Dry chain lube instantly turns black

downhill paul

Has anyone else had this problem?
I cleaned my bike about a week ago, which included a thorough cleaning and degreasing of the whole drivetrain.
the chain, rear cassette, front chain rings and the jockey wheels were spotless. after cleaning and drying the chain, I applied a small amount of dry chain lube (halfords bike hut) when I wiped the excess off with a dry cloth, it looked as if I had just used that cloth to wipe a chain covered in grime.
I used muc off degreaser before scrubbing the chain, the rear cassette and the front chain rings with a stiff brush and hot water. still it looked filthy after applying lube. am I missing something, or have I used the wrong/cheap lube?

drlodge

It will happen, its impossible to get every last bit of gunk out of the chain even after a deep clean. Same will happen if you use white spirit to clean the chain.

slowbike

Doesn't happen with a carbon bike .....

DiscoBoy

Progold prolink is the best stuff I have tried.

drlodge

DiscoBoy wrote:

Progold prolink is the best stuff I have tried.

That's what I'm using too just a wipe down with a rag sprayed with a little GT85, then relubed with Prolink from a dropper bottle works a treat, occasionally do a deeper clean using Fenwicks foam cleaner, their yellow spong thingy, and cassette brush.

Prolink is also self cleaning, you can spray it on to clean it, wipe off and your done.

DiscoBoy

drlodge wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

Progold prolink is the best stuff I have tried.

That's what I'm using too just a wipe down with a rag sprayed with a little GT85, then relubed with Prolink from a dropper bottle works a treat, occasionally do a deeper clean using Fenwicks foam cleaner, their yellow spong thingy, and cassette brush.

Prolink is also self cleaning, you can spray it on to clean it, wipe off and your done.

I do a full clean every so often where I either take off the chain and degrease it, or use a chain bath to degrease it. Then re- apply progold.

More regularly I use the "self cleaning" feature of progold by wiping the chain, then applying progold whilst running it backwards, wiping off, then re-applying forwards (all with the dropper bottle).

I get plenty of life from my drive chain, and it always looks nice and clean

drlodge

Yeh I like the way the chain comes up clean easily with this stuff...no oily or greasy crap that sticks and won't come off. the Fenwicks cleaner isn't that strong but its fine with Prolink. I changed my last Campag 11sp chain after 3000+ miles

downhill paul

Slowbike wrote:

Doesn't happen with a carbon bike .....

The bike may be carbon, but the chain, front rings and rear cassette are metal.
I think I might try progold. for a while I thought it might be the chain lube I was using.
I always had the same problem when using halfords wet lube on either my road bike or mountain bike chain.

DiscoBoy

drlodge wrote:

Yeh I like the way the chain comes up clean easily with this stuff...no oily or greasy crap that sticks and won't come off. the Fenwicks cleaner isn't that strong but its fine with Prolink. I changed my last Campag 11sp chain after 3000+ miles

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

slowbike

downhill paul wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

Doesn't happen with a carbon bike .....

The bike may be carbon, but the chain, front rings and rear cassette are metal.

I did put the in there ....

drlodge

Slowbike was taking the pish, since I ride a steel bike (not a plastic one).

Initialised

I tried wax the other day.

1: Melt 8 candles in a pot in a pot of water on the stove, meanwhile
2: Used Muc Off Chain Cleaner with Attachment to clean the grime off the chain, cassette and chain rings
3: Rinsed, scrubbed, rinsed and dried the chain
4: Removed the chain and immersed in Isopropyl shook it and loads of muck still came out, settle and repeat a few times.
5: Once the wax was melted I added a liberal squirt of GT85 and the chain had dried after the isopropyl bath dropped the chain into the wax left for 15 mins
6: Removed from heat and hung the chain to allow the wax to dry
7: Once dry and cooled I freed each link and removed excess wax from the bottom of the chain
8: Refitted the chain.

Next time I can start the process at 5, as the old wax melts it drags off any dirt the wax has picked up.

Steps 2-5 should be used when going from a "Wet" lube to a "Dry" lube.

Because the wax is solid it doesn't get dirty like "dry" or "Wet" lube. I can touch it without instantly getting cyclists finger.

The main point is the degrease, yes Muc Off is a decent degreaser but there was still plenty of gunk left behind after a clean and rinses with just Muc Off. The soak in Isopropyl was much more effective. Cleaning the chain while its still on the bike can't be as effective as a soak. Next step is to get an ultrasonic scrubber for some serious cleaning, but that can wait.

mfin

Initialised wrote:

I tried wax the other day.

1: Melt 8 candles in a pot in a pot of water on the stove, meanwhile
2: Used Muc Off Chain Cleaner with Attachment to clean the grime off the chain, cassette and chain rings
3: Rinsed, scrubbed, rinsed and dried the chain
4: Removed the chain and immersed in Isopropyl loads of muck still came out
5: Once the wax was melted I added a liberal squirt of GT85 and the chain had dried after the isopropyl bath dropped the chain into the wax left for 15 mins
6: Removed from heat and hung the chain to allow the wax to dry
7: Once dry and cooled I freed each link and removed excess wax from the bottom of the chain
8: Refitted the chain.

Next time I can start the process at 5, as the old wax melts it drags off any dirt the wax has picked up.

Because the wax is solid it doesn't get dirty like "dry" or "Wet" lube.

The main point is the degrease, yes Muc Off is a decent degreaser but there was still plenty of gunk left behind after a clean and rinses with just Muc Off. The soak in Isopropyl was much more effective. Cleaning the chain while its still on the bike can't be as effective as a soak. Next step is to get an ultrasonic scrubber for some serious cleaning, but that can wait.

