water based parts cleaning solvent
 

Santa brought me a 20 gallon parts cleaner for Christmas. It's supposed to use water based solvent. I've heard the stuff at tractor supply is good but I also saw a big jug of purple stuff at Walmart. Anyone have a recommendation? I looked up the PF solvent we use at work and it's not made to be diluted with water. and would be about 15$ a gallon. I need something good that will not damage aluminum.

If you are talking about the stuff from HF, well, it will take a while and to clean. I just used my dishwasher. Wife was not too happy about it.

Just use good ol Naphtha.

All that green, Earth friendly stuff is a joke and sometimes will harm metal too.

Case in point, Simple Green. It's corrosive.

You could leave steel or aluminum in your petroleum solvent for years and nothing will be hurt.

The directions said it would ruin the pump. If I used a petroleum based solvent in it.

Don't use paraffin - ask me how I know. I resorted to buying some when I couldn't get to anywhere to buy anything else. It cleaned really well for the day or two I was actively using it, but came back to it a few months later to find that the rubber hose on the cleaning brush (attached to the metal nozzle) had gone rigamortis-like hard. A porn star would've been proud.

In fairness, it did warn against using it, I thought for flammability reasons. Thankfully it didn't wreck the pump.

'm now using Swarfega Jizer which I have to say, I'm really pleased with. Is it as good as old-skool solvent based cleaners? No...but way better than water based crap. It also claims to leave a coating to protect cleaned components from corroding/rusting afterwards. Can't comment on that, I always then clean again with brake cleaner before fitting the part.

Maybe if you flush out the petro solvent after cleaning parts the pump will last longer.
Similar thing with the HF liquid hand pumps we use in the fuel drums, eh? They say no petro also . . .

Regards,

I wasn't planning on having to empty it every time it's used.

Likewise, I just close the lid and move it somewhere until next time!

I work for a machine shop that produces parts for the defense industry, and we've been told we'll need to adopt environmentally friendly cleaner/degreasers in the near future. We've tried a few things, but nothing works like Perchlorethylene for removing oil at ambient temps.

Oakite NST in an ultrasonic tank at 130f for 20 minute loosens up quite a bit though in our initial tests. I plan on sneaking my 911 heads into work this week and I'll let you know how it goes.

Or... just swap the pump in your new parts cleaner. Mineral spirits work pretty awesome.

I have had my HF parts cleaning sink for 7 years now. Have used paint thinner and parts washer solvent, mine also said use water based cleaner. The little pump still works fine. I think they say use water based cleaner for liability reasons.

Good examples of the old British/American "two peoples separated by a common language" chesnut...
Spenny's parafin...British for kerosene.
What Americans call Mineral Spirits/Paint Thinners, I believe Brits call Turps, as in Turpentine, although it isn't.
And what Brits call Meths/Methylated Spirits, Americans know as Denatured Alcohol.
But when when Spenny mentioned Tizer in his own epic six year thread, I thought that was a British soft drink (didn't realize it was made by Swarfega, British brand of hand cleaners, as in GoJo); indeed, some people use Coca Cola to clean parts. Do they also use Lucozade? (British soft drink aimed at people with the flu, if memory serves...).
I remember on "Blue Peter" (kids' TV show on the BBC in the 70's), hostess Valerie Singleton showed us urchins how to clean old coins with Tomato Sauce (aka Ketchup), or was it with HP Sauce (kinda like sweeter A1)? Would tomato juice attack our timing chain covers?
I was born "there" but have lived "here" for yonks (British term for "ages"), so I'm all mixed-up.
To the OP: I'd use mineral spirits, and just get rid of it responsibly by adding dirty amounts into my waste oil, taken to the recycler. Wear gloves if possible and ensure good ventilation. Kind regards, John in CT.

Purple Power is cheap and works great for oil , grease removal.
I used to clean all grime from wheel wells and underside body.
I also use it on all metal parts after dismantling.
Just water clean off with soapy water after a few minutes of soaking.
Repeat as needed and use a plastic bristle brush to scrub.

Tractor supply has a decent solvent forgot the actual name, water based solutions need to be heated to work well.

Hahaha!!! :D:D:D That really did make me laugh. Yup...exactly...I think, lol!

I do forget sometimes that there's some words that just aren't part of the US vocabulary. ("whilst" was one that somebody picked me up on a few years ago - I chuckle every time I say or type it now)

Tizer was indeed a British soft-drink in the 80's, I loved it

https://www.agbarr.co.uk/media/1230/....jpg?width=400

...I think it's still around but I've not seen it for "yonks" ;) The stuff I actually meant was Jizer, as you say, made by Swarfega, thus...

https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon....GL._SY450_.jpg

Now, it does actually look like flat-Tizer, very red in colour. I'm sure that's a coincidence rather than re-purposing of old soft drinks....

You're right w.r.t. cola or ketchup being shown on Blue Peter, used to clean coins; I vaguely remember the episode. I think it must be the vinegar content in ketchup or [God knows what] that's in cola...probably the same stuff that rots your stomach*

(*Scientifically, a completely unproven statement, typed purely for effect and to repeat the oft trotted-out UK urban myth)

Onto paint thinners, cleaners...well...the most common one here for domestic undercoats and gloss coat paint (oil based) is White Spirit, clear in colour and is an oil based cleaner itself. A less popular cleaner of paints is Turpentine Substitute (Turps)...bloody awful stink, and I don't actually know why anyone would use it over White Spirit; maybe it's a hangover from the old lead based paints, which of course we don't use any more.

Methylated Spirit ("Meths") is a purple looking liquid and is apparently a de-natured alcohol (although I've never heard it referred to as this)...

http://assets.jewson.co.uk/product-i.../Main/5058.jpg

I remember my Father used to use it to clean various parts of the office photocopier, many moons ago. Deliberately made to have a pungent smell and apparently tastes worse still, to try and prevent the desperate from quaffing it in substitution of proper alcohol. Being an alcohol, it makes sense that he used it for cleaning the copier, but we certainly never used it when I was an R&D apprentice for Xerox.

There you go, the completely useless guide to Britishism and the stuff on our hardware store (DIY shop) shelves. You know, just in case you ever find yourself over here and in desperate need of a suitable cleaning product.

I went to the hardware store in London once and asked for a torch and the guy brought me a flashlight.Maybe I should have asked for a blow torch.

Hah Spenny, thanks for taking the bait. We used to call it the "iron monger's shop" (hardware store), and it smelled great inside. This was in the arly 70's when you still had an indiviual shop for each need; Mr. Mogford was the iron-monger, Mr. Cross the fish monger, Ms. Fienne the stationers (paper, pens, etc)., there was a greengrocer, butcher, newsagent/sweetshop, et al. Yes, we learned to write with fountain pens (albeit with cartridges) from Ms. Fienne, likely from the age of 6 or 7.

Where I live now (NE Connecticut), we still have a great hardware store which I frequent whenever possible. It has lots of stuff that our big box stores (Home Depot or Lowes) don't have, especially metric hardware and obsure cleaning solutions, all much closer to hand.

Methylated spirits/denatured alcohol: my best childhood birthday was the one when I received a Mamod (working) steam traction engine, probably my tenth. Still have it, of course (and yes, you filled the fuel tray with meths).

One thing about that culture: it was before we were all so obsessed with getting "the best deal" on everything...it (the system of individualized and specialized shops, locally owned) was probably rather inefficient from an economics point of view, but two important factors were at work which I still happily think about when shopping at the aforementioned local hardware store or my (excellent) local NAPA auto parts store: 1) those local business owners created jobs and reinvested into the community, and 2) the level of service was outstanding. Rather like Camberwick Green (imaginary village in English kids' TV show of the era)....at least, that's how I remember it... the opposite of Amazon (which has its own merits).

Sorry OP for the digression....thanks for humoring me.

(Sorry Ken, staying off-topic for a moment)

Ahh, the iron-mongers...yep, thats where I had my first Saturday job, below the legal age of 16 (I was 15), £10 a day, cash in hand. Now THIS was an iron-mongers, well known in the whole district, owned by 2 brothers and their sister; Dorothy wasnt there during the weekend, Fred was a lovely old guy and Peter...well...he was a piece of work. Threatened us with a gun which was in his safe, threw great thick tool catalogues at us from across the shop. However, they had stock dating back to their original shop in central London (forget where), in the early 1900's. I kid you not, there were thousands of shoebox sized boxes with every conceivable fixing or fastener...Whitworth, UNC, UNF, BA, Metric, with every variation of head, length, material. Absolutely boggling. Used to take an army of Saturday lads to man the shop, only because each customer used to consume about an hour for us to find "3x bolts"...total sale, 45 pence. But boy did I learn a tonne of stuff while I was there. It was an "experience", lol.

You're right though, those kind of places have more or less gone, although where I am in medeival Sandwich, we do have quaint curiosity shops, along with "Carpenters", our local traditional iron-mongers (although nowhere near as comprehensive as Pond Tool, where I worked, which was more engineering/tool biased)

If you're on Instagram, look up a guy called Carl, known as GasGasBones....ex-RAF, now makes watch straps (mainly) but loves his model steam engines, and posts more pics on those than anything else.

Again, apologies Ken/everyone else, thanks for indulging me on this trip down memory lane [thumbsup] ;)

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...74049e4800.jpg

This simple green aircraft cleaner worked well for me.


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I was told is damages aluminum is that correct? i think thats the stuff they had a walmart. I tried looking and couldnt find a replacement pump that would alow use of actual mineral sprits or anothe non water based solvent

i think i'll just go with that solvent from tractor supply and get a new pump if the old one craps out