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Chain cleaning gutter

1K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  spinko 
#1 · (Edited)
Things are getting really confusing around here. I've been working on the house and on the bikes and the other day I was so tired that I added a gutter to one of my bikes before I knew what I'd done. So since it was on there anyhow I figured I'd put it to use... :D

For a while now I've been wanting to try this as a way to make the messy chain cleaning chore less messy and less of a chore. What you see is a short section of gutter with two push on end caps that were then sealed with black silicone rubber. The support is a chunk of corrugated plastic cut to shield the tire and wheel and form a hook that allows it to hang from the swingarm cross member.

The two pics below are from the first time I used it. The second one is just before I dumped the blue bowl of solvent into the gutter. This is also pretty much near the end of the cleaning.

In use I clean the lower section of the chain run that is exposed with 4 or 5 toothbrush fulls of solvent and blot off what doesn't drip away with a paper towel. Advance to the next segment and repeat. When I come around to the original segment I pour out the dirty stuff and add new stuff to the bowl and repeat. I found that it takes about three times around on a dirty chain to see the cleaning solvent come off with a light grey color on the paper towel. If it's really dirty I'll run around a 4th time.

This process used to be pretty messy with cardboard or a plastic bag under the bike to catch all the drippings. As you can see in the second pic the floor hardly has a drop on it despite being pretty much done. It didn't really speed up the actual cleaning but it sure did speed up the prep prior to the cleaning and the time requied to clean up after the chain is clean. The whole deal to clean and lube this chain took maybe 15 to 20 minutes to go from crunchy dirty to darn near spotless.

All in all a huge success and I'm going to make one for the Z next.
 
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