I am looking for everyones thoughts and or suggestions on a chemical to use for soaking engine parts, engine blocks, and other various parts in. What I am thinking about doing is building me a soak tank for the various engines, transmissions, and other components that I service. I have been using the carburetor soak buckets for several years now on smaller stuff but it has gotten pathetic on how well it works in the past few years. I can remember when you could put a nasty or painted Holley carburetor in the stuff and after a night of soaking it would come out looking like a new one with everything removed from it even the paint. Now days even with a fresh bucket of the same stuff you will be lucky if the grease is gone. On a lot of stuff I also use an air agitator system I built years ago in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket of mineral spirits to clean bolts and other not very nasty items and it works great on the easy stuff. But what I am really wanting to clean is the real nasty, rusty, carbon coated, and painted stuff. I know there is several labor intensive options out there but that is what I want to avoid by doing this especially seeing time is money and any money I can save a customer makes them happy. I do know there will be a cost involved in the setup and purchase of the chemicals. But I am willing to bet that most customers would rather pay a reasonable cleaning charge instead of several hundred dollars in labor for cleaning parts if they get the same or better results. So to sum it up I am looking for some stuff that is so mean the state of California banned even the mention of its name over 100 years ago because it is just that danged mean. lol
The cold soak carbuerator cleaner you get today is a joke ...Like you said smitty back in the day it would pull paint . I invested in a hot tank about 5 years ago and it has been troulbe free...I find that I use it more than I thought i would ...I rarely walk to my parts [varsol] washer at all.. If my customer wants bare iron no paint it hits the glass bead cabinet ..There are some really tough abrasives out there that cut fast...
This is the stuff my buddy swears by where he works. They use it on all their light rail equipment... He says he can re-use it over and over again. I don't know what the availability is for single users as he works for a government run agency.. But it's supposed to be some really great stuff. It's called Samurai. http://www.inlandtech.com/uploads/pdf/Solvents/Samurai Tech Data - 07-08-10.pdf
My favorite machinist takes out somewhere between a quart and a gallon of chem dip out of the bucket and replaces it with muriatic acid. Says it makes the new stuff useful again and cuts the smell some to boot. Your mileage may vary and use caution with acid. Same guy use to get the local chem. supplier to make him super strong whitewall cleaner that made gloves a requirment lest your fingernails turn purple and get soft.
And make White Walls pop lol
Doubt it ever saw an actual whitewall. Whitewall cleaner actually is a pretty good general grease/grime cleaner if it's strong enough. The above case they were using it to clean auto transmissions before disassembly/overhaul. If spraying, wear a mask as it burns the nasal passages and lungs if inhaled.
Kinda like Castrol Super Clean used to be. The old Super Clean would choke a dead horse when you sprayed it.
I know what you mean. I have been asking around the locale parts stores for the best of the best and no luck. They think I am crazy when I tell them I want something that is so strong it will kill small animals by just hearing someone talking about it and remove the paint from my service truck just by riding around in one of the boxes. When I find that stuff then I will be happy! Atco, I may have to see if we have any friends working down in Oak Ridge Tn. ''back behind the armed gates''. I bet they may still have some of the good stuff hiding down there. lol Smitty
On the white wall cleaner. I used to work for a guy that used the good degreaser from Truck Pro to clean his truck tires. He applied it straight from the bucket without watering it down with a pump up garden sprayer to all of his tires before he started washing them. It amazed me on how well it worked. You could see a black film lifting right off of the tires as soon as he sprayed it on and then after he hit the tires with a steam cleaner they would look better then new tires. Smitty
Yall are rigth this carb cleaner you get today if you lucky get it to cut grease i can remeber when it would take paint off if you just got it close to it. We used to get some purple power from a chemical company that if you used full strength it would take the paint off man it would take you breath
Gentlemen, find yourself a small local chemical company. I do some clean up work at small chemical plant that will make you anything you want. They specialize in solvents. Hell, they will even custom blend race gas if thats what you want. That being said, I dont care to hang around the place for too long, they are known for making things go boom. In fact, early last year they blew up their flammables building.
I echo Turbo's comments. There's a local concern that makes the above whitewall cleaner and it's stronger than the stuff from outside sources. There's always coil cleaner for aluminum parts. Used to clean out HVAC condensers, if you mix it too strong the coils will start smoking. Aluminum brite for wheels will do the same thing. Some kinda acid hydrochloric? Side note bleach white is a so so substitute for real whitwall cleaner but more expensive. Same safety rules apply.
I was just going to mention Bleach White. The stuff must be good because you'll find your self looking for a mask- quick. Be sure not to get it on aluminum