Cleaning and Refurbishing Old Bikes - Products I Prefer as of 2024 - 2025

 

I've been refurbishing and riding vintage bikes since the mid-1990s. In all that time, I have never been sponsored or paid for my work. However, over the years I have developed a short list of my "go to" products for certain jobs. These products are my own preferences - unpaid and unsolicited.

• 3-in-1 "Blue Bottle" Oil: 3-in-1 makes a 20-weight oil that is great for oiling old hubs, brake calipers, brake rods, and levers. Be sure to buy the oil in the bottle with the blue stripe that shows a little engine on the side of it. The more common 3-in-1 oil with the black/red stripe is not as good. I've gone through countless bottles of "blue bottle" 3-in-1 20-weight oil over the years. It is my go-to for periodic oiling of Sturmey Archer three speed hubs.
  

• Acetone: This is my final de-greaser of choice for bare metal and chrome. Do not use it on paint or decals. I use acetone when I need something totally clean from grease or residue, such as re-bluing old bearing surfaces and parts. It also is a good final cleaner before priming and painting something. Wear heavy gloves with it. Acetone can also be used to carefully rub off spray paint that has gotten onto an old bike part. Be careful though - it will remove original paint if you go too hard with it.
  

• Citri-Strip Paint Stripper: This is a modern paint stripper found in big box and hardware stores. If I need to strip paint off a part, I use this stuff first. If it's not strong enough, I resort to True-Test Paint Stripper (see below). Wear heavy gloves with any paint stripper.
  

• Channellock: Channellock makes pliers and wide-mouth wrenches. They have a light blue handle. Channellock makes a six-inch wrench with an ultra-wide jaw that is useful for the large nuts found on headsets and once-piece cranks.
  

• Craftsman Tools (vintage USA): I love old, USA-made Craftsman wrenches, sockets, and screwdrivers. These were sold at Sears stores in the USA many years ago. They are well-made and reasonably priced. These were the tools "regular" people in the US used back in the day (Snap-On was an option if you had a lot of money to spend). I usually get them from sellers on eBay or at local junk sales. Newer Craftsman tools are usually made in Taiwan. They're not quite as good as the old, USA-made tools, but they're also not bad.
  

• Dawn Power Wash: This is a relatively recent product that I use for cleaning up dirt, grease, and grime on old bikes. Spray it on and leave it for a few minutes, then wash and wipe away. Do not leave it on old decals - it may damage them. Good for cleaning dirt off most kinds of paint and chrome.

• Dupli-Color Automotive Paint: This is a touch-up paint for cars and trucks that comes in a slender plastic bottle. It is acetone-based and dries very quickly. If you have an exact match for paint that does not require mixing of colors, then this paint works nicely. It's durable enough for bike use. I often thin the paint with a little acetone before applying it. It goes on very thick straight from the bottle. I like this paint for black bikes where I can just apply the paint directly rather than having to mix colors. For mixing colors, I use Testor's model enamel (see below). 
  

• Estwing Sure Strike: I have a couple Estwing Sure Strike hammers with hickory handles. These are older hammers and are very well-made. My go-to hammer is an Estwing Sure Strike ball peen hammer with a wooden handle. I periodically polish the striking surfaces on the hammer using a polishing wheel. This helps prevent marring of work surfaces when using the hammer. A hammer face with dings and cuts in it can mar the surface of whatever you are striking.
  

• Evaporust:  This is a rust remover that is pre-mixed and somewhat expensive. I use it once in awhile, but I prefer oxalic acid that I mix myself (see below). Be careful if you subject old decals to this - it can soften and ruin them. Given a choice, I usually opt for oxalic acid.
  

• Greases: When I need grease, my go-to is a good #2 medium weight green grease. I like Lucas brand green grease that comes in the tubes you put in the grease gun. It is made for machines with small bearings that go through many revolutions, so it's good for bike bearings. For thin grease, I like WD40's white spray grease, which is a thin product. It bridges the gap between an oil and a grease - when you need something thinner than #2 grease but oil would be too thin.
  

• One-Step: This is a chain cleaning and lubricating product for when you need to "top off" the chain with a little oil to smooth it out. It is not a substitute for a full chain cleaning, but when you just need a little cleaning and lubrication on occasion, it works well on the chain.
  

