WD-40 Question

[Jon Danniken]

Reminds me of the last time.

Jon

[Jon Danniken]

The original point was that damn near every liquid (at room temperature and pressure) is a solvent, for one thing or another, and you'd be hard pressed to come up with a liquid lubricant that *wasn't* one!

Jon

[Red Green]

Bob wrote in news:ic6ct7$kof$ [e-mail]- september.org:

And another WD-40 mega-thread begins :-)

[Jules Richardson]

It can be all sorts of things temporarily - it's just extremely poor as a long-term fix for anything, and better solutions normally exist for specific problems.

cheers

Jules

[notbob]

They were seriously underated cars.

I attended a road race at Leguna Seca CA in the early 70s. The premier event had 40 Porsche Carreras battling it out, mostly amongst themselves, with a handfull of heavily race-modified Corvettes fighting it out for dead last. Astonishingly, in 15th and 16th place (honest!) were two factory AMXs! They both died mid-way through the race, but it musta really burned a buncha big-buck Carrera owners to have to look at AMC taillights for a whole lotta laps

The more interesting race was the later sports sedan class, where it came down to just three cars seriously mixing it up. A BMW 2002, A Volvo (242GT?), and an ....wait for it.... AMC Gremlin! The Gremlin finally edged out the Volvo, but couldn't quite pass the first place Beemer, despite the two finishing nose-and-nose and the Gremlin handily beating out two dozen other BMW entrants. I always got a chuckle outta that race, as 2002s were considered THE premier sports sedan of their day. More miffed Euro owners roundly trounced by an alleged crap car upstart. hee hee.....

Leguna Seca was always good for humiliating puffed up drivers and arrongant factory race teams.

nb

[Jim Yanik]

Smitty Two wrote in news:prestwhich- [e-mail]:

apologies if I'm wrong,but ISTR it was you that disagreed with me the last time about WD-40 being mostly kerosene. Thus your "deja vu".

[Joe]

And ordinary H2O is better, especially with the trick additives used these days.

Joe

[Higgs Boson]

Hmmm....Olde Tymer in my local (much beloved) traditional hardware store agrees with you. He steered me to CRC Heavy Duty Silicone. I haven't yet conducted the requisite sophisticated comparison tests to prove/disprove his opinion . Just interesting how you mechanically buy the same product for years...decades...until somebody comes along with a Different Idea.

HB

[David Nebenzahl]

On 11/20/2010 1:26 PM Higgs Boson spake thus:

Just shows that everyone's got an opinion is all. Some more geezer-esque than others.

Not refuting the old gent, but there are places you definitely don't want to use silicone, particularly around painted surfaces or those that are to be painted. Like WD-40, silicone is useful and works well for its intended purposes.

[clare]

Can you imagine being the owner / driver of a 76ish Corvette big-block taking 3 runs on the slalom track to beat a 318 4X4 ramcharger on snow tires with a plough frame mounted???

His third and fastest run beat my 'charger by something less than 1 /100 of a second. On all the other runs I "had" him by over 2/100. On my last run I had his first run by over half a second.

The beauty of low range full-time 4 wheel drive!!!

[Steve Barker]

thus, "BASICALLY" the same.

[Steve Barker]

thanks Jim. I don't write shit that is not true.

[Steve Barker]

I did find that it IS effective in making a wet distributor cap usable to get home. HOWEVER, who has a distributer cap anymore? So yes, worthless in this day and age. I can get kerosene for 2 something a gallon if i need to and put it in the wd pump sprayer and no one would tell the difference.

[Larry W]

Speaking as someone who has actually tried that, I am sure I would be able to tell the difference.

[Vic Smith]

You hear about spraying dists with WD-40 more than anything else. I think my last dist was at least 30 years ago. Threw away my dwell meter long ago. Wish I'd known about WD-40 in '68, before I started doing my own car work. Had a '64 Olds Holiday '88 with a V-8 that wouldn't fire after it set in the rain a couple days. I put an alcohol heater under it when I just had to get it going. Caused the crankcrase to explode. Did it twice! A kid. Second time bent the valley plate causing oil to leak and cost me a couple bills getting it fixed. Think that's when I got more cautious "fixing" things. For those using WD-40 on anything other than spaying distributors, there's better and usually cheaper to use. Regular motor oil in an oilcan works for most common hinge lubing. Home interior doors, car doors, etc. A couple drops, work it in, wipe of the excess. Same for locks, a couple drops on the key, work it in, wipe off excess. I use 3 in One for some things, but mostly plain clean motor oil and a rag. A silicone spray or grease stick for what's allergic to oil. All kinds of lubes, grease cutters and solvents that work better than WD-40. Cutting oil? Last time I bought a gallon it was cheap as dirt. So maybe I have 6-10 different lubes/solvents around. BFD. Every one works much better than WD-40. But hey, if you like WD-40, use it. I love freedom of choice! God Bless America!

--Vic

[Tony Miklos]

I think most of us have ignition coils and plug wires.

[salty]

Red paint and black paint are both basically paint.

[Steve Barker]

True. And a good analogy. Different colors, but same basic ingredients.