Good dedication to comedy writing all that. 10 points.

Initialised

mfin wrote:

Initialised wrote:

I tried wax the other day.

1: Melt 8 candles in a pot in a pot of water on the stove, meanwhile
2: Used Muc Off Chain Cleaner with Attachment to clean the grime off the chain, cassette and chain rings
3: Rinsed, scrubbed, rinsed and dried the chain
4: Removed the chain and immersed in Isopropyl loads of muck still came out
5: Once the wax was melted I added a liberal squirt of GT85 and the chain had dried after the isopropyl bath dropped the chain into the wax left for 15 mins
6: Removed from heat and hung the chain to allow the wax to dry
7: Once dry and cooled I freed each link and removed excess wax from the bottom of the chain
8: Refitted the chain.

Next time I can start the process at 5, as the old wax melts it drags off any dirt the wax has picked up.

Because the wax is solid it doesn't get dirty like "dry" or "Wet" lube.

The main point is the degrease, yes Muc Off is a decent degreaser but there was still plenty of gunk left behind after a clean and rinses with just Muc Off. The soak in Isopropyl was much more effective. Cleaning the chain while its still on the bike can't be as effective as a soak. Next step is to get an ultrasonic scrubber for some serious cleaning, but that can wait.

Good dedication to comedy writing all that. 10 points.

Err... no, this one isn't extracting the urine, it's old school and time consuming, but I was bored and my chain had started getting noisy, I'd been reading about waxing so I went ahead and did it.

Dedication to a clean drive train, it seems to be working, the wax on the chain is dirty in places but this should improve with repeated application of wax. Rings and cassette are as clean as they were when I fitted the chain.

Best part is no more Cat 5 tattoos.

I will have to see how it holds up to 30-40 miles of potentially biblical rain tomorrow on a mission to the next city for free tyres: http://www.tyre-amnesty.co.uk/index.php/offer-details

cougie

Dear god. Who has time to wax chains. And what size candle ? Birthday, church or scented ?

You won't get cat 5 tattoos if you don't rest your chain on your leg ;-)

Initialised

cougie wrote:

Dear god. Who has time to wax chains. And what size candle ? Birthday, church or scented ?

You won't get cat 5 tattoos if you don't rest your chain on your leg ;-)

Plain white paraffin based, probably from Ikea when Mrs ini thought we'd actually use them for illumination.

The first time is the worst, after that you don't need to do the clean and de-grease each time, like you do with regular Wet or Dry Lube, just dunk it in the hot wax while you clean the bike.

It should mean longer service intervals for the cassette, chain, jockey wheels and rings, so in the long run it'll save time and money as I'll eat fewer parts since I have a habit of using unpaved rights of way from time to time.

If it works I'll roll it out to the rest of the fleet as and when they get new chains.

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

Better than Zovirax?

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

Better than Zovirax?

The cold sore treatment?

drlodge

DiscoBoy wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

Better than Zovirax?

The cold sore treatment?

Except its not on his lips :shock:

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

Better than Zovirax?

The cold sore treatment?

Yeah, I mix it with some rendered goose fat to make sure my chain is lubed and virus-free...

homers_double

You can beat goose fat for getting the surface of the chain nice and crispy.

itsnotarace

You folks don't use the Sheldon Brown method?

http://sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

ugo.santalucia

itsnotarace wrote:

You folks don't use the Sheldon Brown method?

http://sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

What? No sonicating bath? That's not thorough enough surely... you need a sonicator to remove the grime from the microstructure of the alloys!

Gotta clean those iron carbide crystals...

Initialised

itsnotarace wrote:

You folks don't use the Sheldon Brown method?

http://sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

Undo each link? I'm not quite bored enough for that!

Back on waxing I did about 25 miles in the rain on a mix of road and gravel, my rims and rotors were dirtier than my chain

t4tomo

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

I use Virosol, it is cheaper than any "bike" degreasers, and extremely potent.

Better than Zovirax?

The cold sore treatment?

Yeah, I mix it with some rendered goose fat to make sure my chain is lubed and virus-free...

Is there not a risk that your cassette could catch bird flu from using goose fat?

chris_bass

I bought some muc off dry lube (it was on offer so thought i'd give it a go) and within about 40 miles the chain is completely clean, not even any lube left on it!

nweststeyn

This thread has happened before. The last time round I got in an argument with the OP who reckoned that it was definitely NOT dirt or impurities that made his chain go black and it was infact a change in the chemical structure of the lube that turned it black. I gave up.

drlodge

nweststeyn wrote:

This thread has happened before. The last time round I got in an argument with the OP who reckoned that it was definitely NOT dirt or impurities that made his chain go black and it was infact a change in the chemical structure of the lube that turned it black. I gave up.

I remember that...silly argument. Of course the lube changes its chemical properties, just by looking at it :roll:

zx6man

the lube might just get brit.... seconds thought, forget it.

downhill paul

Chris Bass wrote:

I bought some muc off dry lube (it was on offer so thought i'd give it a go) and within about 40 miles the chain is completely clean, not even any lube left on it!

Even the dry lube I bought from halfords lasts longer than that.
it doesn't take long for dirt and grime to start building up on the chain again though.
could this have something to do with the fact that dry lube drys like wax?

sandyballs

I simply removed every pin from my chain and used 58 KMC Quicklinks to put it back together. I can now remove every part and individually lube it.