AO

Okay, so I'm mid strem in my TB/WP service. And with the oil and the antifreeze that's been leaking, some fo these bolts and parts are just too dirty to put back with out cleaning first. I do not have a parts cleaner. I was hoping someone had a cheap bastard's way for doing the same thing.

I thought about using an old 5 gal bucket with a lid. Don't know what to use as a solvent, but I thought one could just dump every thing in there, put the lid on and shake it up. Or do I need to sit there witha wire brush and do each and every one? Thoughts? ideas?

MikeN

Brake cleaner has always been my favorite for melting off grease and other stuff off parts......pretty cheap at $2-$3 a can. You may still have to scrub a little on some things, but get some latex/rubber gloves to protect your hands, a bucket to spray parts over, and a clean drying area.

Steve J.

Gasoline works great but is so dangerous - not worth the risk of fire and explosion. Naptha is safer and is commonly used in parts washers. "Brake-Kleen" works well and you can buy it in gallon cans - but watch out for the fumes! Steam cleaning is also good.

GlenL

Lotsa ways to do this. For nuts and bolts I go the old-school way and use steel wool and/or green pads with a cleaning fluid. The fluid varies according to application. Could be mineral spirits, lacquer thinner, commercial de-greaser or home-made "gunk."

The gunk is a mix of one part water, one part laundry detergent and two parts paint thinner, or thereabouts. Rinse that with water.

Blasting stuff with brake cleaner is the fun way, but lots of cans are needed and it splashes around not to mention the fumes.

donberry

I use the laundry detergent idea and a brush and a toothbrush. If it is really greasy, I spray it with degreaser 1st.
Once it is pretty much clean, I always put it on the wire wheel on a bench grinder (be careful if it is aluminum)
after the wire wheel, stuff looks like new.
If it is a part easily seen and has corroded some in the past, I also hit it with a quick spray of clear coat from a can. Keeps it looking shinier longer and helps protect it from corroding again. If it is internal engine part, needless to say do NOT coat it.

Lizard928

brakleen is the stuff to get, best degreaser ever

Robert_H

I've discovered a great way (for me at least) to clean small parts.

I purchased one of those vibratory parts cleaners from Eastwood and brought it to work with me. We have several empty rooms in the back of the building in the basement where I setup the cleaner (it does make some noise). I just place the parts in the cleaner in the morning and let the media do the rest. At the end of the day, the parts are clean and I feel that I really have actually done something.

Rob

SharkSkin

You can use Simple Green, 50/50 with water, to get most of the crud off. It's very cheap and environmentally friendly. Brake cleaner, etc can be used to finish up. This way you minimize the nasty stuff that you inhale and allow to soak into your skin. Don't leave parts in the simple green and forget about them, as they can rust. I've found that this works almost as good as stoddard solvent. You can dump the used Simple Green into the drain grate at a car wash that recycles their water. I'm sure I'll get flamed by some car wash owner for suggesting this, but... whatever.

D

AO

THanks to all for their responses thus far. I think I'll use a combination of stuff. First I'm going to make an small ajitator to gently shake a 5 gal bucket filled with home-made gunk. Then hit it with brake clean and a 3m pad /toothbrush if needed. I'll give don's suggestion of using the wire wheel a try, but I'm a bit leary that it may be too aggressive. We'll see. Thanks to all for the ideas!

Scott M.

Andrew;

Go to the Dollar store and get their cheap oven cleaner. Great for 'caked' on stuff.

Find an oil distributor (like Mobile 1 dealer) and get some varstol. That is the stuff used in commercial parts cleaner. You can get it in 1,5, 20, 55 gallons. Let parts soak in it for a few hours then rinse w/ water. Baddabing

00 or 000 steel wool for Aluminium. Or Mothers Al polish works best.

Scott
Having a parts washer is mandatory when you own a Jeep or British car.

dr bob

Unless the deposits are baked on to the point of being coked, a good detergent is a lot safer and friendlier to use than the low-flash solvents in the Brake Clean products.

Start off with one of the better orange cleaner/degreaser products. Step up from that to one of the purple cleaners like Castrol's degreaser. From that you get to the basic solvent products like mineral spirits/paint thinner. North of that find the spray solvents like the Brake Clean cans. For the detergents, you can dispose of waste down the drain if there's no free oil. The wastes from the solvent-based solutions gets held for the haz-waste station.

Commercial parts cleaners are going to water-based detergents, away from petro solvents. You can do a decent job in your soon-to-be-ex-wife's dishwasher with a double-dose of liquid Cascade, again assuming that the baked-on stuff is already removed. You can do a similar job in that sealed plastic bucket if you do a little agitating along the way, avoiding the "agitated wife" syndrome that the dishwasher often causes. Get creative and haul the bucket down to Home Depot and have the paint department put it in the mixer for you... Or, you can let it soak with an occasional roll-around session to dislodge the stuff that's been loosened but not yet removed.


Another poster suggests using latex gloves. Fine for detergents but they turn to mush quickly when exposed to solvents. If you end up with solvent, use vinyl or neoprene gloves. I buy the vinyl painters' gloves from the paint dept at HD (while they 'mix' my parts maybe?) and they seem to be OK for most automotive tasks. They cost about $.20/pr in a box of a hundred, so not too expensive.


No matter what you use, be sure to protect the concrete floor or driveway if you are cleaning stuff that's still on the car. Unsealed concrete stains easily when you do any of this, and the tar that keeps the asphalt driveway frrom being a gravel driveway will succumb to these degreaser products in a hurry. I put a plastic sheet or maybe one of those blue tarps down before any massive cleaning projects, and let the water evaporate off before I throw the plastic away in the trash.


Good luck!

dr bob

This is great stuff but it is no good on anything that isn't metal or PE plastic. It also loses strenght as it's used, is very tough on skin and clothing, etc. Good side is that it washes off with water, is very convenient with the bucket/basket. Just don't get any water back into the can from a wet basket. Stuff also comes in 2- and 5-gallon versions, for parts or jobs too big for the little bolt basket size. I had a friend who used to use this stuff on delicate parts that he didn't want to brush or scrape, and he'd follow the dip-soak with a dip-rinse in a 5-gallon pail of lacquer thinner to get things perfectly clean before assembly.

Then there's the smell....


Great tip, Sterlng!

mspiegle

I use gas with no problem. Pour gas into a sealable container, put nuts/bolts in container, seal, shake around, clean parts come out.

Another option is to just goto the hardware store and buy fresh nuts/bolts.

Drewster67

Hand cleaner (the goop degreaser) works REAL well and is biodegradable - No fumes and or ......................

Ive used this measure countless times to clean parts. Like a hot knife to butter.

SharkSkin

If you use that Berryman's, B-99 IIRC, be careful. It is caustic, and if you put dissimilar metals in there that are still bolted together the results can be quite alarming. Also, don't put parts in there and forget about them, they may disappear.

D