Gas as cleaning fluid?

Les wrote:
My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.


Diesel fuel is much safer!

My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.

thanks,
les

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:38:20 +0100, Zog The Undeniable
wrote:

Les wrote:
My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.


Diesel fuel is much safer!

Diesel is good for chains, but citrus oil seems to be both green and
highly effective as a degreaser for other parts.


Kinky Cowboy*

*Batteries not included
May contain traces of nuts
Your milage may vary

Les wrote:
My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.

Paint thinner, settle & reuse.

Les wrote:
My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.

thanks,
les


Growing up in the oilfield, we did a lot of things with gasoline back
then that I would not do now. I'd never use it casually as a cleaner
because it is too dangerous. It ignites too easily.

Soaking with Simple Green and flushing with water has been recommended
here. How green is that? (Serious question)

"catzz66" wrote in message
...

Soaking with Simple Green and flushing with water has been recommended
here. How green is that? (Serious question)

Looks to be pretty green... I couldn't find information on the production of
the product, but disposal looks safe:

"Simple Green® is readily decomposed by naturally occurring microorganisms.
The biological oxygen demand (BOD), as a percentage of the chemical oxygen
demand (COD), after 4, 7, and 11 days was 56%, 60%, and 70%, respectively.
Per OECD Closed Bottle Test, Simple Green® meets OECD and EPA
recommendations for ready biodegradability. In a standard biodegradation
test with soils from three different countries, Butyl Cellosolve reached 50%
degradation in 6 to 23 days, depending upon soil type, and exceeded the rate
of degradation for glucose which was used as a control for comparison."

http://www.simplegreen.com/pdfs/04_m...mple_green.pdf

--
Scott Ehardt
http://www.scehardt.com

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:03:08 -0800, Les may have
said:

My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.

Gasoline is an extreme fire hazard, and the current formulations have
many nasty skin-absorbable carcinogenic fractions. It's just not safe
to use as cleaning fluid. In general, anything used as a motor or
pressurized lantern fuel is too hazardous to use as a cleaning
solvent.

Mineral spirits, sold commonly in hardware stores as paint thinner
(NOT lacquer thinner, which is much more volatile), is safer, but on a
hot day may still be ignitable; used with appropriate caution, it's
generally not going to be too much of a hazard, but use it outdoors
and away from open flames only. There are high-flash-point cleaning
solvents available from companies like Safety-Kleen which are better,
but the difference for the casual user may not be worth the hassle and
expense of locating them.

Butyl-based degreasing cleaners are effective but may damage paint.
Citrus-based degreasers have the same drawback, but are more
environmentally neutral. Simple Green is neither a butyl-based nor a
cirtus-based cleaner, and is not as effective as either of the other
two[1]. The cheapest widely-available butyl-based cleaner of my
experience is Power Clean sold at Autozone stores across the US.

Alcohols are readily absorbed through the skin, they don't do much
about removing greasy crud, and they also tend to attract water and
leave it behind on the surface as they dry, promoting corrosion.
Ergo, they're not useful for cleaning solvents.


[1] In my experience, Simple Green is simply atrocious; it takes much
more of it to do the same job that a little of any of the others will
do, it smells worse, and it's more expensive. I don't even take the
free samples anymore when they're promoting it.



--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:03:08 -0800, Les wrote:

My dad used to use Gasoline to soak his der. and chains and
misc bike parts. Is there anything more enviro-freindly?
I was thinking of alcohol or one of the new natural cleaners.

Almost everything's more green than gasoline.

I like mineral spirits, AKA paint thinner. Reusable and not as hard on the hands
and lungs, much less volatile.


Ron

"RonSonic" wrote: (clip) much less volatile.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I saw a fire department demo once, where they put a small container of
gasoline at the head of the stairs, in a little "doll house." At the foot
of the stairs they put a lighted candle. The background was black velvet.
You could actually watch the vapors flow down the stairs to the candle, and
then blow the roof off the house.

Another vote for paint thinner. Find a small, powerful magnet and you
can remove 3/4 of the crud from chain washings since it is
disintegrated chain and attracted to the magnet. Since the other dirt
will also settle out, this will help trap the majority of the dirt
without filtering it.

Now if you want to filter it, a Mityvac brake bleeder setup can be
used. This is a small hand operated vacuum pump with a 100 ml
reservoir. Ordinary bath tissue can be folded 4 times and rolled into
a "pill" which fits snugly in the tubing. Drawing a vacuum on the
reservoir will draw the dirty thinner through the tube and clean
thinner goes into the reservoir. Once you have a good vacuum, it does
it automatically to the last drop. The filter is dirt cheap and very
little thinner is lost.


--
Weisse Luft