Cleaning Your Chain and Brake Discs

If you’ve got a motorcycle with a chain, then you’ll know that cleaning the chain is a filthy dirty job. No-one likes to do it. While it’s not as dirty a job, cleaning your brakes is also very important maintenance that you should be doing. Both dirty deeds will help the performance, riding and longevity of your motorcycle – and there is help out there to make both jobs easier.

We grabbed some specialist cleaning products and got to work… and still got filthy dirty in the process. Maybe you can be more careful! We bought online a motorcycle cleaning set. But let’s get started with the chain.

Find yourself a spot where you can lay down some old newspapers and cover up any parts of your motorcycle that you don’t want to cover in gunk. Now start spinning the rear wheel and spraying the chain cleaner onto the chain. It does help if you have an assistant, but it can be done alone if need be. Now spray a small section at a time and use a brush and scrub the chain clean, while spraying each section with more chain cleaner.

You’ll be surprised at just how clean your chain will be after a couple of rotations of the wheel. Now grab a clean rag and wipe the chain. After this is done leave it for a few minutes, maybe go and clean your hands, and then come back and give the chain a good coating of a premium chain lubrication product, making sure you don’t just spray the middle of the chain. You need to get lubrication into the side parts of the chain where it’s needed most.

While this is a job you’ll hate to do, you’ll love the result – a clean chain that actually spins easily, making gear shifting smoother and saving you money in the long run – all dirt cheap.

Now move on to the brake discs. You’d be surprised at how much crap your discs collect. Grab a clean rag, coat the rag with brake cleaner, or spray the brake cleaner direct onto the discs and then spin the wheels with the rag gripping the discs. Spin the wheel around a few times, giving the rag or discs more brake cleaner if it dries out and now check out how dirty your rag is and you’ll see what we are talking about!

Once front and rear have been done, take your motorcycle for a ride and after a couple of applications you’ll notice improved braking performance – all dirt cheap!