I needed to clean and restore my spokes as part of my XR250 Rebuild Project and the best way that I found, and liked the most because it was enviromently friendly, was to use lemon, vinegar and water. I also had to tackle rusty spokes which I will cover further down.
Spray the spokes with the lemon, water and vinegar solution. Use a scotch pad and old toothbrush to clean the spokes and nipples, rinse with water and dry with a clean rag.
The Secret Spoke Recipe
Add lemon peel to a jar and cover with white vinegar and leave for 2 weeks. Strain the vinegar into a sealable bottle ready for when you want it. To use pour the vinegar solution into a spray bottle diluted with water at a ratio of 1:1.
Full disclosure here, this is not my recipe and I didn’t invent it. I just found it whilst on my spoke cleaning quest and not only did it work well, I am all up for environmentally friendly options, and you have the added bonus of it being cheap to make.
If you want to check out the video I found, here it is.
In the video the guy mentions using blue scotch brite not the green, but personally the green worked fine for me and didn’t seem to scratch the spokes. You get different grades of scotch brite and blue is up there with the finer ones.
How To Get Rust Off Dirt Bike Spokes
With rusty spokes it’s going to take a bit more elbow grease. If you aren’t aware of the aluminum foil method for cleaning then i’ll cover that and this is one of the best approaches.
Take some aluminum foil that you would us in the kitchen and screw it into a ball. Rub this vigorously over the spokes. Use water to lube the foil if needed.
Now the aluminum is acting as an abrasive but a very soft one. Anything abrasive is simply scratching the material you are using it on. In this instance the foil is scratching the rust off of the spokes.
You could go ahead and use a more abrasive material like sand paper for example, but you need to take into consideration the effect it will have on the spoke after the rust has gone. Or on areas there are no rust.
Basically it is going to scratch the surface. This is also true for the green scitch brite pad used in the spoke cleaning method above which is why the guys recommends blue in the video. It is up to you how you view the result of the chosen material.
Some people will opt for a super fine grade of wire wool, like grade ‘0000’ , or some for very fine wet and dry paper like grade ‘2000’.
It is important to remember that rust causes pitting and when you think the rust has gone there will still be parts of left behind in the pits it has created. Alot of the time it is unseen by the naked eye, especially when the rust isn’t bad. This is the reason the rust will always return.
Consider New Spokes Instead Of Cleaning Rusty Ones
For the reasons about the rust returning that I have just mentioned, I personally like buying new spokes. They aren’t hugely expensive but obviously come with the added job of lacing the wheel, and where you could just replace one spoke, you may as well do the complete wheel.
It is worth considering the new spoke option and weighing it up against cleaning rust off which will undoubtly return in time.
Once you do have decent spokes on, it is easy to keep them clean before they go rusty.
For more of my maintenacne style posts then I do group them together and list them at the Dirt Bike Maintenance Hub page
