...P

This is something I suspect many people have never heard of, could be wrong as this is a pretty savvy board.

I am working with a lot of aluminum lately and I have found GIBBS to be absolutely awesome.

Here is a photo tease........more in a minute.


Certainly not one of my more attractive photos, this one was taken many years ago during a brake inspection of some sort. You can see the Gibbs in the photo.

Here is a link that tells all about it.
No.........it's not the proverbial "mechanic in a can"........but it does work very well.

http://www.roadsters.com/gibbs/

Here is a little bit of the aluminum I'm working with now on a 427 Ford hi-po, raw aluminum has a way of frosting over with light corrosion if it is not maintained. This stuff kills that idea.


Yes this photo was taken the day we decided to roll it out and test run it.
The neighbors were "unaffected" :-)



I've used Gibbs on aluminum wheels anodized or not makes no difference, the stuff will soak in and make cleaning easier. The stuff works great on gun mechanisms, and Chuck Norris like Gibbs too, lol.

And the stuff works great under the hood of a 928 too.
Don't look too close, you'll see some dirt in this photo. :-) It's a driver, not a garage queen.


I also use it under the hood of the S2 Cabriolet.

Highly recommended, but not cheap.
It is quite amazing because it leaves no film, and you can even paint over the stuff.

Regards,

P

Alan

As a penetrating cleaner/lubricant most folks here use PB Blaster or Kroil. I've heard of Gibbs but never used it - seems you are also using this as surface cleaner & protectant? How does the Gibbs smell? Kroil and PB Blaster are pretty nasty smelling - very pungent (at best) and the odor hangs around a good long while.

I'd not use either of these for general cleaning or finish protecting, both due to the smell and their aggressive action. However they do their job extremely well.

Alan

...P

Alan,

It reminds me of the PB Blaster which I also have in the shop and use from time to time. It does not smell like the petroleum PB, it actually has a pretty light smell. The beauty of the stuff is the penetration factor and how you can wipe/polish it.

In the end it could be the same thing as PB in a different can for all I know, I'll have to look again perhaps tonight if I get hope early enough to get to the shop. I have never used the PB and Gibbs for the same thing, however.

If I come up with any revelation, I'll either post here or send you a pm. This thread will be my reminder,

best,

P

...P

Follow up:

Well over the holiday I got a chance to use PB Blaster and Gibbs, and looked at the hydrocarbon id info on each can. Both contain some similar contents but both also contain a few unique listings too; therefore my conclusion is they are not the same thing being sold in a different can.

PB smells like kerosene and has an oily finish.

Gibbs has very little odor and has a better finish. When it is wiped off it has a fine oil or almost waxy feel to it, where the PB feels oily. I can't imagine wiping down a firearm with PB Blaster due to the oily residue feel.

Hmm, beginning to sound like we are giving a critique for cabernet or fine cigars, lol.

regards,

P

Bjbpe

As an ignorant, old, long time S4 owner, I have often tried to clean up my engine compartment. It does not look as pretty as that of a lot of you folks. Yet, if I rubbed a clean rag over anything, there would not be any dirt on the rag; i.e. the engine compartment is maintained but not pretty. Can you folks tell me what PB Blaster and/or Gibbs are and where can you buy them?

dr bob

PBBlaster is a petrtating lubricant available at Wal-Mart. Not sure about the Gibbs. I wouln't depend on PBBlaster to do any serious "cleaning'. Aluminum develops it's own protective oxide coating. Low-pH (acidic) stuff may brighten it temporarily, nut soon enough it oxidizes again under the best circumstances. Caustic cleaners like oven cleaner may give short-term looks but quickly builds a dark gray hydroxide coating that looks bad and offers no protection.

A soft brass detailing toothbrush is just enough to scrub up aluminum without obviously scratching it. Still a relatively short-term good look.

Bjbpe

Thanks Doc. As a retired aerospace engineer I can remember shipping out brand new JT9D engines to Boeing. They looked like they belonged in jewel cases; all bright and shiny. Then we would get them back months later looking like they had been dragged through a bed of corrosive excrement. It would appear that my only approach to getting the "show car appearance" is really just a lot of hard work which I'm too lazy to do. Anybody else with lazy ideas?

dr bob

I'm along on the "keep it clean" philosophy. Along those lines, I'm extremely careful to use only aluminum and other plating-safe chems and cleaners. I've slipped a few times, once when I found out that even a mild detergent would stain the factory finish on the cam covers and intake. I found an ammonia-free detergent window cleaner concentrate that I use now on stubborn stuff, and the rest gets nothing more than distilled water or maybe a bit of Invisible Glass. The shop vac gets a workout cleaning the engine bay; everything that gets sprayed on gets quickly sucked back up before it can get to the wrong places. The bottom of the engine is a slightly different story, with spray engine cleaners and a water spray a lot more appropriate for cleaning off road crud.

