Cleaning Solvents?

Beemerboy

Beemerboy

Just One More Coat
I work on a fair amount of Harleys, I'm looking for a good cleaning solvent.

What I am currently using that works OK, is Gunk and or Stoners Tarmaintor...These are effect enough but get expensive on the larger jobs.

APC is NOT the solution here, the areas that I'm cleaning are the bottom end of these bikes, the crank cases, transmissions and can have caked on grease and dirt that no APC is going to work.

My approach is put this into a pressure sprayer that I can use on the bike.



Thanks
 
Good ole cheap Purple Power works as well as anything and is very concentrated. I have an empty 5 gallon container that I refill with it. 1 gallon of Purple Power and fill the rest with water. Works as good as any other degreaser Ive tried with the exception of Car Brites Hot Stuff.
 
BB you might have underestimated the power of some APCs. I've seen Purple Power take off some pretty tough grime that is at least equal (and probably far more difficult) to the problem areas you described. Think diesel engine components which have logged in the 100k+ miles. What I would be more concerned with is whether or not at the necessary dilution rates will it blush any chrome pieces it might come in contact.
 
The difficulty with water based products is that the more effective they are at removing the grease and oil, the more corrosive they become. If you are using solvent based products, you negate a lot of that. As such, in uncontrolled environments where there are a range of materials which may come into contact with the product, really strong water based products are simply not a good idea. A bit of aluminium will rapidly be degraded by a water based product with high caustic content (which is what does the bulk of the work). The same aluminium is unlikely to be touched by even the strongest of solvent cleaners. The other concern is user health - comparable degreasing ability to the likes of gunk will mean a product which will be a severe skin irritant and it may even be a risk of causing burns.

As a manufacturers, I make a whole lot more profit from people buying water based products (after all, the water in the product is free, solvents are not) but we will only recommend them to a certain point. Engine degreasing tend to be across the line into solvent territory - it is faster and safer. Water based products should only be considered when the soiling is mild or when the user has time to waste!

If you were UK based, there are dozens of products I could recommend but, in the US, detailers really have no universal need for solvent cleaners. Basically what you are after is a proper solvent tar remover (not the water based bug and tar removers you guys often get). Stoners Tarminator is the type of product (rather like gunk). In bulk is the difficulty. I tried to search for 'tar remover US' and came up with "Road Runner Asphalt and Tar Remover" at $300 for 5 gallons. In my mind, this is very expensive. Over here, we would retail a comparable product at $30-40 per gallon. Hopefully a bit of a google will bring you up something more along those lines.
 
mrclean81 said:
Good ole cheap Purple Power works as well as anything and is very concentrated. I have an empty 5 gallon container that I refill with it. 1 gallon of Purple Power and fill the rest with water. Works as goood as any other degreaser Ive tried with the exception of Car Brites Hot Stuff.
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Mr. Clean said:
BB you might have underestimated the power of some APCs. I've seen Purple Power take off some pretty tough grime that is at least equal (and probably far more difficult) to the problem areas you described. Think diesel engine components which have logged in the 100k+ miles. What I would be more concerned with is whether or not at the necessary dilution rates will it blush any chrome pieces it might come in contact.
Click to expand...


I have used PP but not in some time. I'll try some this weekend on a bike detail and see how it works. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
This is the reason I asked about solvent based cleaners. Thanks

PiPUK said:
Engine degreasing tend to be across the line into solvent territory - it is faster and safer. