Bought myself a Karcher Steam cleaner .. keen to use it on bike .. Never tried one before, know its a big part of the pro valetters toolkit .. or at least the one I saw at work lol .. Any input on where its safe to use it on the bike .. ?
Its safe to use on the driveway, but that's about it! You don't want pressurised water going anywhere near your bike.....a lot of people (me included) won't even go out in the rain! Seriously though, keep away from electrics, wheel bearings and don't get too close to the graphics Or......sell it to your neighbour and use a damp cloth instead
Love mine (Karcher HDS 7/10-4 MX), you can turn it down super low very gentle, use it all the time, engine rebuilds, major service work and much more. I air dry them after with high pressure air line, common sense cleaning rules apply
When your talking about steam cleaner are you talking about one of these? Or one of these pressure steam cleaners?
Think bigger Used correctly it's a great tool, if your going to jet wash your electrics then sure problem time, I may upload a vid of some water testing I did on a 600rr, totally stripped and running then drowned in water for fifteen mins or so, no worse than riding at 70mph in heavy rain, after the test stripped all the main connectors and inspected them for water ingress only to find none, most of the connectors now are good at keeping it out, think of some of the racing in rain the bikes are more than capable of dealing with water. I do understand what's been said though and I see some people jet washing bearings and seals etc and think oh, IMO the worst thing people do is wash a bike and then wheel it into a shed, me, wash it, ride it, or leave it dirty.
Back in the day I worked for a dry cleaning company. We used live steam guns from an 80psi boiler for stain treatment back then (yes, scary), and it was a regular thing on a Saturday morning for me to wheel my bike into whatever shop I was working in and give it the treatment. Every cooling fin looked factory fresh right down to the roots.
I used a steam cleaner the other day on my bike with no problems at all, like Arthur said just avoid seal bearings etc and dry off properly before putting away or like I did ride home on it
I used to work in a bike shop, and they were always using one .. Obviously no where near electrics or seals etc .. but on calipers swing arm .. etc ... not even a high pressure one .. I wish I hadn't posted now .. make it look like I've got no common sense lol .. been at the bike game for too long to think my electrics need a steam clean lol
I've got a really crap jet washer, it has the power of a urine stream, great for not blowing out the grease on seals and ruining electrics. I think if your going to use a jet washer or steamer then it comes down to common sense really.
I'd rather clean my bike by hand at least you can check your parts as you go along. Only pressure washed one bike and that's because I had used it on the salted winter roads.
YOu probably haven't seen what a steam cleaner does to calipers then ... gets them up lovely .. at least the one I saw at work did .. and it was just a standard household one ..
Does it though? The important bit to clean on Calipers is the shyte and crud that accumilates on the back end of the pistons as they emerge from the center of the Caliper bodies! Not somewhere a steam cleaner can be aimed at with them in situ, and if it could be they probably fek the seals anyway.
For day to day jobs in the workshop sometimes it helps, a few random images of such jobs that the cleaner was used on, I have worse cases but just for the sake of it here's a couple... People can kill bikes without a steam cleaner or a jet wash, like this chap did, nice! Not a roller in sight.....lol
So Arthur does that mean the steam cleaner didn't help save the linkage ??? I used to hate steam cleaning engines n stuff I always ended up gettin sprayed back into the eyes no matter how careful I was or what I done to prevent it!
I always find that the number of times the jet washer bounces crud into my eyes is directly proportional to the amount of pathogens resident in the crap I'm trying to clean off.
Cow crud in the eye, mmm, nice! Id like to point out that the big industrial cleaners now by Karcher can be turned up and down at the gun (the grey twist grip), mine can give a gentle flow of steam or water, its so soft a spray on low it would not even push over a tea cup, cold or up to pure steam, just love the thing...lol
