Spoke cleaning???

[steve murdoch]

Anybody with spoked wheel cleaning tips.
I am currently busting my knuckles and fingers using Autosol and rags.
I have seen a product called "Luster Lace", nylon? strips infused with wax/cleaner.
Has anybody tried it?

[sharpy]

hi

Stainless or cad plated spokes?

[marz]

spokes

well its a little different .. but on my bycicale i used a green 3-m pad. it does scratch just a lttle.. i would degrese first. then go through each one ..

[steve murdoch]

Stainless or cad plated spokes?

Sorry Sharpy, i do not know.
They are the stock original wheels on my '78 GS1000.
Marz, i will give the 3m pad a gentle try. Thanks.

[bdalameda]

I have had really good results using a fine wire wire wheels on a hand drill. You can get several sizes and shapes and work your way around the wheel from the front and back of each spoke and reach almost the entire spoke. This will also do a decent job on the spoke nipples. After using the wire wheel go over the spokes with 000 Steel wool and Simichrome polish.

Dan

[rudy]

I have had really good results using a fine wire wire wheels on a hand drill. You can get several sizes and shapes and work your way around the wheel from the front and back of each spoke and reach almost the entire spoke. This will also do a decent job on the spoke nipples. After using the wire wheel go over the spokes with 000 Steel wool and Simichrome polish.

Dan

Hmmm, don't know if I would use a wire wheel on that. Especially if the rims and hubs are polished/still nice looking. Steve, do your spokes have rust on them? Or are they just dirty from years of PO neglect?

I've re-done mine on the 650 and the 1000. CAD plated for the 650 and fancy stainless for the 1000. If you have rust on your original CAD plated spokes, good luck getting them to look real nice. I think stock spoke sets for the 1000 are still available from the dealer, but I went to Buchanans. I think it was just over $200 by the time shipping was all done. Taking them apart made polishing really easy. Lacing and truing isn't as big and scary as most people think it is.

[steve murdoch]

Being the stock spokes they would be cad-plated and i understand they are not going to polish up like the stainless aftermarket spokes.
No rust, just a bit of neglect from the current owner[me].

[rudy]

Tsk tsk, those pesky CO's.

I've had good results with Mother's Chrome Polish and a strip of an old T-shirt. Just get the LIQUID (not paste) polish from C.T. and soak the strip. Work it back and forth after you've gotten most of the heavy crap off and you should be good to go.

Heavy stuff, like years of chain lube, can be cleaned half decent easily with degreaser and a certain kind of $4 plastic bristle brush (read: toothbrush). Spray Nine cleaner/degreaser (also available at C.T.) works great as a degreaser. I have a 4L jug from Princess Auto of the more concentrated pressure washer kind. $25 on sale and it eats through years of crap in mere seconds. Pleasant to use, and not really that toxic. Just imagine what it could do through a pressure washer....

[Calvin Blackmore]

not sure how you would hurt your knuckles

I used to clean and polish sppokes with long strips of flannel cloth
about one inch wide 3 feet long
smear polish in the a logn stretch of the middle and wrap arond the spoke once then pull on each end alternately

works well

but mine werent all rsuted or corroded