Has anyone here actually used WD-40 and encountered problems? I keep hearing warnings about not using it as chain lubricant, but many other people claim they’ve been using it for thousands of miles without ill effect.
Yes.
I soaked a mountain bike chain with WD40 and headed out for 50 miles in Idaho. Halfway in - in the middle of nowhere - the chain started sounding like a bad screen door and the fast guys were laughing at me.
I never used it again.
Some people like a bike that’s got a certain wessonality.
I’ve had a bike chain fall off after using it. Then again, I’ve had lots of bike chains fall off after using something else. To be honest, I have a pretty crappy bike.
Lubing a dirty chain carries the grit into the pins… Much better to clean it first:
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remove chain from bike. SRAM power link or similar is your friend.
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Drop into plastic soda bottle with 1/4 cup of solvent. I prefer stoddard solvent or mineral spirits. The citrus stuff is greener. Shake for one minute, let soak for a while, then shake again etc. after a half hour or so, fish the chain put with an old spoke. Repeat using dish soap and hot water, then several rinses with just hot water…until the water stays clear.
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coil chain on a piece of Al foil, and bake in 250 degree oven for at least a half hour.
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put chain on HD plastic bag. Add some lube a smush it around. Wipe excess off with rag. Enjoy nice quite chain with no lube on rims to ruin braking.
F
As for lube: What lubes good draws dirt. What stays clean doesn’t lube that well. As for me, I use 30w non-detergent oil. Clean and reapply every 5-800 miles or the first time I ride in the rain. I have 3 chains for each bike, and wash a batch when I put the last clean chain on one of the bikes. Doing 5-6 at a time uses a lit less solvent and lube.
For a while I was Lubing with 90w gear oil. It works better to put that on while the chain is still warm from the oven. If using a fancy lube with solvent, better to do it on a cool chain, but the baggy trick will save lube and mess.
OT but I’ve heard if you spray your fish-bait with it… Supposed to have fish oil in it.
I thank each of you that took time to respond. We went with nothing. The kid had a good time even tho’ his bike was downright dangerous but I/we were able to tweak it enough to at least getting him riding around in circular path.
I wouldn’t dare let him get on it first. I had to make sure he could ride it in one gear. And if anybody here knows what physical condition I’m in… Well let’s say that mothers should get their asses kissed regularly.
More than you need to know but the reason I was ready to spew pea soup at a certain someone when we got back is that I traded 3 nearly brand new kiddie bikes to a poor deli worker for his kids in exchange for tweaking and lubing our two bikes.
The deli guys are begging me to wait until after his shift tomorrow.
I’ll be back with more bike question.
Signed,
The Asshole. Again.
:dubious: It’s mineral oil thinned out with mineral spirits,
analyzed with gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, so the odds that that isn’t what’s in it are vanishingly small,
and I’d bet that lying on a MSDS sheet would cost the company more than they’d lose by completely disclosing the ingredients.
CMC fnord!
I always oiled my bike chain with my dads oil can. I’m sure he filled with it standard 10W-30 motor oil. Usually at the beginning of summer dad & I took the chain off and soaked it in kerosene. Reinstalled & oiled the clean chain. I was good for the summer.
We never touched the axle bearings. Those would have been packed with axle grease. That sort of repair we took to the bike shop.
dads oil can
In the olden days they most certainly used an oil can filled with motor oil. It wasn’t the best option but it kept the chain lubricated. They would have to clean it and re-lube it but at that time it was basic maintenance just like a car’s maintenance required replacement of spark plugs, points and the condenser.
WD-40 is more a solvent than a lubricant. It is mostly akin to kerosene. It was developed to prevent rust on Atlas rockets. It is great for cleaning a bicycle drive train but it is not a lubricant. WD-40 stands for “water displacement, 40th formula”. The 40th formula proved to be the answer to the need.
Bicycle drive trains, dry lubricants, wet lubricants, the discussion will go on until your hair hurts. Everybody has an opinion.
When I was a kid I put STP on my bicycle chain. That was a disaster. STP is all about viscosity. I had strings of lubricant all over that were a bitch to clean up. It was probably great for preventing chain wear but it was a mess.
(My bolding)
:smack: I would take the bike to a shop and have it looked over. Then consider why I put my kid intentionally in danger.
You can get away with using motor oil on a chain but it really gums up and it’s not designed for it.
Any grit that you pick up in your chain and that goes through your drive train will cause wear on your parts.
Lubing chains is one of the most contentious issues in the bike scene, these days im using a lanolin based lubricant, it prevents rust and is relatively cheap. Most go for the wax based stuff like Finish Line.
One of my first thoughts, when considering what sort of other lubricants I might find around the house, was gun oil. In poking around the web, it looks like gun oil isn’t a bad choice; it appears there’s one product called “Tri Flow” that’s quite popular for both bikes and guns.
Sperm oil was a favorite back in the olden days. <insert joke here>
It was a light, durable, oil. Probably low availability these days.
If you happen to spend too much time racing a GoKart class for 5-8 year olds called Kid Karts, which is nationally competitive and on a level with baby beauty pageants or soapbox derby for lunacy, you will already know that Tri-Flow is the lube of choice for keeping high-speed steel chain from eating hardened aluminum sprockets. The teflon seems to do the trick, although it needs application several times a day.
Be careful spraying this or WD40 on a loaded gun, as I have heard reports from police friends that it can get into the primer and kill the round.
Tri-Flow is good if you enjoy cleaning your chain. That stuff builds up gunk faster than any lube I have ever used.
Why would you clean or lube a gun you knew was loaded? That’s almost as bad as my father’s, “I coulda sworn I unloaded it,” as my mom yelled about the new hole in the wall.
I only ride my bike 10 miles or so each week (back and forth to work every day), but I use just WD-40 and have never had a lubrication related problem. No squeak, no sea birds following the urban-mythical smell of fish oil, not even the chain falling off.
Now I’m not saying WD-40 is ideal for the purpose in any way, but it does lubricate even if the main ingredients are quickly evaporating solvents, and it won’t cause your kid’s bike to explode.
Did you wipe off the excess WD40? Any lube would attract sand/dirt and gum up quickly if you “soaked” a chain with it and not wipe it off.
Yeah, WD-40 is very good for what it’s designed for, but what it’s designed for isn’t lubrication. It will lubricate, but it won’t do it as well as things designed for that purpose.
If you have any sewing machine oil around the house, it’s almost exactly the same stuff as bike lube, and probably cheaper.