- Keeping the transmission
in your bike nice and clean
and lubricated is the key to A,
making sure your gears work correctly,
and B, the longevity of
that expensive transmission.
Now although we clean our
bikes on a fairly regular basis
and give your drivetrain
a little bit of love,
it's important, perhaps
annually, to have a proper
deep clean, and that means
taking the gear off your bike.
This is how you do it.
First question you might
be asking is why would you
take all your transmission off to wash it
when you can wash it on the bike?
Now of course there are simple things
like a can of degreaser
and a firm-bristled brush,
like an old toothbrush
or this car wheel brush,
for example, that you can use on the bike.
Now this does work really
well on a day-to-day basis
just for general cleaning.
But when things do get a bit grimier,
you're gonna need to step it
up a bit and go a bit further.
Now chain bath is excellent for this.
You fill these with degreaser to the line,
they've got rotating brushes inside,
you cycle the chain through it
and it does a really good job
of cleaning that drive train.
However, all that dirt and
muck that really gets into
the nooks and crannies of the bike,
it won't clean that stuff out,
and sometimes when washing
the rest of the bike, once
you've got your clean chain
that stuff can find its way back in
and you'll still have a
gritty-sounding chain.
And of course if it sounds gritty,
it's gonna be wearing faster
than it would be if it's not.
So the best solution,
really, is to take the stuff
off the bike and treat
each individual component
as a separate thing and
give it a deep clean.
And when doing this it
also means you can inspect
parts of the bike you
can't normally get to,
like all around the bottom bracket,
the back of the crank,
and stuff like that.
And this actually presents
a really good opportunity
to do a full service if
you're comfortable doing that.
So depending on your particular bike
and the orientation of
your gears and stuff,
you're gonna need the
correct tools for the job.
So first up you're gonna
need some Allen keys.
In this particular case
we need a five to remove
the rear mech, a three
millimetre for the jockey wheels,
a five millimetre for the cranks
and of course a Shimano
tool to remove that,
and a four millimetre on the chain guide.
Again, this will vary bike to bike.
Next up you're gonna need a
chain whip and a cassette tool
in order to remove the
cassette from the bike.
You're gonna need some generic sprays,
lubricants, that sort of stuff.
So first up is a decent quality chain lube
for lubricating that chain afterwards.
Some spray grease, I'll show you why,
but that's gonna be useful
in some of the smaller parts
of the bike like the rear derailleur.
Spray degreaser and some just
generic heavy-duty degreaser.
Ideally something that's biodegradable.
Now because you're gonna
be working with degreasers
and solvents you're gonna
want some safety gloves,
so some nitrile gloves are a good idea.
Some clean rags or some shop towel
for making sure that
stuff is nice and clean,
along with a selection of
various hard bristle brushes.
I like to use some old clear plastic tubs.
It's good so you can monitor how clean
the stuff is getting when
you leave it in there,
and they're obviously
reusable for afterwards.
Now some people like to use a water bottle
or an old jam jar for
cleaning the chain in,
and we'll demonstrate that to you as well.
So first things first,
it's time to remove the
chain from the bike.
This is also a beneficial way of doing it
because you can put the
chain straight into solvent
whilst you're also removing
the other parts for cleaning.
Now make sure before you remove the chain
you've got a method of
rejoining it safely afterwards.
I always like to recommend
using a fresh joining link each time.
You can reuse some but it's never gonna be
as good as using a fresh one,
so ideally make sure you've
got one of those first.
So to make the job easier, the first thing
you're gonna need to do is
turn the clutch off on the bike
if your bike has got a Shimano mech,
and then I recommend using
a little third helping hand
made from a bit of bent spoke.
You can use that to
just hook into the chain
and give yourself a bit of
slack, which makes this easier
to work on that particular
link that you're gonna split.
Now there's various different
ways you can split this link.
You can do it manually by hand,
it's quite hard sometimes.
You can pinch the links together like this
and use your set of pliers,
or what I like to do
is use the dedicated set
of chain link pliers.
Now, okay, so they're not the
cheapest thing in the world.
You can get cheaper models than this,
but it's a buy once tool and
you'll be able to use this
forever working on your bike
'cause they fit all chains.
So now I'm just gonna pull it backwards
through the derailleurs there.
And there we have one filthy
chain ready to be cleaned.
So as I said earlier, I like to keep
some of these little plastic tubs.
You can use Tupperware
tubs, old ice cream tubs,
even stuff from Chinese takeaway.
All really useful to keep
for this exact purpose.
I'm gonna soak this in degreaser
and I'm gonna get to work
on this with a brush a bit later on.