This is all original plating and paint on the parts, except for the intake and cam covers which were refinished in a color-correct powder finish.

dr bob

I get to look at first-few-stages compressor and turbine blades every once in a while during powr plant disaster RCA's. I've also inspected some pretty well beat up replacement blades that were represented as suitable replacements. I'm almost convinced that many reconditioned pieces get not much more than a run through the dishwasher, a visual and --maybe-- dye-pen or magnaflux before getting bagged and tagged as "good". New pieces have serial numbers on them now, and I initiated a tracking system among clients that use third-party refurb pieces to make sure they get their own good parts back, and to identify known marginal pieces so they don't go into a good engine.

Now back to the aluminum protection discussion, already in progress...

...P

The reference to PB Blaster was made during a discussion about "what is GIBBS", and after looking at both the PB is more of a kerosene based penetrating oil
and the GIBBS seems to be something more refined and more suitable for wiping down a Browning High Power (something I would not consider doing with PB Blaster becuase it is stinky and oily by comparison).

Any of you guys who really take extra pride in the machinery, and wow, some of the images bear this out, I think you would like GIBBS and I think you would
never use PB. It's just a much better (and more expensive) product. Having said that, it won't finish an engine by itself or fix any mechanical issues, lol, it is just a nice penetrating and finishing oil.

I have used it for many years on cars, boats and guns with very good results.

The question was asked, "where can I get Gibbs and PB Blaster"?

You can buy PB at any auto parts store or Wall Mart.

For GIBBS, just do a Google for "Gibbs Brand" and you'll see a hundred places whee you can buy, including a lot of ebay sales.

regards,

Paul

Bjbpe

Interesting note from ...P. What do you think, Doc?

Also, not sure if you are aware of this but Pratt and Whitney Aircraft has a "lead the fleet" program, primarily associated with LCF (low cycle fatigue). We have an engine on the test stand at all times accumulating test hours ahead of any engine that is in the field. That means all parts on the engine must be accumulating time at power ahead of the fleet. At every X hours the engines is torn down and completely inspected, particularly looking for fatigue cracks/failures. If the engine looks good, it is re-assembled or rebuilt as required and goes back into the test stand. All parts, especially compressor and turbine disks are accumulating hours with any replaced parts zero based. I am not sure if General (junk) Electric engines are tested this way. Given the huge expense associated with some parts such as compressor and turbine disks, engines in the field that have to be overhauled, for whatever reason are carefully magnafluxed and totally evaluated. If the parts are approaching the lead-the-fleet engine, they will be tagged and stored and may possibly re-used if the lead-the-fleet parts get enough time on them. This is not a way to cheat a customer; rather the cost of such materials as Inconel is so high that the customer welcomes a discount on re-used parts. This process has been in place for as long as I have worked in aerospace (started in 1961) and is carefully monitored by in-house and FAA inspectors. Our in-house guys are way ahead of the FAA in this regard. Occasionally I would be asked to evaluate some aspect of the engine based on critical operation (I was, obviously, not an inspector but evaluation of function is different than inspection) and an FAA guy would oftentimes be present; I felt like I could have told him that hot was cold and he would accept it. Believe me when I say that parts that were re-used coming from our house were very carefully evaluated.

I've been away from the office for 16 years but I have to believe that the above description is still valid and possibly even more carefully operated as the turbine and compressor temperatures/stresses have increased.

Bjbpe

To "Doc", once again.

Just to comment on how your engine compartment looks compared to mine. Just take the oil filler cap as a "for instance". Yours is a bright yellow (as are those on many of the show engines in this forum". Mine, on the other hand would be referred to as dull orangeish-yellow. Still, my cap might be as "clean" as yours (using the clean rag test) but yours sure looks a lot better.

dr bob

So I'll let you in on a secret. I share it only with a few folks. Those who shouldn't know this stuff, use the <alt><left arrow> combination now.

[top secret mode]


















To get the plastic oil filler cap and the top of the dipstick to look like that, grab those two items and head for the garage sink. Reach underneath and grab the can of Comet cleanser, and a soft scrub brush. If you cherish the finish on your hands, wear gloves. Apply the Comet liberally on the plastic parts. A little water and a few seconds of scrub brush, and the oil stains and fingerprints and other crud will magically disappear when you rinse the parts in a little more water.

The factory QC marks on mine were carefully photo-documented when I got the car. The red dots in the picture are duplicates of the originals, using cheap red nail polish.

If you'd like the cap to stay that way, add a coat of your favorite car wax after it's all dry.

[/top secret mode]

andy-gts

alt left arrow?????

snoz

= back button for your web browser.

I ordered a can of it just to try. All of my uncoated aluminum looks like crap so what the hell?