I used oven cleaner for years to clean really nasty, gunky truck and
motorcycle engines; it worked great, but as was pointed out, keep it off
stuff you want to stay painted. I also collect and restore Stanley hand
planes and Coleman lanterns. I will frequently boil a font (fuel tank) in
a lye solution, then rinse it and cook it in a citric acid solution. The
first takes off all the paint, grease and dirt, and the second takes all
the rust off. I also boil handplanes in the citric acid solution and it's
amazing how it takes the rust off. It doesn't hurt the paint, which is
Japan Enamel, and tough as hell.
At 09:19 AM 9/20/2007 -0700, John Miller wrote:
>Doug Braun wrote:
> > For really nasty gunky parts, especially those with a
> > cement-like crust of road dust and dried grease,
> > Easy-Off Heavy-Duty Original Oven Cleaner (in the
> > yellow spray can) works better than anything else I
> > have ever tried.
>
>The good stuff is basically caustic soda (lye) which can also be found
>in Red Devil Lye drain cleaner, for one.
>
>If your spouse catches you heating a big bucket of lye on the backyard
>grill to clean parts in, and takes offense at the prospect, don't blame me.
>
>Don't put anything aluminum in there or you likely won't see it again.
>I once had a cheap stainless-steel kettle that I used for this, after
>about three hours the potmetal rivets that held the handles on dissolved
>and I heard the handles one by one go 'clunk' as they fell off.
>
>John.
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