But soaking in degreaser
now means all the stuff
that's on the inside that's
built up and congealed
and stuff in the chain,
that's gonna soften
and be easier to get out,
and it allows me to work on
the rest of the bike at the same time.
So next up you want to get
the cranks off the bike,
and in this case Neil's got a
chain guide on the top here,
so I'm just gonna loosen that off.
Also gonna take that off
and give that a bit of a clean as well.
Just because the chain
passes through there
and you do get a bit of chain
residue and buildup on there.
Now it's just a case of
pulling the crank off.
Sometimes you need a mallet
just to tap the non-drive side
just to get it out of the frame.
In this case it slides straight out.
Now the eagle-eyed amongst
you will have noticed
that Neil's bike is pretty filthy,
and why aren't I cleaning his bike?
Well, it's not important at this stage.
We're just gonna clean everything
to do with transmission.
The rest of the bike is quite
happy to work when it's dirty,
and of course, why
should I clean his bike?
So now it's a case of remove
the rear wheel from the bike
and then we're gonna take
the rear derailleur off,
and then the cassette off the rear wheel.
Just undo that lock nut, and
then you wanna remove that
from the cassette.
And then
taking your next spare tub,
I'm gonna put a cassette
straight into this tub.
And that is where it's gonna
be cleaned and degreased.
So I've just got some degreaser here
onto the rear cassette itself,
so that's just gonna start
breaking down the bad stuff on there.
Again, I'm just gonna leave that to soak.
Some people can do this
overnight, but I'm obviously
in a bit of a hurry with this
to get Neil back riding again.
So with the rear
derailleur you want to take
the jockey wheels off before
you actually expose this
to degreaser, because
sometimes they have bearings,
sometimes have bushes, either way
they can be damaged by the degreaser
so you're best off
cleaning those separately.
So just using the three
millimetre Allen key,
I'm just gonna undo the
jockey wheel retaining bolts
and remove those before
putting the derailleur itself
in with the rear sprockets.
Okay, so now it's just a case
of making sure every
single component is clean.
Now earlier on you saw
me take the chain off
and put that straight into this tub
and get some degreaser on there.
Now some people like to use a water bottle
or an old jam jar for this, in which case
you drop the chain in, seal
it up, give it a shake,
and leave it to do its thing.
But I do find that most degreasers now
are powerful enough to
not have to do that.
So again, it's just been sat here
and if you look at the
colour of this liquid in here
you can see the amount of
grit that's just come off it.
So I'm just gonna give
it a good scrub as well
with the fine brush, and then
I'm gonna leave that again
to continue degreasing
itself and I'm gonna move on
to the cassette and the rear derailleur.
I'll basically systematically work my way
through all these parts until
they're really, really clean.
Now of course it does
depend how gunky they are,
how long it's been since
you've done this previously,
and it's gonna vary the
amount of elbow greasing
that I have to put in.
In this case she's looking
pretty good already,
so check this out.
You can see all that
residue and all the gunk
that's come off it, so
it's nice to just work the
stuff into the chain links.
Flip the chain over, of course,
to make sure you're
getting all of it done.
You can really see the
colour of the degreaser,
it was just a yellow fluid to start with.
You can really see the
muck coming off in there.
And bit by bit you can
start seeing the chain
start to resemble a new chain again.
Same process for the cassette.
Just get stuck in, really give
everything a decent scrubbing
and by the time you're done
this is gonna look so clean.
You'll be really surprised, actually,
it'll look almost new.
Now if you like the idea
of giving parts like this
a deep clean but you don't like the fact
that you've gotta get involved
with a bit of elbow grease
like I'm doing here, get
yourself a parts washer.
You can get them quite cheap,
they can sit on the top
of your workbench in your workshop.
You can get 'em from as little as $40, $50
or roughly the same in pounds and euros.
You plug 'em in and they cycle
degreaser over the stuff,
actually helps you do this,
and you can leave 'em to
do their thing as well.
They work really, really well.
Of course you might not
want to spend that money,
but it does mean this sort of job
would be virtually hassle free.
Now with the rear derailleur itself,
notice that I'm obviously
scrubbing this with degreaser,
but you don't really
want too much degreaser
to get inside the actual clutch mechanism.
We're gonna have a look at it afterwards
and show you how to just get
some fresh grease inside there
to make sure that it
continues to work well.
But you still need to make
sure all that horrible grease,
muck buildup you get from
the drivetrain is removed.
So now over to the
chainset and the chainring.
Now you want to give the
cranks a real decent clean.
Make sure the splines
have got all the grease
taken off and all the nasty stuff.
So when you're putting
them back on the bike
you're in effect doing a fresh instal.
