How do you remove factory grease from bicycle chain?

[Horst]

Everyone says to bathe them in mineral spirits, but mineral spirits are no longer available in California. Acetone does a poor job, leaving the surface a bit tacky, as does denatured alcohol.

[Doozer]

Gasoline.

-Doozer

[Peter.]

Or paint thinners, or brake cleaner. Both of them work quite well.

[Joel]

Kerosene, charcoal lighter fluid, gasoline?

[chipmaker4130]

Acetone shouldn't leave a tacky residue unless the OEM lube is wax-based. If it is wax-based toluene should work.

[Erich]

Paint thinner IS mineral spirits.

[CarlByrns]

Liquid Tide and hot water- let the chain soak. It floats off the dirt, loosens the grease.

[Glug]

You could try a degreaser like purple power or simple green. concentrated. It only takes a little bit in a water bottle. I'll squish the bottle to remove air and reduce the volume as much as possible, and then while pinching the chain through the bottle, shake it. Heat always helps degreasing, as does soaking overnight. Then hook the chain with a wire to remove it from the bottle. An air nozzle works fairly well to blow off dirt.

Whatever comes off is going to be nasty. You could either evaporate it or soak it up with oil dry, etc.

[lynnl]

What about waterless hand cleaners like Goop? Is that available in Calif? Or does it cause cancer out there?

I would think a liberal (liberal...get it?) slathering of the hand cleaner, along with some vigorous brushing, followed by hot soapy water to wash away the Goop would do the trick.

[rickyb]

Most every solvent works better if the temp is elevated. Heat the chain or the solvent and give it some soak time.

[Glug]

The grease is usually inside the rollers. Surface cleaning won't remove it. There are a zillion pages on the internet that discuss this topic, and also whether you might want to use the original lube (after wiping 90% of it off).

[RB211]

I'm with Doozer here, gasoline!

[mattthemuppet]

why on earth would you worry about it? Go for a ride, lube the chain, wipe off the excess. Repeat.

For the last 6 years I've gone through a chain every 3 months. Never once occurred to me to clean the grease off it first.

[tomato coupe]

Everyone says to bathe them in mineral spirits, but mineral spirits are no longer available in California. Acetone does a poor job, leaving the surface a bit tacky, as does denatured alcohol.

Are you planning to wax it?

[J Tiers]

I have used wax for years. Just soaking it in the wax seems to do a reasonable job of removing the grit-collecting grease as well as getting the wax in. The mix of wax and grease that results after a few treatments still seems to lube well without collecting much if any more grit than the original wax.