Cleaning Question

[Palf70Step]

What do you professionals/not-so-professionals use to clean up 30+ years of caked on goop. I've been scraping and using WD40, which seems to take care of most of it. Is there something that works better?

Question#2, What should I clean it with to get rid of the WD-40 before I start to paint my hardward (bumper brakest and stuff for starters).

I'm planning on using rustolliem, or similar for this stuff. Any recomendations on this? I'm sorta on a tight budget.

Thanks for the help

[paintpyro]

You can use oven cleaner too. Spray it on, let it sit, blast it with the hose.

[Zkast]

Find a local automotive shop thats willing to let you use thier parts washer. I dont mean the old solvent tanks, im talking about the pressure washers. If you havent seen one its basicly an overgrown dishwasher lol. Take a part thats covered in 30 years of crap and 30 minutes later you have a nice peice ready for paint. It uses chemical cleaners and 170+ degree water to spray the junk off.

We have a guy thats restoring a car in the neighborhood behind the shop and we let him bring stuff in and hot tank it. Although we dont ask for it, he'll give us 10 bucks for the trouble .

To give you an idea of how good these machines work. You can take a perfectly good painted valve cover with no rust, no missing paint.... 1 hour in the hot tank and itcomes out as fresh metal with almost no paint left on it.

[nate68]

when i changed the front suspension i used some pretty heavy degreaser and a pressure washer. took a couple times but it worked.

[COBALT]

Good suggestions here, but this is what I did on a budget:

1. Get the regular brake cleaner from NAPA. It's in a spray can, and dries without leaving a residue. I use this on final clean-up.

2. Go to your local home store (Target) and get one of those big plastic bins. Get some degreaser in bulk from Sam's club or Costco, and use it full strength. Soak your parts over night, and the next morning get out the scraper and the wire brush. Soak again if you have to.

3. Last resort use the gallon cans of carb cleaner from NAPA. It evaporates, though, so be careful with it. It's so toxic I don't use very much.

...and with paint I used both two kinds of rust-o-leum and hammerite depending on what I was doing and when on my front-end rebuild. Check out the Reviews message board for my analysis of both and how they applied. Basic rule of thumb on Rust-o-leum spray is TEST YOUR PAINT. Its likely to get a bad can (can with moisture in it, or inconsistency). Also, the brush-on stuff doesn't match the spray can stuff. Beware. Read the post I put in the Reviews message board for the rest.

[COBALT]

Oh, and I almost forgot. Use the coin operated car washes a lot. Take your parts to them on a flat bed or in the back of a truck with some wood blocks. Set your parts up, throw some change in, and spray away. Hose down with water, and dry them off before letting them sit. Good way to get loose stuff off. In the end the brake cleaner + some scotch guard strips cleans things up real nice. The brake cleaner leaves things clean enough to paint. Once the painting is done it looks cool:

[Xzavior240]

if its something your going to paint you could always rent a sandblaster. they do a pretty job and dont cost that much to rent really. the sand may get expensive after awhile though depending on how much you got to clean. no chemical residue left afterwards though. just dust from the sand. which thats easily cleaned up you wanna spray it pretty quick though if not the humidity will rust the bare metal.

[lofly'a]

if i may add to these very good and informative suggestions, i think everybody should have a gallon of castrol super-clean around. this stuff works great. if i'm cleaning a gunked up engine, i heat it up till it almost boils then put it on and everything comes off. from tires to toilets, it works.

and i FINALLY made 500 posts.............yahoooooooo!!!!!

[bbs1965]

wire brush and diesel fuel is the best and cheapest

[mikep]

right now I sandblast everything because I have a really big compressor and a sandblasting cabinet. In my younger poorer days I degreased with a homemade hot tank consisting of a home welded 4X4X3 tank and a propane crabpot burner with about 50 gallons of a really strong sodium hydroxide solution. took everything off except rust. For rust I'd soak in a 30% phosphoric acid solution in a big blue plastic drum. That will remove every last bit of rust to the bare metal ! I worked at a brewery then so I got this stuff for free back then. I used to do a LOT of restoration work . Now its just a hobby. I was way more obsessed in those days.

[Erl]

I agree with bbs1965. Pour a little diesel into a shallow pan and use a nylon brush. Do not use any more than necessary. Change the diesel when dirty. The diesel will leave a protective coating to help prevent rust. The diesel comes off easy with soap and water. One last point, NEVER use gasoline to clean parts.