F451

Hey guys,

Tell me about what you're doing to clean the cosmoline and 20 some odd years of oil, grease, atf, road kill, etc, etc, from your 928's.

Rob Edwards mentioned using "histoclear" on cosmoline.

I pinged Rob on that and asked him to chime in, but in the meantime, has anyone else used histoclear?

How about other solutions?

Thanks,

Ed

F451

I've been spending hours and hours cleaning the underside of the S4. Every time I go to work on it, I spend at least 3x more time cleaning then I do actually working on it.

Some of my concerns are going too heavy on the mechanical scrubbing and scraping. Yes, I've had to take plastic and metal scrapers to the worst of it - carefully of course.

I've tried most of the usual suspects with limited success, Simple Green, engine degreasers, carb cleaner, and finally my do it all, but I don't like to use it, gas/oil mix (for my 2 stroke dirt bike).

The gas/oil mix usually gets anything off, but much to my amazement it barely puts a dent in the worst of the cosmoline.

I recently purchased a parts cleaner and was very excited to finally have a proper option for cleaning parts, and again, much to my amazement, its barely putting a dent in the cosmoline.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ed

F451

One more note, I've heard great things about the steam type cleaners, but can't afford to pony up for one, or at least for the ones I've read good things about.

Ducman82

steam cleaning gets most of the light junk off. but when i re painted my fender wells, i just bought about 40 bucks worth of brake clean and went to town. looks great now!

Lizard928

Ed,
In a purple bottle you can get castrol superclean.
Jack up the car, spray it on, wait 5 min and then pressurewash it off.

Do this as many times as is needed. But dont leave it on the paint for too long.

Marine Blue

My advice is to use citrus based degreasers and elbow grease.

In other words.....

Use the absolute mildest product available for cleaning and leave it on for a very short period of time. The rubber and plastic parts of our cars were designed to withstand salt, water, some dirt and very little petroleum. Using strong cleaning agents can attack plastic and rubber parts and cause premature cracking. The net result will be a whole host of parts which will need to be replaced sooner than later.

Cleaning metal parts is easier, brake clean, citrus degreasers and other petroleum base chemicals are ok as long as you don't let it sit too long.

My two cents....

blown 87

Wurht brake clean, and lots of it.

worf928

For Cosmoline: Brake Clean. Dribble it on, let it set for 10s of seconds and brush. Lather rinse, repeat. For run-of-the-mil grime I use P21S Citrus "Total Car Wash" concentrate diluted 50/50 with water.

Stay away from Carb Cleaner. Yup, it works well on cosmoline, but works on other stuff too - like paint.

Ducman82

yup, carb clean is nasty! simple green worked for me to get the caked on dirt and grime.

blown 87

For all my off the car cleaning needs, a five gallon bucket of carb cleaner is usually my first choice for metal parts I was really clean.

worf928

Yup. Nifty for metal bits in a bucket.

dr bob

Most of the common Purple degreasers have a small-print warning about use on painted and aluminum parts. The pH on these is high, and they are tough on some materials. Think 'oven cleaner', with sodium hydroxide as the active ingredient.

In a recent experiment, I found that some of the Orange Clean products using Limonene do soften cosmoline some, but they don't dissolve it. Spray, let it sit, scrub or brush, spray again, etc, until it's gone, then rinse thoroughly. Histoclear is straight Limonene.

Simple Green is not real helpful on cosmoline, except to get it clean. The mechanical part of cleaning with this (brushing/scrubbing) does almost all the work.

Brake Clean works but is an expensive and somewhat hazardous way to get cosmoline off. It's OK for short exposures where you can hold your breath and keep it off your skin, but a major cosmoline removal project means skin and lung exposure are inevitable. You can buy electric motor cleaning solvent (CRC ElectroMotive) in gallons, and avoid some of the aerosol hazards of the sprays. But the skin contact issues persist.

Common mineral spirits (paint thinner) does OK, smells bad, needs to be washed off throughly with detergent, and will damage paint and plastics with continuous exposure.


Read the directions carefully on any product you use, and follow the warning and PPE recommendations especially for skin/eye/breathing exposure. A simple dust mask won't help you with the fumes.

blown 87

Latex gloves do not like it much, flesh even less.

Calgary Ole

My car was quite bad a year ago. I have used everything mentioned always finishing with lots of Simple Green and used plenty of tooth brushes to larger brushes and many hours of elbow grease.
Watch out for brake cleaner as the fumes will knock you on your ***.

cfc928gt

I've been using odorless mineral spirits that I bought at Home Depot and brake cleaner while working on my back under the car. It was supposed to be a quick motor mounts/oil pan gasket refresh that started so long ago I don't remember what driving the car is like anymore. I spend 5 minutes working on the mechanicals, 20 minutes cleaning and then 5 minutes cleaning the work area I'm laying in. Then I get sick of it all and quit for another day. Ready to shoot whoever dreamed up cosmoline...