Chris Chicago

two years ago i started using a dedicated snow bike (old 80s mtb). post winter it sits unused. i noticed last summer the chain had rusted stiff and replaced it. this year I noticed the same thing beginning so i sprayed it with pb blaster and got it functional again. then it sat for a few months and rusted almost completely stiff again.

what am I doing wrong and can I recover this chain or should I replace?

thanks

RonH

Are you cleaning and lubing the chain and the drive train at the end of the season?

fietsbob

Replace , learn from your error and next spring, maybe even take the chain off clean it and soak it in oil in a jar.
chainsaw bar oil perhaps. cheap and has sticky additives.

Chris Chicago

i sprayed it with the pbb, and wiped it down. maybe skipped the lube step.

i've always ridden in winter but kept riding the bike year round. guess that and the lube it would require kept it from going stiff. live and learn

1nterceptor

I would clean and lube once in a while. Even if the bike sits unused for a while. The cogs will rust too; so shift the chain on all of the sprockets after lubing. What are you using as your chain lube?

My Snowmobile by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

Chris Chicago

i have a bunch of lubes. phil's, some triflow. even Francis's magical potion. and a pint of bar chain that havent opened yet

probably dont use them enough. mostly when things look rusty or chain squeeks

clasher

If it's an old MTB and uses 7 speed chain they are cheap enough to just replace at the end of the season. If you're running a single speed you can buy KMC stainless chain in the 1/8" size, it still needs lubrication but it won't rust. If you don't wanna replace the chain you can use thick oil to cover the chain before you store it, something like chainsaw bar oil is nice and thick. In the winter it's probably a good idea to lube the chain more often than you currently are.

cyccommute 

Right idea, wrong procedure. PB Blaster is a penetrating oil that does an okay job of getting into small crevices to break loose corroded parts. But you need to start further up the line.

Your problem is salt. More correctly, your problem is the chloride ion in the salts used on the road. Chloride ions have an affinity for iron and will form iron chloride from iron metal in the presence of even a little bit of water. The iron chloride quickly scavenges oxygen to form iron oxide (aka "rust") and releases the chloride which can then scavenge more iron metal and repeats the process over and over again.

The problem with chloride salts...there are a bunch of other "salts" but let's keep the confusion to a minimum... used on the road is that they are hygroscopic which means that they will suck water out of the air and hold it. The small amount of water that the salts can suck out of the air is enough to start the process described above. Here in the dry west, we don't usually have enough moisture in the air so we don't have the same level of corrosion. But where you have high humidity, you can almost get to a semi-liquid state from the water that a chloride salt can absorb.

What you need to do at the end of the season...and probably during the season... is to remove the salt. PB Blaster, oil, chain lubes, etc. won't remove the salt at all. They just cover it. I don't usually suggest that people use water and water based solvents on chains but this is a case where it would be a good idea. Of course you need to get rid of the water on the chain quickly afterwards which complicates the process.

I would suggest that you use a water based degreaser like Simple Green at the end of the season...trust me, it's difficult to make that recommendation...then rinse with water. Follow that rinse with denatured alcohol and then let it dry. Then lubricate with whatever chain lube you like.

The Simple Green will get rid of the chain grease and a bit of the salt. The water rinse should remove the rest of the salt and the alcohol will remove the water quickly. Finally, the chain lube should cover any residual salt.

Finally, I would suggest looking into a rust resistant chain. I tried KMC Eco Proteq chains for the first time this year on my winter bikes and was pleased with the results. They aren't that cheap but they didn't rust.

CliffordK

How much are you riding your bicycle? What conditions? Snow? Salt?

Last winter I was oiling my chain every couple of days riding (lots of wet riding in the rain), and only got about 1000 mile on the chain (HG-73).

There are a few stainless chain options, but they tend to be quite expensive. Perhaps not bad if you're only putting a few hundred miles of hard winter riding on the bike each year.

Anyway, I'd probably just replace your rusty chain with a new $10 chain, then try to clean and oil it better next winter.

Chris Chicago

this bike i ride in snow mostly. so salt too.

thanks cycco for the detailed answer. I try to do the bare minimum on this bike bc it is a beater but sounds like i need to step up the maintenance a touch.

Leebo

After the winter I use 5W-30 motor oil on my winter commuter chains. No rust.

Bike Gremlin

+1 on fully synthetic thin motor oil for winter riding. Never had any problems. I just wipe dirt of the chain and re-lube it. Never had problems with seizing chains.

fietsbob

Stainless steel is relatively soft, but maybe stainless Chainwill work for you..

Hebie Chainglider is a plastic chain case you can add to a Shimano Alfine IGH hub , if you convert your derailleur bike to an IGH.

frankenmike 

New chain after every winter for me. Constant salt is brutal.

cny-bikeman

Chain can't rust without water. Keep it lubricated during the winter, after winter dunk chain in solvent immediately until you're ready to prep for next winter. Then take it out, thoroughly clean and lubricate, reinstall.

noglider 

Maybe. Or maybe replacing the chain is worth it. It depends on how much you value your time.

