Tyre Soap

Good man.

 

Rubber is not equal to rubber. WD40 is kero and very light
lube oil, mostly, and will destroy natural rubber.
The sealing O-rings in chains are (as far as I can find out)
Nitrile rubber and pretty resistant to kero, diesel, fuel
oil, lube oil and other not too smelly hydrocarbons.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using WD40
on the chain but O-ring destruction (caused by the WD40)
is not one of the problems.

Now, tyre rubber is not primarily made to be oil
resistant (even if I'm sure it plays a small part in the
evaluation, a tyre that disintegrates if you park in a
small oil or fuel spill would not become popular).
So I agree that the safe bet is to avoid anything mineral
oil based as tyre mounting lubricant. Anyone know how
tyre rubber reacts to vegetable (cooking) oil ?

 

I find it goes a bit chewy if you don't boil it first.

 

Hmm.. what makes an O ring chains O rings break up then? Maybe through
having come into contact with brake fluid or EP gearbox oil? I should
really keep a chain O ring or two, so I can soak them in different
things and see what happens.

I think it may do, as chefs tend to use plastic gloves and not latex
gloves for some reason.

 

A lot of older formulation chain sprays we not o-ring friendly. It tended
to be a problem with the solvents used to thin the product, both to made
them sprayable and to allow the product to penetrate into the joints before
the solvent evaporated - one of the reasons you should spray after a run,
while chain is hot, rather than before a run.

 

I do the spray lube thing after a run, when I'm going to leave either of
the big bikes without being ridden for a while. As they're standing out
in all weathers, it stops the chains going rusty, because a scott oiler
won't always stop that.

I wonder if Halfords spray grease is O ring friendly. It has a picture
of a chain on it, which may not mean a thing.

 

Muck says...

I've had bikes sit doing nowt for months with a Scottoiler, and the
chain hasn't rusted. The 350LC chain was lubed the day I laid it up, it
was almost rusted solid when I sold it, same with the chain on my
current GPZ500.

 

I'll have to start washing the chain off after a salt on the road run,
or maybe I'm not letting enough oil drip on the chain, either way
something isn't right.

I find that Halfords spray grease has just about the right amount of
fling to keep the chain clean without needing to re-apply it too often[1].

[1] Works for the CG125 very well indeed.

 

Hey Loz, didn't know you had a GPZ500.

You must be one of the (very few) owners that's not yet sent an email to the
old motorcycle.workshop(at)virgin.net account listed on our website, asking
"where can I get those infill panels from?"

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.emerson/bikes.htm#_GPZ500S2

We get about a dozen requests a month, from all over the world (GPZ500 ~
EX500).

 

Dave Emerson says...

I've had the GPZ, now known as the ZX-5R, for nearly 2 years. I bought
it as badly accident damaged one for silly cheap money and I've been
very slowly putting it straight with track days/occasional road use in
mind. Most of the work is done and the serious money has been spent, I
just need to throw it all back together, get a pipe built by Gibson
Exhausts in Romford and get it legal for the road.

It will never be pretty or standard again as I'm chopping all the
unneccessary shite off to save weight, stuff like rear footrest hangers
etc. I'll make and weld some lugs on the subframe to take an alloy
hanger bracket for the silencer. I wouldn't mind a single race-type seat
unit if you know of any being made over here, I've only seen them on US
sites.

 

No need to boil them, I like my tyres "al dente".

 

Mine don't. I have used Engine oil, gearbox oil, WD40 and a number
of chain lube sprays on them. Maybe it's what I don't do: wash
the chain, ride very fast or let the chain dry out completely.

One thing that does bad things to almost all rubber grades is petrol.

 

Probably more resistant to it than e.g. engine oil (with all the secret
formula additives)? Many engine seals intended to keep the oil inside
the engine ar made of rubber - but that may not be the same formula used
for tyres.

Anyhow - during my last tyre changes I used glycerol[1] as a fitting
lubricant. This is technically speaking an alcohol (triple hydroxy
residues on a three-carbon backbone), and is free from salts, solvents
or other corrosive agents. Worked fine. Also available from pharmacies
or chemical stores.

[1] I happened to have it available when needing a tyre lubricant - and
it worked.

 

I can see friction from not having enough oil as a problem, yes. I've
never had a chain O ring break up, so I must be doing something right.

 

The rubber that begins with N and becomes the nasty acid stuff that
burns through your skin after being heated too much?.... you know the
one I mean..

Soluble in water, so it'll wash off cleanly and leave no gunk? I could
see the stuff being too slippy, making it hard to get the tyre on though.

 

<fx: wakes up with a start>

Erm, do what, say what ?

I always use WD40, where does it say it will rot the rubber ?

Nothing untoward on the MSDS. Contents mostly petroleum distillates. No
solvents. So, err, much like chain lube then ;-)

http://www.wd40.com/Download/?/Brands/pdfs/msds-wd40_aerosol.us.pdf

Still I suppose fuel pipes do harden and perish over time. But Surely
that's longer than the life of most chains !

I'm gonna keep using it, but I do tend to put it on a rag and move the
chain through it, rather than spray it between the links.

Cheers,

Paul.

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (ts)
saying something like:

Or anyone who makes biodiesel. Available by the bucketload.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

Viton.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

Grimly Curmudgeon says...

I thought it was Nitrile. I made some exhaust gaskets for an RD400 from
that stuff once, I told a mate and he warned me of the dangers of the
stuff after it had burned before I handled them again, bearing in mind
they'd been subjected to cylinder gases I was quite lucky.

 

As previously reported to this group, one of our regulars at The Workshop
was doing just this at home when he lost to top of his thumb as the rag
snagged and took his hand 'round the sprocket.

He admits to spinning the wheel but has since denied that the engine was
running, in gear.