Chain cleaner

booldawg

Just bought a chain cleaner. Its one that has roller/brushes and clamps round the chain. I noticed it has a 'maximum level' line on it - are you supposed to use it in conjunction with a degreasing solution?

anton1r

Yeah dude, the thing probably came with some... Which one did you buy? link?

You put the degreaser in the reservoir (usually in the top half). that drips onto the chain and the brushes work it into the chain, which should cleaning the chain up nice. It can take a couple of goes though to get the chain properly clean. Wipe it down, re lube the chain. DONE!

booldawg

Thanks for the help. I bought it off Amazon from Maxgear, looks like its their own brand. Didnt come with any degreaser. I have some Citrasafe in the garage I think.

EDIT: How often would you clean your chain? I do a mix of on/off road on the 8 mile round trip to work each day. With weekend use I clock up about 60 miles a week. Also its very sandy off road round here.

anton1r

No probs, happy to help.

Regarding how often to clean, i'm afraid there's no hard fast rules.
I used to clean weekly in the winter and every 2/3 weeks in the summer, now I just clean it when I think it needs it. Honestly, just when it looks dirty or gets noisy.

Most of the time I just wipe it down with a rag and re-lube it. I'll only use my chain cleaner when I think it's got particularly dirty or if I just fancy using it!