How do clean grease off your bike?

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Anything with some ammonia in it - window cleaner, etc...will take grease off pretty quickly.
WD-40 will work as a degreaser.
Best product I've used for cleaning greasy, gunked-up chains is Super Clean.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Simple Green 100% for stubborn grease; diluted 50%-60% or other cleaning

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Go to HOME DEPOT (or, equivalent) and buy some PAINT THINNER.

If it is a grey, waxy build-up, then use a popsicle stick (or, equivalent-or-less ... like 'grey' cardboard from a paper towel core) and simply scrape it off.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Dishwashing detergent works fine but requires you to wash the bike just like your car.

Now that I have no lawn on which to wash my bike, I like "dry" washing with Spray 'n' Wipe or Mr Sheen and a rag, never had a problem with either of these. In fact I only ever wet-wash a really dirty bike nowadays.

If it is built up muck I spray it several times to soak through and use a combination of scraping (with fingernail or plastic/wooden implement - NOT with metal) and elbow-grease.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

+1 for Simple Green. Steer away from toxic solvents.

Protect and shine with Bike Lust.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Simple Green works for me.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

HI ! if you want clean Greece on your frame actually today's in market has comes spray then this help you can clean Greece and they do are not difficult to use .

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

For cleaning rims/spokes/cable housings/etc, I use brake cleaner. It comes in an oversize (tall) aerosol can for very cheap. Spray a bit on a small rag and wipe away. It removes any grease/gunk very easily.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

Good old washing up liquid in warm water works all the time for me. WD40 is a degreaser but I don't like the smell. I like my bike to smell clean. Lemon washing up liquid is great.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

+1 on mineral spirits but you have to watch out that you don't get it on anything that has a rubber o-ring or whatever. dilute it and watch that chain sparkle. I like the idea of simple green though.

Re: How do clean grease off your bike?

This is extremely bad "advice". Do not ever, EVER use paint thinner on any painted surface (though the more intelligent here probably already worked that, the name being a bit of a give away ... PAINT thinner ). While a powder coat or 2K finish will indeed stand up to that form of abuse, most other finishes will not. Indeed I use it almost daily in the workshop to strip paint as it's much faster than sandblasting and cheaper than paint stripper. Furthermore, many plastics will be affected by paint thinner and it simply dissolves many foams! Even the nitrile gloves I wear when using it as a stripper get attacked by it (and trust me, when you're using that often you need to wear gloves, you should see how it strips the oils from your skin)!

To answer the OP's question, what I use depends on whether I intend washing the bike after or not. If it's something like a chain or small components then kerosene is a good choice, it's cheap and in our case I will just grab a bit out of the parts-washer into a container or chain cleaning machine. The big advantage with kerosene is that it's actually a slight lubricant, so any residue left will not cause any problems for the following lubricants you may use, eg a chain. If you don't like the smell you can buy odourless kerosene, though it's quite a lot more expensive, you don't however use much at a time.

On the other hand if the bike is going to be washed I'll use a proper wash off degreaser. I haven't seen too many bikes with so much grease built up that it needs to be "scraped off" but yeah I guess if you rescued one from a dumpster it's possible. The citrus based degreasers are very popular these days (and they smell nice), unfortunately I bought a bulk container of conventional degreaser years ago, and with the small amount used on bikes am stuck with it for a while. Anyway just work it over the greasy areas with a paint brush, it's quite effective as the bristles of the brush work it into the build up. Wash it off with water, no pressure washer. Follow with a good quality auto "wash 'n' wax" (which also removes the thin residue many degreasers leave behind), rinse again. Lube and you're good to go.