Best chemical cleaner for old mechanical junk?

Go down to the sprawl mart and get a gallon or two of the castrol superclean or wally worlds generic version

Powdered automatic dishwasher detergent like "Cascade" in hot, hot water!

Have to agree -- we had several heavily stained sections of carpet (10 years of kids) and nothing would touch it. I tried purple Castrol diluted 16:1 and scrubbed it with clean white rags and then the carpet machine with purple Castrol in it, followed by 2 clean water rinse cycles, and dang if it didn't come pretty clean. I was amazed.

But to clean most metal parts I use Cascade dishwashing detergent, a strong hot solution preferably boiled. It will take off paint and grease but it's much more friendly and safe to work with than lye and much cheaper than TSP, although those two will work fine too. In my parts washer I use mineral spirits aka Stoddard solvent aka paint thinner.

GWE

Waynemak wrote:

Just pour a half-gallon of "liquid drain cleaner" in a 5 gallon plastic bucket and add a couple gallons warm water. As others have said, all the heavy cleaners and hot tanks use caustic lye solutions, with maybe some surfactant.

It will attack aluminum and potmetal if left to soak. Clean and rinse.

Grant, Another benefit of Cascade is that it does not encourage rust. BTW, I used to work with a chemist who told me that Cascade had more buffers than Electrosol and because of this Electrosol made a good etchant for alum>> I will have to agree "purple power" or the "Castrol superclean" will work

What metals are you dealing with? That may have an effect on what you use to clean and not dissolve them..

John

By the way that purple Castrol has -- you guessed it -- lye as one of its ingredients.

GWE

"Grant Erwin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com... | bw wrote: | | > Just pour a half-gallon of "liquid drain cleaner" in a 5 gallon plastic | > bucket and add a couple gallons warm water. | > As others have said, all the heavy cleaners and hot tanks use caustic lye | > solutions, with maybe some surfactant. | | By the way that purple Castrol has -- you guessed it -- lye as one of its | ingredients. | | GWE

Which is why that stuff burns on my numerous bodily holes and leaks! I never knew what the active ingredient was, it just worked great. Useful to know, I guess. I use it thinned for a general purpose kitchen cleaner, so much so that SWMBO finally quit buying that expensive stuff. Small victories. Works great on everything. I did use it once to help clean [part of a filthy RV, which wasn't wise as it faded the paint. Oops! For carb bodies and other aluminum parts, I rinse the parts in really hot water to heat them up. Spray the part and let is sit for awhile. Coffee cans work fine for settling tanks as I can reuse the runoff liquid. Scrub a bit again while soaking, and then rinse sparkling clean. Just wish it came in 5 gallon buckets!

Knowing it was "just lye", I once used dry/crystals Drano to make paint remover and had a horrible mess. It was a while ago, so I don't remember details. I do remember that there was something else besides lye in the Drano and that something left an awful mess. Bob

FYI, standard industrial "floor stripper" is both purple and essentially the same as the branded Castrol stuff, afaik. The usual USA "wholesale clubs" SAMS and BJs both used to sell the "floor stripper" in gal and 5 gal pails... or else go to a wholsale floor finish supply place.

Half a step milder than that is "Mean Green" or "somethingorother Thunder" sold in stores like Family Dollar here on the USA East Coast... both work very nicely on grease and oil, etc...

_-_-bear