dr bob

Take a close look at the ingredients and cautions on the purple degreasers. I did buy a gallon of Dep purple degreaser from Home Depot a couple years back. Yikes! Caustic soda and some soaps do the job. Like a slightly lower concentration of spray oven cleaner. I didn't buy the Castrol product so can't speak specifically to it, but several reviewers mention that it's also sodium hydroxide based. Beware that the caustic is really tough on aluminum and painted parts and really nasty on your skin. Amazingly it's fat soluble so it travels through skin and does a lot of damage below the surface as well as provivding nice skin burns. No doubt it's great for cleaning the barbeque and getting oil stains off the concrete.

Marine Blue

No Kidding!

I know my wife has given up on trying to make sense of it, she just goes along with it now. I think the turning point came when we were invited to a special Mercedes event a few years ago in Las Vegas. They paid to have my car hauled to the event, they paid for our hotel and food and we were able to meet a few people from Popular Mechanics and MB management. I got a ride in an SSK (very very rare) and the just released SL55. We also met Carol Shelby at the event. This all came about because of my concours MB which would have never happened if I wasn't partially crazy!

Some good tips on cleaning, thanks for the input.

Dr. Bob, your comment about Simple Green has me wondering if it's the undercarriage spray that caused the cracking. I will say that most of the the rubber wasn't cracked immediately after I cleaned the wells but about a year later I noted that most of the bushings had some cracks. It wasn't enough to affect handling or alignment but it was enough to have me worried and wishing I hadn't done it. Either way I was careful where I used the Undercarriage Spray for this exact reason and didn't use the Simple Green this time so I should be fine.

Jarrod if you look at your bushings I would be very interested to learn if they're fine, that would lead me to believe it's the undercarriage spray that is the problem. If that is true then the clean-up will be a great deal easier and more thorough with Simple Green.

I'll try to post more later this week after I finish the fronts.

Marine Blue

Bob brings up a good point. The goal isn't to get it clean as quickly as possible, it's to bring the car back to factory condition without doing harm to anything. Unfortunately sometimes the easy way isn't the best way. I intentionally stayed away from chemicals because I intend to keep this car forever and I would hate to have to replace undercarriage parts because I cut corners. I also don't have enough time to devote to various chemical compositions of products available for cleaning and if they're compatible with the materials of cosntruction on the car. So I took the least agressive method and will have to suck it up to get it looking great.

It's possible many of the cleaners mentioned are safe but I just don't have the time and unless I can visually compare condition at the time of cleaning and a year or two down the road I can't be certain they are compatible.....sorry for rambling on.

6mil928

I love the scenery in the back ground. Looks like a beautiful area.

JWise

Afshin-I'll check the bushings and let you know. One problem, however, is I didn't note if they were cracked before, so if they are I won't be able to say for certain that it was the Simple Green that did it.

I was careful to thoroughly rinse everywhere I had used Simple Green, including using a brush as I rinsed. Hopefully, all is well.

dr bob

Afshin and the group--

I don't want to say that the various cleaners like the Purple stuff are off limits, more wanted to make sure that folks are aware of some of the hazards associated with using them. More than a few folks on various car forums rave about using the cold ovene cleaners from the 99cents stores. There are raw aluminum wheel cleaners that are diluted acids. Each has a place and maybe a use for specific car cleaning tasks.

I'm in the hunt for a non-solvent remover for cosmoline, for instance. Not really sure one exists, mosty because cosmoline is a wax/parrafin coating. Needs a petro or other organic solvent to get it to dissolve. Or use the Purple stuff, but limiot the use to all the removable plastic parts where the risk of damage to the part is none. The paint doesn't generally mind the mineral spirits, but the rubber parts do. Ditto the brake cleaner option except it's not as good on paint. Does a bang-up job on the aluminum though. Bill Ball and the engine building team for Dennis K's motor were raving about using Histoclear, a particular label on Xylene for use in medical applications. But it's xylene, the stuff you can still buy by the gallon or five at the local industrial paint store. OK for all but the rubber bits.

