piccardo

Well today I checked my flex plate for the first time since I bought her. I have only driven 1500 miles since then and after reading some of the horror stories about bearing failure I decided to bump this project to the top of my list. It was a ¼” off just as I have seen on numerous posts. All is well.
.I also steamed the driver’s side front suspension, painted rotors and calipers WOW It looks great that steam really does a great job. One tip on the removal of the yellow goop the factory sprayed on all the components.
Use “East Off” oven cleaner! Works like a charm. An ex-racer friend at work told me it works better than engine degreaser and at half the price. HE WAS RIGHT! It looks factory clean.
I would like to thank all of you that have taken the time to explain the In’s and Out’s of these procedures. I recently renewed my membership for a further two years and I can’t think of a better investment to save time and money on my shark.

Bill Ball

1/4" (6mm) deflection of the flexplate? That's quite a bit, about 2-3x, what I normally find. I would watch this. Also, it would be good to check the crank endplay, with the spec limit being 0.4mm.

That's good tip about Easy Off. I've been using paint thinner, but it requires a bit of work. Thanks for the tip.

JHowell37

IIRC Easy-Off contains lye so of course it makes degreasing easy. If you're cleaning small parts that are off the car, a more pleasant (yet highly effective) alternative is Dawn Foaming Bubbles (or something like that. With the oven cleaner be careful about getting it on the paint. That "yellow goop" that's on everything is there for a reason. I wouldn't try to remove it unless it was coming off on its own, and then I'd look for a suitable replacement.

Nicole

Hey Bill: I read the Easy Off thing... You might have to look at an even cleaner underside in the future...

Thanks, Piccardo! Did you use the regular, heavy duty, or fume free max formula?

Marine Blue

Be carefuly with the Easy Off, it seems a bit harsh for cleaning purposes. Would be careful around the rubber bits.

Cosmoline is a pain to remove unfortunately but as JHowell says it serves a purpose and unless it's really nasty or falling off it can't hurt having it there.

Jim M.

Easy Off oven cleaner will never come close to my car except in the ride home from the store! Before I retired I worked in heavy aircraft overhaul for a major airline. Some fool used Easy Off to clean a big hydraulic leak in the pylon of a 767-300 aircraft. Because of the heat, the fluid had turned to a heavy caked on mess. The Easy Off worked, but when rinsing it out the chemicals in the Easy Off leached between every crack and crevice of the aluminum pylon. Every time that aircraft returned for service we had VERY extensive corrosion of the aluminum (YES, ALUMINUM CORRODES) and extensive repairs of the structure. The last visit the engineers stated that we had better start looking for a replacement pylon!

Jim Mayzurk
93 GTS 5-spd

Normy

Hey Jim...aluminum certainly corrodes. Most of the time aircraft corrosion problems occur under the lavatories. Why is that? Do pilots eat too much asparagus or something?



N

Brad W

Jim you are right the lye content is very corrosive. It will also eat of the Cad plaiting and cause rust. The Aluminum will start to turn chalky and corrode. I learned this lesson with a product called Grease Lightening. Cleaned the heck out of the years of grease but also left the cad parts bare and rusting.

Larry Velk

A late friend of mine showed me back in the 60's that easy-off could be used to remove old Testors paint from the model cars he restored. If you removed it quickly it didn't seem to damage the plastic used at that time. Methylene Chloride did damage plastic (big time) - it was the main ingredient in those old paint removers. Easy Off is listed on this forum as being able to remove the anodizing from the factory wheels (I have my doubts). It will damage paint - I can't imagine using it on a whole car. I'd say definitely loose parts only with the usual cautions for the eyes and such. BTW, toilet bowl cleaner will remove rust from bolts. As noted above with lye, if you use an Aluminum pan, it will corrode with bowl cleaner.

Ed Hughes

Wow, what was intended as a positive thread is going downhill very quickly. There are a lot of nasty household cleaners that don't belong near cars. Dawn detergent's another-very caustic, it can actually etch 400 series S/S.

As a comparison, my flexplate realease only netted about 1.5-2mm movement, IIRC. Which works out to approx .060-.080". If you really got .250" of movement, I wouldn't say "all is well". As Bill said, you probably need to go back and check your crank movement, and hope for the best. Maybe you made a mistake on your reporting of the release?

Daniel Dudley

Bare aluminum and cad items can be sprayed with WD , clear laquer or rubbed down with motor oil. I believe they also make spray on engine dressings for this now, although I would use a satin laquer for suspension conponents. Not cosmoline, but a sealer never the less, and cosmetic as well.

JP Rodkey

After trying lots of various things (including WD40 with a Scotch pad - which scratches), the best method I found to remove years of caked on baked on brake dust on the back side of aluminum wheels was Easy Off. On the worst wheels, it took off probably 90% of the crud. I always use soapy water and lots of fresh water to rinse after the Easy Off and haven't had any corrosion problems over the years. I'll use the stuff until a bad experience.

svp928

I have to agree with Jim M.- Easy-Off is VERY bad for aluminum. We used to use it to remove anodizing! Depending on how long you leave it there, it will actually dissolve the aluminum completely, so be very careful to not get it into a place where it can't be rinsed out of, or it will eat the part like it did on Jim's landing gear...
What's that old saying- 'operation was a success, but the patient died"....

dr bob

I wonder how these myths get started. Anybody here have a clue??


Consider that you use Dawn in the sink with your bare hands in it, washing dishes. Caustic would dissolve the fat in your hands. Housewives would be screaming "Look, no hands!". But they don't. I made more than a few tons of Dawn during my stint with P&G. You can trust me that it isn't caustic enough to etch aluminum, or you could test the pH yourself and report back with your findings.

I use Dawn in the hand-cleaner dispenser in my garage. Takes the grease and dirt off, very gentle to the hands. I guiess it's a good thing my hands aren't 400 series SS.

Nicole

OK, no Easy Off for my car...