Interesting reading about the Purple Power and Spray Power ingredients.

Both contain Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether as the key element. Purple Power shows the quantity as less than or equal to 1% while Spray Power states it has 50 parts per million along with 5 ppm of Sodium Pyrophosphate, which may be used a a thickener.

I'm no chemist, but the two products sound similar in composition.

Thanks for the info Ray.

 

Joe, CharlieLED posted a link a while back about a sale at KBS coatings. I looked at their engine coatings and thought they looked impressive on their site and some were even brush applied. Might be worth a look.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...good-deal.html

 

Thanks Howard. I will check them out.

 

Stock up on scrub brushes, and buy "real" spray bottles at Home Depot, one for water, one for the cleaner. Otherwise you'll have cramped fingers in short order. Start at the top and work your way down. You'd be surprised how quickly you see results. Drape a couple of disposable dropcloths on the inner fender and firewall, and spray away.

On the other hand, since you are pretty much ready for hitting the road, now might be a good time to yank the engine and clean out the insides too??

PS -- on the Spray Power, it seemed to do a better job at Doc's, and is cheap at WalMarts around there. Once at home it seems about the same.

 

Joe,


The paint on the wires was probably a good thing in the end. Those old cloth coated wires start degrading and flaking away and shorts are very common.


I've had pretty good luck with Greased Lightning. I've also used oven cleaner on engines with decent luck.


A big client of mine operates a string of convenience store gas stations and they use this stuff;



They say its does wonders on greasy concrete. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet


bobby

 

I'll do that. This is starting to sound like a fairly easy cleaning job. What do I need to protect from the spray as far as things attached to the engine?

I have no immediate plans for pulling the engine. It runs well and cool. The oil is staying clean after I dropped and cleaned the pan. And I won't be driving Betsy to Truckstock 15. Too far, too slow, too hot, gas to costly.

I've never used either, but it looked like the ingredients are very similar, so I thought the results might be as well. Amazon's got a gallon of Purple Power for $5.52. That's dirt cheap. It shows the retail at $90.00... Walmart has 2.5 gallons for $12.00. These are their online prices, but that's a bargain anyway.

I have a bottle of Simple Green here that my son left when he moved out. I've never used it, but it has ingredients similar to the others mentioned:

Triethanolamine ≤*5%
Ethoxylated Alcohol ≤*5%
Propylene Glycol Butyl Ether ≤*5%
Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate ≤*1%
Potassium Silicate ≤*1%

Has anyone use this stuff to clean an engine?

 

Yes, the Garage Gorilla says it's for cleaning concrete and gas pumps, and has another interesting array of reportedly biodegradable ingredients...

Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate 3 - 6 %
Sodium Metasilicate Pentahydrate 3 - 6 %
Nonyl Phenol Ethoxylate 3 - 6 %
Cocamidopropyl Betaine 1 - 3%
Tetrasodium Ethylenediamene Tetraacetate 1 - 3%
Propanediol 1, 2 1 - 3%
Citrus Fragrance 0.1 – 1%
Xanthan Gum 0 - 0.1%
Opal & Green Dye 0 - 0.1%

My wiring harness was almost completely bare and frayed at the ends of every wire.

I used oven cleaner on my tranny, and it worked quite well but I'm pretty sure I don't want to spray it inside the truck. I imagine it would eat any wires I hit by accident.

 

Joe,
I've seen some people use aluminum foil as a masking material to wrap around wires, wiring harnesses, etc. Maybe a couple of plastic bags around the carb, fuel pump, distributor, etc.

I know how you are and your attention to detail. I'm sure with a few pleasant afternoon and a frosty beverage or two and Ol' Betsy will look like she just rolled of the assembly line.

Bobby

 

Well I feel like I know you well now that I spent 3 or 4 days reading this thread completely through, great job on a great truck, I so love seeing these bigger trucks get the love they deserve, they are my favorites but I see so few and so many people just dont care about them, congratulations on your retirement, I would love to be able to meet people with similar interests but there just aren't that many in central texas

 

Thanks Bobby. I am taking some time off for Thanksgiving and will probably start on this next month. My wonderful wife always decorates for Christmas and I don't do much to help her other than getting the tree, so I'll have some time before Christmas to get started on this.

But I know how one seemingly simple job turns into several more. When the engine is repainted, lots of other things under the hood are going to look their age. At least I already have a freshly painted tranny, oil pan, starter, generator, regulator cover, air cleaner and fan.

I'm going to try the foil for protecting wire bundles and cables. If I brush on the paint rather than spraying, I might be able to better control the "slop".

There will certainly be frosty beverages involved no matter what I decide to do.

 

Thanks for the kind words. The thread has turned into quite a tome.

I have the only F4 that I've seen in my area. Actually, I've never seen another except on FTE. Now that I have it, I've learned why there are so few being kept "alive". Some parts available for the pickups are not available for the bigger trucks. They hold a lower resale value than their smaller brethren, I've never heard of front disks on a larger truck with stock suspension and don't know of any front end swap. To make these old work trucks into highway worthy rides, the rear axle must be swapped because you can't just change the gear sets. Or a brownie box must be added... or your top speed is about 45.

I'm still happy to have Betsy even with all those negatives compared to the smaller trucks.

On the other side of the coin, the bigger trucks like mine were farm trucks and generally have lower mileage than their smaller cousins. And, they're generally cheaper to acquire because fewer of us want them.


I bet there are others like us in the Austin area, and there may even be an FTE Group for your area of Texas. I searched, but only found this one:
Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - ***** Texas Ford Truck Enthusiasts *****

I know we have several Texans that frequent this forum...

 

I've had good luck with a product called Tuff Stuff. It's a foaming upholstery cleaner but works sell for cleaning grease and grime while being mild enough to not harm wiring and paint. Buy some assorted sizes of cheap paint brushes and cut the bristles down about half or better to make fairly stiff brushes for cracks and crevices.


Buy a package of assorted artists brushes at Walmart for about five bucks. Works well for detail work if you're brush painting. Use saran wrap and tinfoil for a lot of your masking.


Good luck.

 

Thanks Tom. Good information. I like the cheap brushes from Harbor Freight. I don't feel bad about using them once and throwing them away. I had never thought about using artist brushes for the detail work. That's a great idea.

 

I'd use spray engine enamel as much as possible. It is supposedly formulated to stick to imperfect, oily surfaces better than regular paint.

Tom's mention of Tuff Stuff reminded me, Foaming Bubbles actually works pretty darn good too.

 

I'm not sure I could control the spray well enough to avoid getting it everywhere under the hood. I'm really not much of a painter. That's why I was thinking about brushing on the new color. Can I not buy engine enamel in a can and brush it on?

EDIT: I see that KBS Coatings has red paint in pints, as well as their "system" for prepping before paint. They have T-bird Red, Fire Red and a few others that are not even close to the right color red.