No matter what you use to clean, follow it up with a hard spray of water, a thorough wash with a pH-neutral detergent like Dawn diswashing product, and another thorough rinse.



Now I need to go out to the garage and clean something. See what you guys have done??

Bill Ball

I second (or third) this. I don't know if it's the color, but Castrol's purple degreaser discolored (yellowed, hazed) the clearcoat on my aluminum motorcycle rims. Bad for paint too. The bottle warns you, but you see so many disclaimers on products these days, you might be tempted to think it's just the lawyers making things up. They're not in this case.

I just bought some ZEP "professional strength" citrus (orange) cleaner in a gallon jug at Home Depot - WOW! This stuff really works well.

michaelathome

Afshin,

Looks great!!

I picked up one of these for my jack and will likely never lift my car w/out using it again. Ours is the round one with the rubber pad so you are not damaging the undercoating on the car jack points.

http://www.automotion.com/productpag...cid=18&sid=128



Michael

IcemanG17

Afshin
You are well down a slippery slope.....at the bottom is a car that you are afraid to drive...lives in a "bubble" and is trailered to every event!! Sure its perfect...but....

On that note....as everyone knows I've been down that slope before, but managed to recover from it.... My wheel wells are a couple years old since I cleaned them last and in need of attention..... heres some pics...

dr bob

Bill--

For grins, check the warnings on the ZEP orange stuff. It's a mild acid IIRC. I bought some of that along with the purple stuff at HD on a whim. Again, not sure that there aren't great uses for it, just be careful. I know it's tough on bare skin.

F451

I spent about 5 hrs degreasing my S4 in the last couple of weeks.

Removed the rad for a repair and cleaned up that whole area and by the power steering fluid canister, then got under the car and worked on the oil pan/anti-sway bar area.

I removed a TON of dirt and grease and was all psyched to take before and after pics, but when I got out there with the camera, I was, lets just say, underwhelmed.

The worst of it was the power steering fluid that was leaking for I don't know how long. Holy cow, that stuff was hard to get off.

I used a combination of Gunk Engine cleaner, Zep something or other, then Simple Green, and finally, a thorough rinsing with water.

And a plastic scraper. The little plastic scraper was key.

Next is some steam cleaning. I got a good reference from a muscle car buddy, so once the S4 is under its own power again, I'll likely take it up to this guy.

I can't wait to see the results. I hate seeing that type of mess on a car, any car really, but especially a unique car like the 928. -Ed

JWise

Another product I've used before, on the recommendation of Larry Reynolds of Car Care Specialties, is Oil Flo Safety Solvent. I mainly used it to remove road tar, however, I suspect it would be good in the wheel wells. You do have to minimize the amount of time that paint is exposed to it, as it can remove paint. However, simply spraying it on, rubbing to remove the tar, then rinsing with plenty of clean water, has been fine.

Here's a link to the product specifications, including a link to its MSDS.

http://www.titanlabs.net/oilflo.htm

Bob-can you look at the MSDS and give us non-engineers an interpretation as to it's safety, or lack thereof? Thanks!

Ispeed

I will put the car on jackstands, remove the wheels and clean the wheel wells (de-grease, pressure wash, and armor all) and wash and wax the wheels before DRIVING my car 2000 miles round trip to SITM every year. And as much other cleaning as I can do also.
Just finished washing and putting the car away, and looks pretty good. Survived another SITM adventure.
Don't forget to drive, too! Some day gas may be $15 a gallon and you will wish you made some memories when you could have.

Bill Ball

Maybe if we mix the basic purple and acidic orange 1:1 we'll end up with baby shampoo.

dr bob

More like a little 'bubble bubble toil and trouble', and a bucket of sodium salts.

Thought about this a bit when you brought up the orange on top of the purple discussion.



OK, everybody back to your neutral corners!!!