I have spent litterally days at this point cleaning my sheet metal. I've been using 'Oil Eater' and different cleaning brushes from HF. At this point I'd gladly even pay someone to do it. I have a ton of stuff left to clean, so does anyone have a better way to do this?

-Aaron

What do you mean by clean? Removing paint? Oily engine bay?

By sheetmetal, do you mean engine sheetmetal? If it is i just use liquid dish washing soap and 3m scotchbrite.

You can also use a pressure washer. Or go take your sheetmetal pieces to the self serve car washes and use their pressure washer.

Engine sheetmetal is what I'm cleaning.

Engine is apart and all the tin is off... I "think" it's -never- been apart... So it has 85K miles and 21 years off filth and baked on oil.



-Aaron

Try This

Then start over... careful. It's addictive.

My 2c's.
I used engine degreaser & a new parts cleaning brush.
Followed by Simple Green, dish washing detergent and
hot hot hot water and steel wool. Werked gud.
My hands healed in about a week

Put all the dirty oily parts in a box and drive over to Pyramid Powder Coating in Sun Valley. Make a deal for what ever color you want then go back and pick them up a week later.

Done.

ps. they do all the cleaning, blasting, whatever before they paint...

bead blast the shit outta it

Care to even guess what Pyramid would charge?

Aaron,

Don't the items have to be at least -reasonably- clean for bead blasting?

-Aaron

QUOTE (yeahmag @ Mar 6 2006, 03:58 PM)

Care to even guess what Pyramid would charge? Aaron, Don't the items have to be at least -reasonably- clean for bead blasting? -Aaron

just degrease em......

thats about it....

well, if you want to share what you paid, that would be cool.
i'm about to do this, but they wanted me to use stripper on it first. it'd be great to have some $$ perspective...

d7n7master, that tin looks great! it wasn't that nice after just a cleaning...

QUOTE (Mike D. @ Mar 6 2006, 02:34 PM)

Put all the dirty oily parts in a box and drive over to Pyramid Powder Coating in Sun Valley. Make a deal for what ever color you want then go back and pick them up a week later. Done.  :D ps. they do all the cleaning, blasting, whatever before they paint...

totally agree as to let them clean it and coat it! In Seattle, it was $150 for all my engine tin including blasting it clean.

QUOTE (Aaron Cox @ Mar 6 2006, 02:35 PM)

bead blast the shit outta it

Oily parts in a bead blaster....

No no no.

QUOTE (McMark @ Mar 6 2006, 08:32 PM)

QUOTE (Aaron Cox @ Mar 6 2006, 02:35 PM) bead blast the shit outta it Oily parts in a bead blaster.... No no no.

look up a few posts...

i said degrease it first.


come on... im not a newb

Most industrial sandblasters don't give a $hit.

Drop them off... pick them up $20 poorer.

QUOTE (Bleyseng @ Mar 6 2006, 07:06 PM)

totally agree as to let them clean it and coat it! In Seattle, it was $150 for all my engine tin including blasting it clean.

I paid $120 for my Type 3 cooling tin and other assorted bits (from the engine and cabin) to get powder coated down here in Portland. They were oily, had peeling paint, and a couple spots had thick oily road gunk when I handed them over.

UUhhhh...

Cleaning sheet metal??

Cover it with furniture stripper. Place in BIG ass trash bag overnight.

Tie off trash bag.

Come back tomorrow. Hit it with a brush. Hose the bitch down and scrub with laundry soap and hot water.

DONE..

Twystd1

Don't you have tools to buy?

What..you don't like the thought of a stripper on your furniture????????

I paid about $170 for the engine tin, front suspension, gauge face, plate mounts, and few other misc. parts. But you have to get them all the same color, cost more for different colors...
And you can haggle with them, if you don't like the price quoted, take away a few parts and say "I didn't know it would cost so much"

I used oil eater to clean all my engine parts. It works best if you can get some sort of container to soak the parts in. Use a wire brush and scrub. the sludge on these motors are from years of leaking, collecting dust, leaking collecting dust, etc.

Or you can tke it to a machine shop and see if they will put it into their solvent tank.

BTW, make sure all of the parts for the heater are cleaned inside, if not, when the motor gets hot that stuff will start burning off and you will pump it right into the cab.

As we all know some of these parts -won't- fit in a bucket. I like the idea of powder coating, so I'll call around and see what happens.

Twystd1,

The furniture stripper won't eat the plastic of the garbage bag? Insane!

-Aaron

Easy-Off oven cleaner.

Works wonders with baked on gook. but it'll also take off some types of paint too.

Bonus - you can get it with a fresh lemony smell!

Cool idea. I'm gonna repaint anyway. How long do you leave it on?

-Aaron

For reasons unbeknown to me. Methlyne chloride doesn't really eat trash bags. At least the big green ones.

They survive overnight for this application.

I showed Scott Kline this trick. Now he is a believer.

I owned a furniture stripping company years ago. So my default for cleaning stuff is typically using what I am used to.

I agree with letting the coating company strip it in their own way.

Yet the question was how do i get all of the gunk off.

Stripper works pretty dam well. It takes off the crap AND the paint. And I am used to using it.

This is not as good as blasting...For sure.

I have to get the gunk off my stuff before blasting as it kills the media.

And sometime I use stripper. Sometime I use paint thinner and a brush. Sometimes I use laundry detergent and water.. I use carb cleaner if I am in a rush..
And my favorite is TSP and warm water. I try to let the chamicals do the work for me. cause i am a lazy bastard.

I rarely use oven cleaner. I am paranoid about it getting into crevices and it might keep eating the non-ferrous stuff. And hurt sealing surfaces. Yet many people use it and have ZERO problems.

Just depends on gunky it is.

There are so many ways to do this. This is just one of many...

Clayton

HEH do they make a trash bag big enough for my car??

LOL!



-Aaron

QUOTE (spunone @ Mar 7 2006, 03:32 PM)

HEH do they make a trash bag big enough for my car??

its called a chalon kit...





I am just kidding Scott Kline!!!!

QUOTE (yeahmag @ Mar 7 2006, 01:35 PM)

Cool idea. I'm gonna repaint anyway. How long do you leave it on? -Aaron

'bout a 1/2 hr +/- . Really depends on how thick/grimey it is. If it's really thick you'll have to do it a few times and lightly scrub it with a stiff parts brush or something, but it will eat it off. Works best if the parts warm ( like letting it sit in the sun )

How I do it - spray it on, scrub with a brush, let it sit, scrub again & rinse with a garden hose. The water neutralizes the lye and wah-la - clean part.

Like Twisted said - it will etch aluminum & magnesium, as well as soften some plastics & remove paint. However, I've never had a paint adhesion problem after using it, in fact, I've found it handy to etch surfaces for adhesion. Simply rinse it well. I usually wash anything I'm going to paint again anyways, dry it (throughly), & spray it.

DON'T spray it in the wind though - it will burn ya! (go ahead, ask me how I know )