Cleaning

[gojoego]

I have been looking at my dirty non-running bike for far too long and I thought I would at least clean it up and make it a clean non-running bike.

I have seen people using mineral spirits and all kinds of off the shelf grease and gunk removing products. My question is, what has worked for you? Mainly in the engine area.

Okay bike runs but it's not road worthy just yet, Don't jump all over me for getting ahead of myself

[MEHall]

Something i noticed last time i changed back tyre is that brake clean is superb to remove heavy dirt.

[Spyug53]

Well if your engine area, sprockets, chain guard, rear wheel etc are greasy and grimy I'd recommend Simply Green or a similar degreaser. Home Depot seems to have a good selection of "pro" degreaser/cleaning products too.

For less greasy, more dusty areas I favour WD 40 or mineral spirits/ paint thinner. All work quite well.

You can hit things up first with a pressure washer but be real careful around the engine, especially at the gaskets and the carbs. A pressure wash can shoot water where you don't want it, like the cylinders or bottom end. Careful at the fork seals too.

Pretty much any household cleaning products can be drummed in to service, so experiment.

Let us know what you do.

Oh and you are not getting ahead of yourself as a good cleaning is a good first start as it can show where you have a problem area, such as a leaky head gasket or valve cover gasket or the like.

Cheers,

[gojoego]

Update: I finally got out to the garage today and found some old chain cleaner I got from a buddy of mine and used that. It worked well, but it was likely 20+ years since anyone cleaned it and I only got 40 minutes before the garage time unexpectedly ended. So I only got to the rear sprocket and part of the rear wheel.