I just thought this was interesting. I had a number of brand new SRAM chains that were submerged in ocean water TWICE in two weeks (hurricanes Helene and Milton). They were pretty much frozen solid.
I scraped off what I could with a steel wire brush, rinsed, then soaked the chains in evaporust for a day. Most links still stuck, so I forced each link in each direction, and scrubbed again on all 4 sides with wire brush. Rinsed off particles and soaked again for a few days. One final wire brushing and a rinse, and this is the final result. Not pretty, but all links move freely as they should. No grit.
Maybe 15 minutes spent per chain. Hated the idea of throwing them all out. I'll lube them up good and put them in rotation.
by SillySpook
2 Comments
Since they were fully submerged for a while, there might be rust in places you haven’t been able to get at. No issue, because it’ll come off as the links and pins rotate during use, but it’d be worth giving them another proper rinse after you put some mileage on them.
I don’t know what’s in evaporust, but generally I wouldn’t recommend chemically de-rusting chains. I once tried to submerge a rusty chain in a phosphoric acid-based rust remover, and the chemical reactions put so much stress on the metal that like half of the side plates cracked within minutes. I had to throw out a chain that was otherwise salvageable.