Maintenance day

Today was maintenance day, cleaning out the crud from a week of winter riding:

• Frame cleaning - wiping off all the salt and grime that stuck to the frame with a piece of dry kitchen towel. I'm really glad I put several coats of turtle wax on before winter hit.
  
• Chain cleaning:
  
  
  
  • First pass rinse with hot water in the chain cleaner to clean off the salt
    
  • Second pass rinse with chain cleaner (fluid) in the chain cleaner to clean off the grime
    
  • Third pass rinse with hot water in the chain cleaner to clean off the chain cleaner (fluid) and any remaining grime
    
  • Fourth pass with WD40 to get the last of the grime out
    
  
  
• Inside frame cleaning - take the seatpost out and squirt some WD40 down to protect from the salt. I think I may have overdone it a tad - due to the angle it sounded like there was nothing coming out, so I tried it at a couple of different angles, and it still seemed like there was nothing coming out. Then I saw WD40 dripping out by the bottom bracket. Hopefully it didn't strip the grease out of the bracket, or I'm going to be fixing that up tomorrow...
  
• Brake cleaning and rotation:
  
  
  
  • Disassemble front brakes
    
  • Pick out bits of metal from pads with (cough) handy steak knife
    
  • Put brake pads, nuts, bolts, assemblies in tin with hot water, swirl and rinse out
    
  • Put chain cleaner in tin, swirl, rinse out
    
  • Hot water in tin, swirl, rinse out. Put parts on piece of kitchen towel to dry
    
  • Clean off brake caliper assembly with chain cleaner and hot water
    
  • Reassemble front brakes, putting pads on opposite side they were on before
    
  • Disassemble rear brakes and do the same
    
  
  
• Stem is creaking, unscrew the front plate, clean with hot water / chain cleaner / hot water, dry, grease, reassemble
  
• Wash off rims and spokes with toothbrush, using chain cleaner then hot water. Probably the dirtiest part of the whole job
  
• Wash off studded tyres with hot water and toothbrush to check if any have come out or look iffy. All present, two off them had rust on so I scrubbed them clean and they seem fine now.
  

2 hours later, the bike is ready to go again... There's something a tiny bit wobbly on the front stem that I can't quite figure out (possibly down by the forks, but I'm not sure), so I think I might take the bike into the bike shop on Monday for them to have a quick look at it. I suspect something just needs a little tightening, but everything seems fine to me. No individual part seems loose, but when I wiggle the handlebars I can feel movement. Most odd.