Cleaning and Lubing the Drivetrain

“Greatest is the samurai who lets his sword rust in its scabbard”. But, we can’t really equate this quote with cycling, can we?

Its was already over a month since I had started my commute. It didn’t take me long to come to terms with the reality that the maintenance clock ran a lot faster for those who used their bikes on a daily basis. I had planned a close encounter with my drivetrain two months from now but I was starting to hear all those metallic cries for unctuousness, already.

Rear cassette- before cleaning

Jockey wheels- note the dirt accumulation

The chain hardly has any lubrication left on them. The inner surface is shining due the the abrasions caused by friction

The front cogset. Can you see the damage caused due to chain derailings.

All dusty and dirty

Note the dirt buildup on the front hub

One month of heavy use and my chain, cogset, cassette and deraileures were covered in dust (not to mention the rest of my bike but that is out of topic, period). All that remained of any previous lubrication was this blackish brown powder that still hesitantly kept clinging on to the jockey wheels.  Creaky sounds while riding, more pressure on the pedals and increased resistance added up with a couple of faulty gear shifts made me prepone the first “Clean & Lube the Drivetrain” day to this day (night, in fact) of March the 13^th 2012.

I’ve been going through some tutorials on the internet plus some threads in BZ and cyclists.in which, of course, made the job quite easy as a game being played in cheat mode. Still, I scored a bunch of fails and fouls. I shall discuss them as I give you a walkthrough of this gala event.

It started off with some disappointments as I couldn’t procure all the desired stuffs for my mission. My hometown (like most of the ‘hometowns’ in India) is yet to fully acknowledge the bikers in all their entirety. Also, I did not want to shell out a lot of ‘kyaash’ as this was a learning drill. Now that was one of the first wrong decisions that I made w.r.t to this C&L day. So, two hours of sniffing around the markets and shops equipped me with the following:

Items that I used to clean & lube my drivetrain.

1.       ARB AP3 white grease (used for bearings)- 200gm pack- 45.00 Rs.

2.       WD-40: a solution to remove rust, grease and dirt, to prevent squeaks and protect metal- 63.8gm spray can- 95.00 Rs.

3.       Cloth gloves- 20.00 Rs.

Cloth gloves- they can come real handy

4.       Vim drop dishwash active gel with lemon- My citrus degreaser- stole from the kitchen.

My citrus degreaser- ;-)

5.       Screwdriver set

6.       An old hair-dyeing brush- couldn’t find a better option then.

7.       Old toothbrush-1 nos

8.       Cotton waste and rags- plenty

9.       Tray- to keep the soap water

10.   Old news papers- to keep the floor clean.

 I wanted to get that ‘White Lightening’ initially but as always couldn’t find it at any local stores. But I think this WD-40 works pretty much the same way. I should have been a bit more careful while choosing the grease. This ARB, I learned, is not the best for bike chains. Vim liquid as the citrus degreaser did a fine job. I took special care to not to let it into the hub. I also fancied of getting that 'parktool' chain cleaner. It looked like a laser gun used in Star Trek.

I gathered all the items required and stared meditatively at them for about 5 mins. No, not a spiritual exercise but I was genuinely confused where to start from. I just put the bike on the kickstand and started off. However, the idea of placing the bike upside down didn’t cross my mind.

Step 1: Making the chain visible- Yeah, it was all covered in grit and dirt and what not. I took an old piece of ‘Tantex Banyan’ and wiped off most of the dirt from the chain and cogs.

First round chain cleaning using cotton rag

Step 2: Screwing the drivetrain- This is a simple and easy technique that I saw in one of those YT videos. All you need is a screwdriver. Place it alongside the rotating surface (say the bearing ends of jockey wheels etc.) and just turn the pedals. You cal see those grit getting chiseled off the wheels, just like that. I liked this process so much that my screwdriver tip is half a millimeter shorter now.

Chiseling off the dirt using the screwdriver 

Step 3: Brush your teeth..and chains- I took a few drops from the vim liquid (the advertisement says 1 drop can clean up to 15,000 plates. They should try chains next time), diluted with tap water in a tray, dipped the toothbrush in it and scrubbed off the remaining dirt from the chains and stuffs. After brushing I wiped the parts with dry cotton and let it dry up.

Cleaning the drivetrain using the degreaser solution

Step 4: The WD-40 incident- Now, this is another fun part. All you have to do is to shake up the can a bit and swooooooshhhhh!. Spray it all along the cassettes and chain and you can see this fine black dirt particles dripping down. The drivetrain gets shinier and cleaner. It dries up quite fast and has got an oily feel to it. So I instantly rubbed it off from the rims to avoid future brake-fails. My brother gave a comment that this WD-40 will become thick and viscose, grease like on drying up. Nothing of that sort happened. By this the cleaning part came to an end and we took a break for dinner.

WD-40

Step 5: Grease balling- I used this old dyeing brush to apply the grease. This is definitely not the best way to apply the grease to the chain. Then I started wondering whether you actually require grease itself for lubrication. Using machine oil etc could also have done a better job I guess.

Applying the grease

Only while starting to grease the chain up that I noticed that as soon as the grease touched the chain, it was turning black. This was only because there were a lot of dirt still present in the chain and had not got washed off completely. I think if you need a 100 percent cleanup of the chain, you might very well have to remove it and clean it separately by dipping it in soap solution and all. I saw some threads showing this coke tin and chain technique. Anyways, I had not tool to remove the chain or no intention to do it in the first place. Hence, paying the price for it was inevitable. I couldn’t get my chain completely cleaned and this made the greasing part less perfect.

Result: Rather than a complete success, the mission was more or less a ‘hard-work gets paid-off’ scenario. I was able to get a load of dirt off the drivetrain. It runs more smoothly for the time being and the gear shifts seem to be ok too. But it also seems that I did over-grease the system as I found some grease particles spilled on the chain stay. Still, it was a great learning experience which has made me furthermore emotionally attached to my bike. Oh, come on guys, things like this do happen.