And the idea of that is that
any sort of grit and stuff
that's worked its way in
there over the winter's riding
or your last year's riding,
that's not gonna create
any creaks when you reassemble the bike.
Now in this case the
back of this chainring
is absolutely filthy so
I'm actually gonna remove
the chainring from the crank
just so I can make doubly sure
there's no grit and
stuff on the back of it.
Again, on your particular
bike it might be different.
You might have a direct mount chainring
that goes straight to the crank.
This one has got a spider
with four chainring bolts,
so just gonna remove those.
So as you can see this chainring
is really, really clean
now, and you just wanna be
inspecting the teeth for any damage,
missing teeth, anything
that's overly worn.
And that runs true for
your chain, your cassette,
anything that you've taken off to inspect.
So just as I mentioned before
with the jockey wheels,
it's a good idea to take these off
'cause as you can see
under these little covers
they've got actual
cartridge bearings in there.
So now is the time to see how they feel.
In this case, they feel really good.
But you can do that ghetto
hack that I showed you
with the headset video where
you just peel off the top seal,
flush it through with some fresh grease
and put that seal back on,
and you'll get loads of use out of those.
So as you can see,
there's always horrible black
gunk that just collects.
You just see it's there.
It's especially guilty of collecting
on these jockey wheels or guide wheels.
It's that unknown black muck
that just seems to come from nowhere.
Okay, so now everything is fully clean.
I've rinsed it all off so
there's no degreaser residue
on there, just use hot water.
Now ideally you want to
leave this all to dry
before reinstalling on the bike.
I've heard of people
using hairdryers before
or even heat guns just
to speed things up a bit,
but we're just gonna leave these aside
and then start putting the bike together
when everything is dry.
Now some people like to lube their chain
while it's off the bike just to make sure
some of that lubricant
gets into the rollers
and the pins of the chain,
give it a wipe clean,
then instal on the bike.
Personally I'm just gonna
instal everything dry and clean,
with the exception of the rear derailleur.
Now as for the rear derailleur itself,
it's fully clean on the outside,
there's no sort of grit
remaining in there.
I'm happy with that, but
with Shimano derailleurs
in particular you can remove
this cap over the clutch.
So I'm just gonna take that off
and just check the condition
of the grease that's under there.
Now these are pretty waterproof
and they do stay in place
quite well and do resist the elements,
but it's worth checking
while it's off the bike.
And if I think it's gonna need
a squirt of grease in there
or even a clean, it's the
perfect time to do that.
Now as you can see in this particular one,
you can see how the clutch
operates there with this lever.
It's absolutely fine,
it's working in there,
but I'm just gonna
maximise on it being open.
I'm just gonna put a
little bit of spray grease
just on the inside.
It's not as thick as traditional grease,
so it's not gonna congeal
or thicken over time.
So now it's time for reassembling
everything on the bike.
So most things are self-explanatory
'cause you've already taken them apart,
but the crank in particular
and the rear derailleur
just require a little bit of attention.
So in terms of putting the
jockey and the guide wheels
back on, so let's just check
this because the upper one
is a guide wheel and the
lower one is a tension wheel,
they're slightly
different, so in this case
the slightly rounder
looking one is the lower one
and the more defined one is the upper one.
That's the one that guides the
chain where it needs to go.
And just make sure when you
get your orientation right
and they go on that you also include
some threadlock on those little bolts.
Okay, so now the rear derailleur
is back in working order.
Now before I put it on the
bike I'm just gonna spray
some all-purpose lubricant
just into the pivots and stuff,
just enough to let it soak in there.
If any drips out I can
still just wipe it clean.
Give it a wipe down.
Now it's time to reinstall to the bike.
As with reinstalling any of this stuff
I would recommend just a
tiny drop of threadlock
just on the hanger bolts,
and the only reason for that
is they're just subject to vibration.
It literally just has
to be a drop, no more.
Now just repeat the same process
with putting the chainring
back onto your cranks.
Don't forget to put it in
the correct orientation
for your particular crankset.
Use some threadlock on those bolts
and then just reinstall
everything back onto the bike.
Now just don't forget to
use a fresh chain link
on that chain just to make
sure it's safe and secure.
Now all you've gotta
do is index your gears
and you're ready to ride.
So there we go, that is
Neil's bike back together
with a spectacularly clean drivetrain,
if nothing else, so it seems.
So hopefully this video
has been helpful for you.
I'd like to know what you
think in the comments below.
If you want to see a couple
more really helpful videos,
if you want to know about
installing a new inner cable
and how you flush out the shifter housing,
all that sort of stuff, click down here.
And if you want to find out everything
about indexing and setting up
your gears, click down here.
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