with all the french flathead parts coming into the warehouse we are getting way behind because everything is just caked in cosmoline. one a small scale we can soak parts in gas, but we don't think it's a great idea to have large drums of gas hanging around the shop. is there a good, safe mixture we can soak these parts in in large quantities to break down all the cosmoline?! thanks in advance, -rob
pour boiling water over the part or if its small enough put it in a pot of boiling water. hadheld steamers work in some aplications aswell
Try a heat guyn. Once it gets hot enough it will run off. Make a screen over a trash bin and let the dripping collect in the 55 gallon drum. I do the for steam cleaning parts.....
yes, heat works very well. but, we have about 50+ crates of connecting rods, valves, guides, keepers, carbs, cranks, etc. all wrapped up and that's a lot of boiling water and hair dryers. we need to be able to clean hundreds of parts at a time. i PMed John Denich and i'm thinking his stuff will be perfect for the job!
reminds me of the old scam ads way back in the day .... WWII jeeps crated in cosmoline for $50.00 My uncles, brother in laws grandfather who knew a guy who owned a shop that knew a guys brother that bought one.....
I also heard of WWII Harleys offered the same way. And always someone 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon that had gotten one. Do you really need to clean it all up right away-can't you cleanj as you go? Or just seel the parts in the cosmoline and let the new owners clean it off?
Not knowing what cosmoline was, I looked it up. One site said, A common (and safer than gasoline) way to remove cosmoline was mineral spirits. I thought I'd add that for future references.
I've done it, outside in open air of course, lay parts in the sun to get them warm, then wash in gasoline. Works great.
I used to work at a Honda dealership, and all of the cars that came from Japan had cosmolene on them, we had some sort of solvent that we sprayed them with, and then hot pressure washed the stuff off the cars and underhoods. There probably isn't anything environmentally safe that will cut through the stuff, but have you tried using one of the aqueous parts washers that have heated water and a light soap mixture? We had a great one that would hold an engine block, and the wand would spin around the parts inside and do a great job of cleaning normal greasy gunk. Better Engineering and safety Kleen has some products like this...I'm sure there is a source near you for something like this...
is there a tuck company close to you that cleans the inside of chemical trailers? if so almost all of them use water/steam as well as tanks that flow boiling hot water tru them for the product hoses. might be able to work a deal out with them to clean a high volume of parts as needed.
get a couple of those big BBq smokers on trailers, then you can use the dripped off cosmoline as a base for mop sauce...............
I have a customer who works with a company that imports elevator shafts and they come in coated with cosmoline. After they are installed the company has to clean them. They were using a stodard solvent, but the guys were getting sick because of the fumes. My customer did a custom mix of stodard solvent and Gold Crew, an environmentally safe water based cleaner that was developed 40 years ago for the Navy. Not only does it keep the VOC's down so the guys don't get sick, it cleans better.
yea, again with the gasoline and heat. i've done it too but it isn't the safest or most time efficient way to clean this many parts. here's about a third of the internals and about 10% of the engines.
Don't know specifically how it works on cosmoline but you might look into trying Citri-Clean. http://www.envirolastic.com/dataSheets/CitriKlean.pdf It's extracted from orange peels, rinses with water, no nasty fumes (unless you don't like oranges), and I have seen it dissolve the adhesive used on old linoleum tiles.
Use WD-40. We had some large machining fixtures at work that hadn't been used in 12 years. They caked them in cosmolene and they sat around. The stuff dried up and got really nasty and when we needed to use them we just hosed them down with WD. Took that shit right off.
try some big orange its a safety kleen product made from citrus peels it will clean up bunker #6 fuel oil so it ought to work on cosmolene and its not flamable
Coleman Stove/Lantern White gas - let it soak - I bought a 45 once that was hosed and it was softened by the white gas
when I WAS IN THE ARMY WE USED STEAM JENNY PRESSURE WASHER FOR IT BECAUSE LIKE YOU WE HAD A LARGE AMOUNT OF STUFF PACKED IN THAT STUFF!
I was doing one of those boost your verbal IQ tests, and I used the word cosmoline and the program didnt know the word either.
Citrikleen has d'limonene in it and has a flash point of 125F That's what desolves the cosmolene The Gold Crew and stodard solvent is a more environmentally sound way to clean it with no flash point. www.goldcrew.net
Not all of the Harley stories are myths. I knew a guy that had a Harley and an Indian,both still in the crates from WWII....I have seen and touched them. He passed away and left them to his two grandson`s....who`s mother sold em off.
I know this is a super old thread but wanna say thanks for the info! My dad passed away in August and I was just kinda looking around and methods of removing what I believe may be cosmolene. Dad had told me a few years ago about a flathead he had stored in a barrel of diesel. I had seen the barrel sitting there for a long time but didn't really think much about it as there was a LOT of things sitting around! I estimate had been in there 10-15 yrs and I'm not even sure on that, could be longer. Sadly I don't remember why this one was any more special that all the other flathead parts laying around. Maybe it was a rebuilt block and he thought he might put it in his '48 ford one day or who knows. Don't even know where he got it from. Here's a couple pics and boy that stuff was a mess to get off our hands and after the fact when I had to find something to clean the phone, it was rubbing alcohol that took it right off. I was happy that I knew it was in a barrel though as my sister had no idea. I also noticed it was in a different barrel and the diesel was level with the top of the block. I'm thinking so it would be seen and not just look like a barrel of diesel. I don't know that I will be using this anytime soon so might just put it in a couple of big trash bags or something and seal it up. I am behind almost a year on doing an engine swap in my galaxie and need to make room in the garage for the coupe also and hopefully have enough room for engine swap also. Two car garages are not big enough! Thankfully the coupe is short! Was a sad day hauling it out of his place on a trailer when I had never seen it on a trailer before. Towed to get started a few times when being temperamental but never hauled. He traded a tractor for it in '62 or '63 and was his work car for several years. Not sure why this one was special as he scrapped a LOT of cars when i was growing up. Sorry for the hijack! Running my mouth as usual! I will test some of these ideas though just out of curiosity and will help when I am ready to clean it up one day!
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