Hi list.
As of late, I am learning to appreciate the miracles of the modern age.
Take for example the lowly "baby monitor." Whilst the wife was away, having
taken the daughter (with sniffle) to the doctor, leaving me with the
sleeping infant son and an unfinished Scout Car, I grabbed my work clothes
and baby monitor and hastened to the sanctum sanctorum......the sacred place
where all things are Scout Car related. The subject of today's
effort....hubs and brake drums......dirty, filthy, stinking, vulgar hubs and
brake drums. Without that little baby monitor gizmo, could I have left the
house? Not a chance! But the young master sleeps three hours between
feedings and the wife would return long before his nap was up.
What I was dealing with was four brake drums caked with an asphalt-like
substance that was, formerly, wheel bearing grease. Vulcanized wheel
bearing grease! Well, I scraped the worst of it off the inside of the drums
(much easier said than done, I can assure you!) and set about removing the
tar-like remnants with <drill, electric, hand, expendable, 1.> and <wheel,
wire, cupped, expendable, 1.> but even this would not have been sufficient
but for liberal application of two of my favorite chemicals. Those would
be, WD40 and Berryman's Chemtool. Oven cleaner would also have been
appropriate but I had painted surfaces to preserve so that was not an option
this time around.
Being a packrat (ain't we all?) I never throw anything away....this would
include the sad remains of a gallon bucket of Berryman's Chemtool Carb
Cleaner. Too crappy for cleaning carbs, that leftover stuff is simply
wonderful for cutting grease, tar, etc., but as a bonus, it does a superior
job on light rust removal when used with a wire-wheel. I dunk the wire
wheel in the Chemtool and go to work. The wire wheel usually captures a
satisfactory amount of Chemtool (repeat as necessary) and yes, it spatters
so I wear appropriate attire. Wipe off the "mud" produced by this effort
with a disposable rag and do a polish with WD40 and the wire wheel. (By the
way, don't do this near an open flame unless you want to join the space
program.) I did this same procedure on the interior of the hubs and
everything turned out looking great. Last thing I did was make a liberal
application of Gunk Engine Cleaner to remove any residue. They came out
beautifully.
So, to the list, I (and I am sure others) would like to hear about chemicals
& techniques that YOU have found exceptionally useful in any job that is HMV
related.
By the way, the baby monitor did IT's job too!
Regards,
TJ
(Sole proprietor and singular unpaid employee of The Last Chance Garage)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:20 PST