FBinNY 

+1 and keeping it simple, oils won't dissolve salt. You need water. So, while I generally don't like washing chains in water and detergent, this is the only way to wash salt out of your chain.

Wash in hot tap water with a decent detergent, go outside and spin the chain to drive the water out, repeat, then rinse and repeat until the water stays clean and clear, then put the chain in a warm place to dry.

Then when it's clean and dry, oil it with your favorite stuff and it'll be ready for next winter.

Tundra_Man 

I feel like I'm constantly lubing my chain all winter, but come spring it's nothing but rust. I hang up my winter bike for the season, but by the next winter the chain has turned into one solid circular piece that isn't worth my time attempting to make functional again. So I just resolve myself to sacrificing a chain every year.

I usually get two years out of my cassettes before they're rusty enough to get replaced. My chainrings about every four years. My wheel axles last 4-5 years before they rust in half. Etc.

Winter riding in my area destroys a bike in a big hurry, which is why I chose to sacrifice my old mountain bike specifically for this season. I'll see guys out winter riding on nice bikes and figure they either are willing to replace them often, or they're spending more time cleaning and lubing the things than they are riding.

cyccommute 

It's not quite that simple but close. One thing to take into consideration is that the water/salt/smutz that is sprayed on to the chain in winter emulsifies with the oil/lubricant on the chain. As with most any emulsion of oil and water, the emulsion will eventually "break" and the oil and water will separate. The process usually takes hours, however. When that happens, the water containing the salt and smutz will be up against the steel of the chain where it can go merrily about the business of promoting oxidation of the iron. It's, more or less, sealed in place for as long as the bike is sitting still. Once you start to ride again, the emulsion gets formed again and the process starts all over again. However, the emulsion may find a fresh places to start the corrosion process.

I suggest Simple Green over a dish detergent because it does a better job with less volume. Simple Green has a water soluble solvent in it as well as surfactants that make it work just a tiny bit better.

I agree with rinsing the chain numerous times to get the Simple Green or detergent out but I disagree with leaving the water in place and air drying it. If the water were pure...as in 18 mΩ water...it might not be much of an issue, although 18 mΩ water still has a lot of oxygen dissolved in it. But regular tap water has enough dissolved salts of various kinds that it will promote oxidation of the iron rather quickly.

There's also the problem of evaporation rate. Here in Colorado, our relative humidity tends to be low and our absolute humidity is also low due to our high altitude. Water evaporate quickly here. Places with higher relative and absolute humidity...which is just about everywhere in the US...take longer for the water to evaporate. The longer the water stays on the chain, the better the opportunity for rust to form.

That's why I suggest a solvent rinse after using water. It will evaporate more quickly and reduce the time that water sits on the iron. You can, by the way, use the alcohol several times before it picks up too much water to be useful for getting the water out of the chain.

cyccommute 

I'd suggest running your bike through a car wash occasionally if you can. Like a car, it could benefit from rinsing the salt off. If you are careful with the hose, you can spray the bike well enough to get a lot of the salt off without putting water into the bearings. Alternatively, build a bike with sealed bearings wherever you can and you won't have to worry too much about water infiltration.

FBinNY 

I guess you didn't notice that it was a +1 of your prior post. I was just making it as simple as possible for those who didn't want to slog through your technical explanation.

Sometimes, a short and sweet, though not precise answer is useful because people read it and get the point rather than getting lost in the details.

Tundra_Man 

I know washing the bike would help. The problem I have is where I live the temp generally doesn't get above freezing in the winter for months. There's no way my wife is letting me bring a dirty/wet bike inside the house. So if I were to wash it down outside I'd basically wind up with a giant bi-sicle.

I'm sure there are solutions to this dilemma I could figure out. However at a certain point the solution becomes more hassle than just dealing with replacing the components as they prematurely rust away. I've kind of resolved myself to that route. It's more appealing to me than sitting out in the garage in sub-zero temps trying to clean a bike.

John Nolan 

I just get a new chain every year. I find that the salt and grit used around here means the chain has stretched by the end of the season anyway, and, as you say, neither cleaning in the deep freeze nor bringing the mucky bike into the house are appealing.

frankenmike 

Well put, tundraman. At a point it becomes easier to use a "sacrificial" bike for winter commuting and just replace the parts as they rust out, especially chains.

Camilo

At less than $10 for a chain like that, I would lube it thoroughly at the end of the season, and be done with it. But if that didn't do it, I'd buy a new chain. A season of use on it, sure it's not worn out probably, but not worth any mess or effort, imho to get another couple of bucks value out of it. Certainly not a messy end of year routine. Washing/rinsing/washing/rinsing/spin or alcohol dry. Solvent, detergent, oily, dirty water,..... nah.

And I'm a guy who will put multiple patches on a tube, so I'm not prone to just throw stuff out. But patching a tire is not messy (to me anyway, to each his own I guess).


The info on how the salt works was interesting though.