Mission 3: Cleaning and adjusting the chain

[tomtom7]

Spent a few days reading old posts, and I finally got done with cleaning the chain. Here's what I did:

Supplies:
TIROX Chain Cleaner with Chain Brush (http://www.cyclegear.com/spgm.cfm?L1=50 ... X_803500_G)
2 paint catching pans from Lowes
Dupont Teflon lube
blue cloth paper towel stuff
kitchen rubber gloves

I was going to make those wooden motorcycle stands, but I didn't have any cutting tools and Lowes wouldn't cut the pieces for me. So I just put velcro on my front brake, put a book under my kick stand, and used my car scissor jack under the frame. I had read that it's scary and precarious, but I didn't think so at all. I didn't even realize that my rear wheel was off of the ground at first: that's how little it moved. I'll eventually make those wooden stands, but the jack method is totally solid for chain cleaning.

My chain was a disaster! It was rusted and covered with gunk. I put a folded piece of paper towel in my left hand, then sprayed the cleaner onto the chain. I had already wound the 360 brush onto the chain, so I wrapped it with another paper towel and ran it back and forth in the exposed area of the chain. I don't have experience using the infamous Grunge brush, but this 360 brush was beyond easy. The cleaning process wasn't even as messy as some of the old posts made it out to be. I think wrapping a towel around the whole brush helped keep the cast off contained. I would definitely wear gloves though.

Anyways, I did that about two times around the whole chain. That part was relatively easy. The hard part was cleaning the rear sprocket. The sprocket teeth were black. I don't remember reading about how to clean it, so I just sprayed some of the chain cleaner onto a towel and scrubbed the sprocket. This took forever and my back was (is) killing me!

After that was finally done, I used the towels to dry off the chain as well as I could. Then I sprayed the Dupont Teflon stuff all over the chain. This is where the paint trays came in handy, since there was a lot of runoff. The end result? My chain looks like it's brand new!

Thanks for the suggestion to clean the chain guys. It was long overdue. I didn't get around to researching the adjustment part, but that's my next mission (or part B of this one). I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions as always.

Tom

ps. Lesson learned; don't spray the kerosene too close to your face. Wind + spray + left eye = ouch. Fortunately it was only a tiny bit so it just feels a little irritated now. :poke2: