[Ricko]

Need your ideas. I bought an industrial scissor lift to use it as a motorcycle table lift. But the thing is covered with the stickyest grease I have ever seen. Anti rust treatment maybe? Well it is very VERY hard to remove.

Forget the brake cleaner, industrial degreaser like simple green, dunk, varsol, engine cleaner, nothing have any effect. Even tried to soften the stuff using a torch, doesn't change a thing.

What's working is using a scrapper first, that remove maybe 1/8th of goo, then dunk and brake cleaner for the rest but with a lot of work, and towels. It's really time consuming so there must be a better way.

What's next? Considering renting an industrial vapor cleaning machine. Will this work? Any other (better) ideas?

Thanks

 

[ronnieq]

Try a product called Shellite aka x55 or r55 solvent.
It's a hydrocarbon and is not water emulsufying. Very flammable and leaves no residue.


Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[ncgt1000]

Just a thought. Go read about cosmolone 1st. It may be what you are dealing with here. Be sure to read the section about aging and removal.

Cosmoline - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[duc96cr]

How do you plan on getting rid of it once you get it off ? If you use solvent of some type you are going to need to get rid of the combined mess. We used a company called SafetyKlean that supplied solvent for parts washers and disposed of the dirty stuff. Maybe you could contact them. There might be a large industrial washer you could take it to get it cleaned.

 

[RockAZ]

If it is cosmoline, what is wrong with leaving it on?

 

[ncgt1000]

If it is cosmoline, what is wrong with leaving it on?

If the item is going to be stored, leave the cosmoline on. If you need/want to actually use the item you will need/want to clean it off. Nasty stuff to get on your clothes and hands, etc.

 

[Iwannaduc]

Diesel would probably do the trick. But as has already been pointed out, what do you do with the spoil?

 

[RockAZ]

If the item is going to be stored, leave the cosmoline on. If you need/want to actually use the item you will need/want to clean it off. Nasty stuff to get on your clothes and hands, etc.

I can only remember seeing cosmoline while it is still in its sticky just applied state but if OP is having that much trouble removing it when it is aged and dried - wouldn't that also mean it doesn't rub off easily on clothes and hands? It seems to me you can't have it both ways, but like I said I've never seen its final dried form.

 

[mabrungard]

The only cosmoline coated parts I've ever seen, were military helicopter parts. I'd characterize it as a greasy, wax coating that would break off with a little work. It wasn't sticky, but certainly sealed the parts from weather.

 

[RockAZ]

The only cosmoline coated parts I've ever seen, were military helicopter parts. I'd characterize it as a greasy, wax coating that would break off with a little work. It wasn't sticky, but certainly sealed the parts from weather.

I think when it is applied to aluminum parts the wax tends to fall off far more easily than from steel ones. As for aged - the only one seriously cosmo'd application I've seen was a jeep circa Korean War era that came in a wooden box to a museum here in town. They used water based detergent power spray washers. Since they refurbish antique aircraft, they had the reclamation pit for taking proper care of the resulting mess.

 

[Ricko]

Here is what I'm dealing with. I want to clean and restore it because I don't want this sticky pos in my garage

I used a piece of plastic as a scrapper and you can see what the removed goo look like. There's maybe 2 hours of work there.

Thanks for your suggestions so far, some may not be available where I live, will try diesel today.

 

[Ricko]

Not much luck with diesel, it's not faster or easier than brake cleaner

 

[RockAZ]

IMO - that is cosmoline - what say the rest?

(BTW - looks like it did its job well, no rust anywhere on the part you have scraped out!)

 

[mlukason]

You may want to try soaking a rag in solvent (like diesel) spread it out to make good contact with the part, then cover/wrap the rag with plastic rap to avoid evaporation. Let that sit for a couple days and see if that loosens the material.

 

[RockAZ]

WD-40 is sold in gallon buckets, might be better off using it instead of diesel but yeah - soak it for two days (WD doesn't evaporate as much as diesel and non flammable) and see if it turns to goo. Apply heat gun and it might slide off easier with a push from your plastic scraper.

 

[MoRider'S]

I regularly use good ole kerosene in a spray bottle to clean my chain prior to lube. Emulsifies gunked-up chain lube and makes it easy to remove the grunge using a rag and a chain brush. Works better than diesel and can be bought in 1 gal containers at most hardware stores.

 

[belter]

i'd paint it with kero to "rehydrate" it. might take a few goes and some sitting.

 

[Iwannaduc]

Here’s what I know. Kerosene is basically just clean diesel. Jet A or JP8 as used by the military is used to run Diesel engined vehicles. Jet A or JP8 is Kerosene. IE, diesel or kerosene, it makes no difference they’re basically the same hydrocarbon.

Main ingredient in WD-40? Kerosene. So, I’d recommend the soaked rag routine. Just use the diesel you have to soak the rags. It’ll have to stay on for a bit to soften the cosmoline but it should make it easier to remove.

I worked heavy equipment (and refueling trucks) in the Air Force. Removing cosmoline was a near daily chore. Lots of equipment was shipped, preserved in cosmoline, even stuff returning from depot rebuild. Worse if it sat out in the sun in storage for a year or 4. Once the parafin dries out, it’s like trying to remove plastic......sean

 

[Slowdive]

The ultimate degreaser is trichloroethylene. Brake fluid used to be made out of the stuff but I think the new standard is something a little bit safer. If you do get ahold of TCE wear gloves and a respirator, the stuff is nasty.

 

[Iwannaduc]

Also known as “Trich” (trike) around the flight line our aircraft and jet maintenance guys used it for decades.

I don’t know if it were used as brake fluid. Brake cleaner certainly. In heavy equipment we used it to find the source of a leak. Spray that stuff at high pressure into a surface coated in hydraulic fluid and the hydro would just get moved off down to the surface, and the trich would flash off in seconds revealing exactly what was leaking. In the 130 degree heat of the Saudi Arabian desert flag off was almost immediate.

That said, it’s effectiveness on cosmoline was almost nil. Particularly on the old heat baked stuff. For that we used either safety clean solvent if we could get it into a solvent tank or diesel to soften it up enough that we could use a pressure washer. (not in Saudi though)

I’ve hade to use a scraper at times as there was no other viable way to get the job done. Also, I’ve scraped away until the cosmoline was thin enough that painting on some diesel and then covering with rags soaked with it finally did the trick.

Sometimes there is no other way than elbow grease and hard yakka