Looking for a degreaser to use in a trigger spray. To be used for cleaning mechanical parts of oil & grease. Don't want a product that has to be washed off (or diluted) want it to evaporate or wipe off. .....anybody use this, wondered if this is suitable:
It appears to be a water based detergent similar to Bilt Hamber Surfex HD. You normally dilute it before use although it can be used undiluted for heavy contamination. Diluted the Bilt Hammer stuff leaves little or no residue. The Screwfix one also claims to leave no residue but if used undiluted I would be surprised if this was the case. Surfex HD I have used quite a bit and even at high dilution (100-1) it is an effective de greaser, I've only used the Screwfix stuff once and it worked well on not particularly heavy soiling (all it was used on).
All water based detergent cleaners can cause corrosion if they get into ball races or between mating metal surfaces.
White Spirit is also an effective de greaser as is Acetone although the latter has a really serious fire risk and degrades many plastics.
.In message , rick writes
The old favourite, years ago, was Gunk, which is apparently now available in a trigger spray as well as bottles. Whether or not it has changed over time, I don't know. Really should try some in the Morris engine bay, which is somewhat grubby.
A while back I bought a couple of gallons of paraffin and two 1 gallon paint tins.
I either wash greasy parts in one tin half full of paraffin or in another container and tip the dirty stuff in there once done.
I then leave the object(s) to drain and would generally wipe it / them dry ... and I think the paraffin leaves a slight protective coating that might prevent rust?
Once every so often I transfer the dirty paraffin to the second tin via some fine paint filters in a funnel, removing all the larger junk and recouping the paraffin to some degree. I use the new stuff into the old to give a finishing clean to fine parts.
I don't think the fumes are (as?) carcinogenic like petrol and whilst farmable, I don't think it's quite as bad as petrol.
I also put some paraffin in a squirty bottle to help wash stuff out of things like gear hubs and bearings. (I recently stripped and de-greased a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub this way and it worked very well.)
I also have a Clarke bench standing de-greasing tank but need to sort out a new pump as the original one failed and a new one from them was the same as a whole new unit. ;-(
If I'm going to paint stuff I'll generally further spray clean stuff down with brake cleaner and / or panel wipe.
Cheers, T i m
A mate and I took our Messerschmitts to a Schmitt Rally (in Kettering) and we didn't even bother entering our machines in the concourse event.
The Schmitt next to mine (we were arranged by vehicle age) had a cleaner and brighter engine bay than the body of my car! ;-(
I think he said the outside of his was something like 10 coats of hand brushed 'Belco'(?) paint, rubbed down in between?
But hey, we would have won the scruffiest working Schmitt category had there been one but we did (jointly) win the driving event because we drove like that most of the time. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
In message , T i m writes
Crikey, yes, I remember Belco paints and thinners. I hand painted an Anglia 105E with Belco, nearly 50 years ago.
And how did it come out OOI?
Cheers, T i m
Peter ... what I want is something to spray on, and agitate with a brush and it either drips off or wipe off with a cloth. Don't want to be rinsing off.
I was watching an episode of Wheeler Dealers - he was using a trigger spray and some degreaser on an engine bay and it did a great job.
Maybe I need to use white spirit instead
In 1972/73, as an impecunious student, I painted my ten or twelve quid Anglia 105E with Woolworth's household paint - an "interesting" mix of green, purple, yellow, pink and black. Later I re-did it with blue and orange Belco. Fortunately I've developed a bit more taste and judgement since those days ;-)
But Gunk is a brush-on/wash-off product (or at least it was the last time I used it, which may have been the 1980s) so doesn't meet the OP's spec.
In message , T i m writes
OK, where OK means acceptable given that I didn't use ten coats of paint with much rubbing down between coats. I will stress, though, that it could have been a lot better with more effort, so I'm not blaming the paint.
In message , snipped-for-privacy@aolbin.com writes
I think most of us did things like that! My first Anglia (647 UR) was thirty quid from a friend, and served me well. Best car from those days was a Mk III Zodiac, for which I paid nearly 200 pounds. A fortune, back then, but I loved that car. Cheapest transport was 2/6 (12.5p) for an LD 125.
In message , Rob Morley writes
It is now available as a spray - what I don't know is whether it still needs washing off, or whether wiping is sufficient.
Ok. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
Weren't their two different versions of Gunk, the water soluble one and the wipe off type?
Cheers, T i m
There are any number of good water based de greasers. TV programmes tend to lose interest after squirting stuff on and omit the boring rinsing part.
That said the rinsing is pretty simple and either a wipe with a wet cloth or spraying fresh water on are satisfactory. You need to rinse to get rid of loosened debris, trying to do it all with de greaser would be expensive and serve no real purpose.
I would definitely wash it off
simple: paraffin.
not me. I'm leery of screwsatan's nononsense products, had too many bad experiences of them. Some are fine, some are more excuses for a product.
NT
For the spraying requirement you could use one of the plastic bottles used for any number of household cleaners (y'know: the squeeze-the-handle type).
I find these very useful from time to time; I keep a box in the garage for storing any such useful-looking containers / bottles.
J.
I find the valves on those always fail after not long. They'd be handy otherwise. I've read that if you buy empty ones they're more reliable, not tried them.
NT
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