After a week, all seems to be good. To clean the solvent, you drop an oil-absorbent cleanup cloth on the surface, and it's fine for the pump. Rubber seems to be unaffected by it, and aluminum seems to be ok with it as well, I have left a piston in for a week, there was a little dark gray powder on the surface, but no obvious corrosion issues, and the powder rinsed right off.
The Simple Green is one of the better solutions I have used to remove baked-on carbon from pistons and manifolds, and it works pretty quick.
I am using a mix of four gallons of concentrate with six gallons of water.
Be warned, though, the first time you switch to this from Naptha or another petroleum- based solvent, it will stir up an impressive layer of oily gunk on the surface of the Simple Green, mostly out of the pump, and any stuff the old solvent caked onto the sides.
The only downside I have seen so far is that oil sits on the top, and you can't use a rag soaked with this stuff to wipe down something and prevent/remove rust, or light a fire with it.

 

Good info!

 

I bought a complete system from these guys last year for my students to use in our small engines class. I am very pleased with the results. It uses a couple of those oil absorbent pads and a cartridge filter for solid particulates. Water is heated to about 150 degrees and the whole thing works as well or better than my old Agitene solution parts washer. It just requires a little more constant monitoring and changing of the oil pads.

http://www.renegadepartswashers.com/

 

I am doing something similar and am still keeping an open mind regarding what water-based chemical/detergent to use.

My "parts washer" is a Branson ultrasonic degreaser that I picked up an auction for around $35. I believe it was designed to be used industrially - one of the Freon solvents would be my guess. It is a 240VAC unit - no problem for me. It has heaters, the ultrasonics, and a filtered recirculating system - the tank is all heavy stainless steel. The pump was lost before I got it, but I plan on getting something going as all the rest of the plumbing is still in place. The filters look pretty expensive, so I will probably improvise something "low-overhead". For now a parts brush will have to do.

I am using NAPA's purple de-greaser. (1 gallon in 15, which is at the lean end of the recommendations.) With a 120 degree temp + the ultrasonics, it does a pretty good job as a hot-tank for a while, stripping off most engine paint until the solution gets saturated. I find it interesting that if I turn the heat off but keep the ultrasonics going, the temp actually continues to rise slowly, talk about your scrubbing bubbles. (Ultrasonic cleaners work by forming many, many microscopic bubbles which "blast" off a microscopic piece if dirt when they collapse. Soft grease just "laughs" at the bubbles, but that is the detergent's job.)

Ford_Six, following your lead, I may try the Simple Green. About how much per gallon and where-to-buy? (I see your "mix" is pretty rich compared to mine, but I am cheap and patient.)

 

It was under $10 per gallon at Lowes, I think wally world has it too.

 

I checked SG out at HD today. $8/gal for green SG and $15/gal for "industrial strength" which was grey-purple in color. Thought I ask which kind you use before laying down $$$.

It was interesting to note that for "general cleaning" the cheap stuff called for a 30:1 dilution while the expensive stuff called for 15:1. (Seems backwards to me - that would make the expensive stuff 4 times as expensive/sq.ft. cleaned. I think the marketing people make this stuff up.)

 

I used the actual green stuff, that's all they had on the shelf here.
I did find that an oil-specific absorbant pad, like what they throw on oil slicks, will pick up the layer of oil on top of the cleaner. However, it works best if you just skim the top, since the pads will absorb the cleaner also.

 

NEW PIG makes oil absorbant pads that will not absorb water based products, I don't know the part number but we use them on our fuel farms to absorb the fuel off the top of the water.

 

The absorbent pads you want are grey in color Ford Six. They will not absorb water, only oil. Another alternative is straight rig wash. (Drilling Rig soap) We used a 5 gallon bucket and soaked fuel valves in it. It disolves grease and carbon. You do need to wear rubber gloves and safety glasses/face shield if you use it straight. Zep envrio 2000 is excellent as well.

 

Would be interested if anyone has compared it to the Por 15 'marine clean'. Considering using in parts washer, have used it to clean engine compartment, and various accessories. Can be mixed up to ratio 10-1 and fairly impressed with its cleaning ability but have not compared to simular products. Find I need to use gloves or rinse hands soon after using, particularly with concentrated mixture. The 'simple green' would be less expensive with 'marine clean' at $20 gal.

dave

 

Jared, I am interested in your simple green cleaner. Is it still working for you? I'm curious to find out how long it takes to get rancid, or will it ever get rancid. The petroleum based solvents seem to go rancid after about a month or two. They still clean parts OK but you end up smelling pretty bad.


Steve

 

I never had a problem with Naphtha going rancid, just getting nasty dirty and a bit gritty. The Simple Green is still fine, it went to a dark brown color, but still smells right and works, so I'm not worried about it.
The one thing I should have done is follow the advice I was given and install a filter. There is a little bit of grit to the solvent if I wash a lot of stuff that is really dirty, but it does settle out.

 

Well, at about eight months I'm having my first real problem. I added some water that evaporated off, and the thing tripped the GFI it was plugged into. Turns out the Naptha had actually damaged the epoxy fill around the motor, seperating it from the motor case. I refilled to a little higher of a level than when I first filled with Simple Green, and it was just high enough to flood the void and short out the motor. Easy enough fix, though, a replacement pump is only $26 from Grainger and I'll be back in business shortly.
Makes me kinda wish I wouldn't have run Naptha through this to begin with.
Oh, and I found out that there are basically no absorbent pads that will work for getting the oil off the top, the surfactants in the Simple Green are too thin and don't allow enough surface tension to stay out of the pad. So, I'll just keep skimming the stuff off the top as need be.
I might even change the fluid in it while the pump is down.

 

Simple green will ruin o-rings so either remove them or don't use it to clean oring sealed parts. That is why the military stopped using it it was causing the o-rings to
shrink and causing leaks and other havoc. Probably isn't good for rubber either.

 

You can't properly clean something that's assembled.