Cutting 65-Year-Old Grease, Oil, Coolant Mixture

[TJJEEPER]

Haven't use this particular product but one just like it. Cleans very well and is non toxic. Orange Solvent. Smells good too

 

[JAderhold]

you can also try citri clean, its bio degradable so you can wash it right down the drain.

the only draw back would be the price, the cheapest i ever found it was around 80 bucks for a 2. 5 gallon jug, and it will also take the paint off if left on at full strength for to long



Eddie

 

[rbattelle]

Last night I went out looking at cleaners. I looked specifically at Superclean (heard great things about it) and Easy Off oven cleaner.



Both of these have the same main ingredient: Lye. From what I've read, lye is powerful stuff.



1 small can of Easy off was $3. 50. 1 gallon of Superclean was $6. 50. I bought the Superclean to try.



The trick will be to keep it on the parts I want to clean, and off the stuff I don't want to damage. Fortunately there's no aluminum parts - only steel and iron.



Ryan

 

[Scot]

Brake cleaner will take the paint off quite often. It works well but evaporates too fast. My favorite thing for a job like this is WD40. Scrape what you can with a putty knife first.

 

[mberry]

I'm with Scot on this one. Scrape as much as you can off with your putty knife/whatever, then pour on the WD40. Believe it or not, I use it as a pre-cleaner on the wheels of my wife's car. Spray it on, let it soak, then use a good cleaner to clean the rest off. Don't let it evaporate before cleaning. If all else fails, the steam pressure washer is going to be your next best bet. Nothing cleans like a good steam cleaner and for the money, it will save you more of your valuable.



I have tried to use Easy-Off with very poor results.

 

[rbattelle]

Today the weather was finally warm enough (45°F!) to have a go with the Castrol Superclean (lye).

For a first cut, it worked pretty well! It wasn't able to dissolve all the super-thick stuff, but the machine is an order of magnitude cleaner now than it was.

The biggest problem with the Superclean is the use of water (garden hose) to wash it off. I had to take a lot of time soaking up the water to try to prevent rust. Several of the welded seams are already rusty, and I didn't want to make it too much worse.

Maybe for the remainder I'll have a go with WD-40 as mberry and Scot suggested. That way rust is of no concern. The problem with WD-40 is it will need to be painstakingly cleaned off in order to prep for repainting.

The hardest part is going to be the interstices where I can't get a grinder or buffer in to really blast away the rust/crud/paint. I wish I had a sandblaster, but I don't.

Ryan

 

[mberry]

Ryan,



Your other option is to use rubbing alcohol to displace the water once you've cleaned it. A good garden sprayer with a very liberal amount of alcohol should get all the water out. Just don't drink it! You can rent a sandblaster from somewhere can't you?

 

[rbattelle]

You can rent a sandblaster from somewhere can't you?

I'd have to rent the blaster and the compressor. I looked into it, but it's way too much money.



I'll plug away at it the hard way. Builds character.



Ryan

 

[rbattelle]

I'm going to try this stuff!
The video is impressive.

Apparently the bacteria consume the goo and leave CO2 and water. Sounds great... we'll see if it actually works.

Ryan

 

[bmoeller]

Great find.

To bad you don't live near me. We have an external diesel fired heater for our 4000psi (can be throttled back) power washer. Takes off pretty much all you want.