, so thats things like smallpox, ricin...i dont understand why we need swarfega either.


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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by banner001 »

we have much better things to steal, than £5 of swarfega :D

just bought a £500,000 microscope...would easily fit in the back seat of a small car...but then i would have nothing to research with.
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by Smousley1995 »

KwakKwak wrote:And you Smousley, stop starting arguments with your bloody stupid chain questions, just clean it, lube it, and stay very silent about it :pmsl

sofa
:smt098 Hahahahaha :pmsl

I work in a dockyard where sugar/gritty soap and nitrile gloves are everywhere! Of course I buy all of mine from the shops though confuddled
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by KwakKwak »

Had a bit of an old read up about chain maintenance last night, a topic which causes many differing opinions, some clean and lube, some just lube, some do naff all, only consistentcy is nobody agrees on anything :smt009
Basically I still maintain not cleaning it is just being lazy, an X ring sort of hints that you can do this to appeal to the lazier amongst us, but really does need maintaining like it's poorer O ring bro. Even this is debatable, shock horror.
You can soak a chain in parrafin or diesel BUT no longer than 5 mins, then dry off with compressed air, according to Mr Haynes, this process should take no longer than 10 mins, otherwise you WILL damage your O or X rings. Also if your chain is the Mr Kawasaki endless then you need to drop the swingarm to soak it, which unless you are doing some bearing greasing (NOT WD40) is a tad extreme.
Defo do not use WD40 to clean or lube the chain.
Some use transmission fluid to lube a chain as it has good lube and cleaning properties, I have not checked but would have thought this will damage the O rings and be bad on your side panels, I could well be wrong here, but as I have no intention of using it have not checked.
I am sticking with a good spray chain cleaner, as it defo cleans well and evaporates quickly, therefore not damaging the O or X rings, and a good spray chain lube, both have always worked well for me.
The link cargo posted earlier basically says this too but I got interested and decided to do some homework, gold star or what :pmsl

Forgot to add, this is defo the place to be if someone needs a big microscope that's cleaned with sugar soap, lubed in old engine oil and can only be handled with nitrile gloves.
I've emailed Banner's lab, if he arrives in a small car, be very wary, it's not the swarfega that's walking.
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by Smousley1995 »

Very useful kwakkwak, cheers!
The fact that some people don't bother to do anything makes me feel much better about my chain lasting me biggrin
I do love chain cleaner, it says it's ok for o-rings and it even gets rust off if I neglect my chain for a while (I park by the sea everyday at work so it gets surface rust pretty quick) but it always goes back to lovely gold :excited
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by ross46 »

+1 on the swarfega, bought a 5kg tub of it which has lasted 5 years, i mix it with chocolate orange soap ( smells just like terrys chocolate orange- nom nom) for the chain i clean with white spirit or parrafin on a rag or toothbrush once a month, then lube, lube it when it looks like it needs it if the rollers are dry, every 3 months or so i take it off and soak it in paraffin so it comes out gleaming, lube it then ride away, takes all of 10-15 minutes to remove the chain, clean it and have it back on the bike. and one of the main problems with the oxygen cancer thing is free radicals, they get into your body and take electrons from anything they can find. causes cancer and aging. personally i smoke, inhale petrol accidently, and just carry on, was talking about asbestos the other day, saying how you dont have to be too scared about it, just dont go at it with a saw! then decided with a mate to ride to chernobyl...
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by cargo »

I would have thought white spirits is very harsh and perhaps damaging to o or x rings
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by ross46 »

possibly, i try to use paraffin when i have it but white spirit is more readily available and cheaper. My thoughts are that having the chain clean and not having the grinding paste caused by build up of crap and then stuck on with lube is better than contact with white sprirt for 5 minutes. my personal choice but i believe you are right
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Re: What can you safely soak an O-ring chain in?

Post by KwakKwak »

ross46 wrote: white sprirt
Guy lives down the street from me has a mint cond CBR1200 his answer is white spirit for everything, seems to be an old skool thing, smell of it keeps on giving though, and yeah we're getting back to the gloves.

Mr Kawasaki suggests lubrication every 400 miles, obviously much more if riding in wet conditions. I cleaned and lubed mine not so long ago, now having had the swingarm off the bike I cleaned and lubed it again, which means I'm doing mine every 25 miles or so, this is expensive, and now I'm afraid to ruin the pristine chain and sprockets, they look just lovely.

Am I right in thinking the standard endless chain was EK and sometimes DID. Mines still good, but this has me considering my next chain and sprocket kit, Renthal is a nose ahead of DID at present.

Let's start fighting over the actual chain make and type now, since we're all sorted on maintenance. :smt003
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