For a while now I've been wanting to try this as a way to make the messy chain cleaning chore less messy and less of a chore.
What you see is a short section of gutter with two push on end caps that were then sealed with black silicone rubber. The support is a chunk of corrugated plastic cut to shield the tire and wheel and form a hook that allows it to hang from the swingarm cross member. The support is attached with some 3/8 to 1/2 inch Bostich staples driven through the plastics and bent over on the back side. Other attachment options are possible of course.
The two pics below are from the first time I used it. The second one is just before I dumped the blue bowl of solvent into the gutter. This is also pretty much near the end of the cleaning. As you can see it really kept the mess down.
In use I clean the lower section of the chain run that is exposed with 4 or 5 toothbrush fulls of solvent and roughly blot off what doesn't drip away with a paper towel. Advance to the next segment and repeat. When I come around to the original segment I pour out the dirty stuff and add new stuff to the bowl and repeat. I found that it takes about three times around on a dirty chain to see the cleaning solvent come off with a light grey color on the paper towel. If it's really dirty I'll run around a 4th time.
This process used to be pretty messy with cardboard or a plastic bag under the bike to catch all the drippings. As you can see in the second pic the floor hardly has a drop on it despite being pretty much done. It didn't really speed up the actual cleaning but it sure did speed up the prep prior to the cleaning and the time requied to clean up after the chain is clean. The whole deal to clean and lube this chain took maybe 15 to 20 minutes to go from crunchy dirty to darn near spotless. This time included hooking on the gutter, getting all the stuff off the shelf, doing the cleaning and putting it all way and draining the solvent back into a settling jar.
I guess that this seems like a lot of trouble to the racers or serious off road riders but for us dual sport types that are on the roads as much as off them this may help out with a messy chore.
