If you’re a motorcycle person, and you’ve spent more than five minutes or so on TikTok, chances are good that the algorithm has already tried serving you motorcycle hack videos of questionable usefulness. Some of them might be great, but some might also be terrible—which is honestly just about like almost any advice you find from completely random sources on the Internet.
In the interest of doing the larger global moto community a service, South African moto vlogger Chaos Causes decided to try several TikTok hacks that he’d seen online in his own garage, and then reported back on the results in this video. As you’d probably expect, his mileage varied—and some of the ones he covered worked out better than others.
Since he grew up in a riding family, CC relates that his dad siphoned fuel out of fuel tanks the old-fashioned way using a bit of hose and his mouth. One TikToker demonstrated a hack that uses a piece of hose and either your chosen shop vac or some compressed air to get the suction started—no mouth needed. Would it work?
CC didn’t have a shop vac, so he used his air compressor to pressurize his MT-09's fuel tank and get the fuel flowing out the hose he’d stuck in the fuel filler cap opening. Lo and behold, the fuel started flowing into his receptacle—which, due to some slightly poor planning, was a bit dirty. I mean, suction is a pretty simple concept, so it’s not difficult to see how this could work. Would all the hacks work this well?
We won’t go through the entire list here, but as you might expect, some worked better than others. However, we’ll add one more tip here that isn’t on CC’s list, simply because it was kind of painful to watch in this video.
Chain Cleaning Doesn’t Have to Be Messy
I know, I know, chain cleaning is one of those third-rail motorcycling topics that everyone seems to have an opinion about. If you have a method that works for you and that you like better, I’m certainly not telling you to change it. However, if you watch CC’s video and you see him complain about how his floor always ends up with chain cleaner all over it because of his chosen method (as well as the ‘hack’ he tries in this video), you may be like me and find yourself wanting to reach through the screen and go “you’re making your life a lot more difficult than it needs to be, pal.”
You know all those cool bike parts/gear/accessories boxes that show up at your door because you bought something-or-other online, and then had it shipped? Save some of that cardboard. You don’t have to hoard mountains of the stuff, but saving a big rectangle here and there can come in extremely useful when you’re cleaning your chain, or doing other jobs that have significant mess potential.
Stick an appropriately sized piece of cardboard under your chain while you’re cleaning it. Also, if someone else is spinning your rear wheel to move the chain around as you clean, or if you’re slowly running the bike to do the same thing (like CC does in this video), that means you should have two hands free.
Hold your spray can of cleaner with one hand as usual and hold a shop rag placed on the other side of the chain from where you’re spraying with the other. That way, overspray from your can of cleaner and/or lube sprays directly into your shop rag—not onto your floor, or anywhere near your tires.
When you’re satisfied that you’ve done a good job, leave that piece of cardboard under the chain on the floor to catch any drips that may fall off. It’s simple, inexpensive, uses stuff you already probably have around the house—and you can just toss it in the bin when you’re done.
