I’m seeing a contradiction on chain cleaning articles. One dodgy site says:

It is essential to avoid some common mistakes when cleaning a bike chain. Firstly, be cautious not to oversaturate the chain with degreaser as this can lead to damage or corrosion.

Then another site says to remove the chain and submerge it in degreaser.

The first site seems dodgy, like one of these machine-generated sites that scraps together fragments of other works and plagurizes it in a clumsy way. But is the advice good? If the chain is 100% degreased, when you oil it wouldn’t the oil eventually spread everywhere it’s needed?

The 2nd article says remove the chain. Yet I’ve heard advice to not re-use quick-links. So WTF are they implying we need to buy a new quick-link every time we clean it? If yes, then removing the chain defeats the cost effective motivation for cleaning it in the 1st place.

Maybe this is crazy talk, but one idea I have is to leave the chain on the bike and submerge just the deraileur into an ultrasonic bath and very slowly move the chain through it. Not sure if my deraileur has ball bearings… if it does, then indeed the ultrasonic would be a bad idea.

  • elDalvini
    2·
    11 months ago

    I remove the chain and let it soak in WD-40 for a while. Then I spray it down with degreaser and rinse with a power washer. As long as the chain is well lubricated, I don’t have any issues with corrosion.

    Also, some quick-links are reusable. You should check with the manufacturer. KMC has a type that can be reused 5 times. With a bit of practice and a good chain breaker it is also pretty easy to remove and reconnect a chain with no quick-link at all.