• Oxalic Acid: Savogran and Florida Labs produce oxalic acid for bleaching wood. In a diluted form, it works well to remove rust from metal surfaces. It does well with bare metal and chrome plated metal. Be careful using it with paint, and be very careful subjecting old decals to oxalic acid. A little goes a long way... It will bleach certain kinds of paint, particularly red paints that use iron oxide as an ingredient. It will also bleach certain kinds of gold pinstripes.  
  

• Parktool: Park makes good bicycle-specific tools. Look for the blue handle. My rule with Park is this: I get the Parktool version if it is a bicycle-specific tool (for example, a chainbreaker, headset assembler, frame straightener, cone wrench, etc.). For general-purpose tools like wrenches, sockets, and screwdrivers, vintage USA-made Craftsman is my go-go.
  

• Pedro's Tire Levers: I like Pedro's brand tire levers. They're a wide, plastic lever that is yellow in color. They provide good leverage and are a little beefier than the usual tire lever for a bike.
  

• Rustoleum Spray Paint: Rustoleum is a well-known American spray paint. It has been a staple at hardware and big box stores for years. It was the "average guy's" spray paint back in the day, but over the past 20 years or so has improved quite a bit. I use it as my go-to for priming and painting stuff where I don't need a dead-on match of specialty paint. For example, I use their black paint to re-paint old Sturmey Archer pulleys that have lost their original paint (Sturmey Archer black-out pulleys were common from the 1900s through the early 1950s). For painting a bike frame and fenders, I'd take the piece to a paint shop and have a specialty paint mixed up.
  

• Simple Green: This is a well-known household cleaner that is not overly harsh and a kind of minty smell. I like to use it for de-greasing and dirt removal. I usually combine it with some bronze wool or an old tooth brush. I also use it as a key ingredient in ultrasonic cleaner baths (see below). 

• Testors Model Enamel: This is an oil-based enamel that comes in small glass jars. If you built model cars or airplanes as a child, you probably are familiar with it. It is easy to mix to get custom colors. It is not terribly durable, but if you need a special color mix to touch-up an old bike, this is a good paint to try.

• Tri-Flow: This is a very thin lubricating oil for tasks where 3-in-1 blue bottle oil is too thick. It's good for the very tight spaces, such as when you want to put a little oil in a brake caliper but you don't want to loosen up the caliper at all. It creeps into the tight spaces nicely. Don't lose the little straw that comes with the bottle!
  

• True-Test Paint Stripper: This is an older paint stripper. The bottle looks to be from the 1980s and was sold at local Tru-Value hardware store. It's harsh and it's toxic, but if you need to nuke old paint, this stuff works wonders. If you have a bottle of this stuff around, keep it. It's getting hard to find good, strong paint strippers today due to environmental laws.

• Ultrasonic Cleaners: I own two ultrasonic cleaners: a small Lyman machine and a generic Vevor machine (from Amazon's website). I love ultrasonic cleaners. They are a "game changer" when it comes to cleaning small parts and caged bearings. I often disassemble Sturmey Archer hubs and thoroughly clean them with an ultrasonic cleaner. Instead of scrubbing by hand, I put them in the machine for a few minutes with heat on, and let the machine do the work of dirt and grease removal. My mix of choice is hot water, Simple Green, and a little Zep Citrus Degreaser in the tub.
  

• Victorinox: My go-to pocket knife is a knurled aluminum Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. I prefer the vintage "soldier" model (the knurled aluminum one - not the newer one) or its civilian cousin, the "pioneer" model. I have a small collection of classic Swiss Army knives, which is a hobby in its own right. I prefer the ones with knurled aluminum sides rather than the stereotypical plastic. 
  

• WD40: This is a decent rust inhibitor. I also use WD40 to wash the old grease out of hubs that I don't want to disassemble. In some situations, it can be used with very fine 0000 steel wool or bronze wool to remove light surface rust (be careful - go easy with it). It leaves a residue, so you need to de-grease before painting or bluing something if you've used WD40.
  

• Zep Citrus De-greaser: Zep makes several forms of orange de-greaser. There's a liquid and then there's a soap. The liquid I use as a component in my ultrasonic cleaner baths for cleaning parts (see below). I use the hand pump soap to clean my hands of dirt and grease.