RandomTroll

I clean chains by putting them into a pint jar with about 12 ounces of mineral spirits for a month. After I fish the chain out I pour the spirits through a coffee filter and re-use it. Has the filter held back the grit that wears the chains?

jimincalif

BITD I used to clean things this way. I would just let the dirty mineral spirits sit undisturbed in a jar and all the stuff would eventually settle to the bottom, then I'd pour off the clean MS and reuse it. Seemed to work fine.

easyupbug 

I use OMS for woodwork finishing as well as wrenching in a settling system. I have a vertical pipe with valving near the bottom to draw off the settled sprits and at the very bottom to periodically dump the dregs. I believe if the metal particles from wrenching remained in the decanted OMS it would show up in my woodwork finishes somewhere and I have not seen this.

cyccommute 

Short answer: Yes. The filter "filters" out the grit.

Slightly longer answer: You don't need to let the chains sit around in a jar for a month. Without agitation, the mineral spirits will do its job in 20 minutes or less (probably much less). If you shake the chain, the job will be done in less than 5 minutes and probably closer to 30 seconds. The chain lube dissolves in the mineral spirits quite readily and doesn't need much time.

On another note, I'm assuming when you say "pint jar", you are using a glass jar. I suggest that you use a plastic bottle rather than glass. There's no problem with using glass but a plastic bottle doesn't break if you drop it. I use 500ml Gatorade bottles with wide mouths that allow me to easily put the chain in the bottle and just as easily fish it out.

Finally, you don't need to filter the mineral spirits after every use...even after several uses. The grit settles out quickly and the mineral spirits dissolve the oil on the chain which is the vehicle for the grit remaining on the chain in the first place. Once the oil has dissolved, the grit falls away easily.

JohnDThompson 

It's not a problem to re-use mineral spirits; that's how professional parts cleaners work, after all. I've never filtered mine; I just let the debris settle and decant clean spirits off the top. If you're still worried, rinse the chain in fresh spirits after the initial cleaning.

ramzilla

I used to use glass jars but, not anymore. I had a glass jar w/lid full of parts soaking in diesel fuel that I was shaking occasionally. Then it broke. Ugh. So, now I only use metal paint cans or plastic containers.

HillRider

Actually a lot of professional parts cleaners are "vapor degreasers" that basically distill the solvent, and condense it letting the fresh condensate wash over the parts (place in a perforated basket) and drain back into the sump to be used again. The parts being cleaned only see pure, clean solvent while all the contaminants remain in the sump.

ThermionicScott 

I tried filtering my mineral spirits through a coffee filter once or twice. It was a slow PITA once the filter loaded up with grit, and I happily discovered around that time that letting the grit settle and pouring off the stuff on top worked just fine.

cyccommute 

Most of the ones I've ever seen are simple drums with a pump at the bottom and a wash tub on top like the Safety Kleen Model 16.

Dan Burkhart 

I worked for Safety Kleen for a lot of years, and I never saw a unit with built in distillation. Their closed loop system involved transporting the used solvent back to the plant where it was re refined to good as new and sent back out into the system.
They did have a unit with a built in cyclonic filtration system, which extended the service interval, but I think they dropped it. One of those great ideas that looked good on the drawing board.

HillRider

What I was describing was called, as I mentioned, a "vapor degreaser" and were more common decades ago in large machine and industrial painting shops. It consisted of a large heated open top tank with refrigerated cooling coils suspended above it and a wire mesh screen under the coils. The vapor from the tank rose until it hit the coils and was condensed back to liquid where is "rained" down on the parts that had been placed on the mesh screen. The now dirty solvent drained back into the tank and was reevaporated, leaving the heavy grease and dirt in the tank.

The solvents used in these were typically chlorinated hydrocarbons such as "1,1,1-trichlor" and "perc", which are pretty much banned these days. You did NOT want to get your hand under the cooling coils when adding or removing parts.

Dan Burkhart 

Never saw anything like that, but I did handle perc. That's what dry cleaners used in my experience. didn't know it was used in parts washers.

Wheever

I just tried cleaning my chain in OMS for the first time over the weekend and CANNOT believe how easy and effective it was. Anyone who says "just wiping your chain down is good enough" is out of their gourds. Took all of about 5 minutes to do, and your chain in sparkling clean. In my opinion, it's much easier than using a chain cleaning machine. Makes me really glad I put the Wippermann on my chain!

FELLOW NUBES! TRY THIS!

ramzilla

If you're really going to get into all this soaking business remember: safety first. Get some decent, re-usable, elbow length, nitrile gloves. Get some goggles. Put your soaking container inside another larger tray (secondary containment). And kids remember, don't play with matches.

davidad

I used mineral spirits in a used plastic Ragu jar and shook it for a few minutes, then a little Simple green and water and then a water rinse. I reused the mineral spirits by pouring the liquid after the solids settled.

Now I use an ultra sonic cleaner with Simple green and water. Does a great job ad more than doubles the life of my chains.

HillRider

I assume you follow up the Simple Green solution with a heated drying step. It's essential to get all of the water out of the chain's interior. I'm sure you know this but some of the "noobies" here might miss it.

noglider 

Doesn't lube displace the water?

boattail71

Plus one Cyccom as for the quick dissolve logic but in those cases where you're cleaning an old crusty chain with dried crud on it (like in those cases of neglect/restorations or long unused bikes). A soaking of many days (or a month as OP (over?)does it) should dissolve this dried crud, then a quick (tooth)brush does well.

I use TWO coffee cans of mineral spirits filled to 1" or less in each. One for the initial soaking/degreasing/degunkifying and a second for a clean rinse (after quick wipe down). After weeks or months and once the first can gets too gunky I save the top most clean settled solvent and dump the sludge, then pour anew in the fresh can.

Oh, and this long time novice mechanic then spreads the chain out on newspaper and blasts every joint with my air gun (my air compressor - the best present I ever bought myself). Blasting all of those chain crevices with air gives me the cleanest chain I can imagine short of brand new.

Also, I tried that "odorless" crap once and hated it. It was thicker, milky and just plain didn't do the job as well as the real stuff does. Is it me? Give me the extra odor, the real stuff, I say.

HillRider

No, not at all. Water and petroleum are immiscible and the oil will not remove the residual water.

Ronsonic 

I once worked in a shop with one of those. Some dumbass left it open on a Friday in his race to start the weekend. We spent most of the next week scrubbing rust off of equipment. Nasty stuff, but effective. Basically capable of degreasing an entire shop floor.

SteelCan

Thread Hi-Jack w/surprise observation placing chain in double-bottled w/OMS and then placing in a simple rock-tumbler. (poor man's ultrasonic cleaner).
I intended to run 5min but forgot (somehow drowned-out the noise) and it went about 30min.
The chain (6800 Ultegra) which met spec* prior to tumbler was now >0.75.
My first attempt at "power" cleaning a chain turned into a replacement (until 11spd I had always used Shimano link-pins rather than connector-links).
*spec on the 11speeds, I have read is 0.5 though my chain-gauge only has a .75 and 1

noglider 

Then does WD-40 do what it claims to do (displace water)? Even if it does, then the procedure would require saturating with WD-40 and then displacing most of that with real oil. And it shows how rinsing with water is a dumb idea.

And thank you for teaching me a new word. I had to look up "immiscible."

cyccommute 

Why use mineral spirits, then follow it up with Simple Green and then water? Steps 2 and 3 are totally unnecessary. You didn't accomplish anything other than introducing water which isn't needed. The mineral spirits will dissolve anything that the Simple Green does more efficiently and evaporates faster without causing corrosion to the steel.

And if you avoid the Simple Green step altogether, you avoid the need for any kind of drying step...at least for the water. Mineral spirits evaporate quite quickly and quite cleanly.

cyccommute 

The "water displacement" aspects of WD-40 are over rated. If you were to clean the chain with mineral spirits...which does a very good job of freeing the metal surface of oil... and then rinse the chain with water so that was dripping, WD-40 isn't going to do much to "displace" the water. The aerosol action would do more to remove water than the solvent will.

Yup. If anyone feels the need to remove the mineral spirits with a water based detergent and then remove the detergent with water, they should remove the water with a water soluble solvent like ethanol, acetone or rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol). Or just skip everything after mineral spirits.

HillRider

I know but there are those who think something like Simple Green is indeed more "green" than OMS or other petroleum based cleaners an insist on using it where it isn't nearly as efficient and can be damaging.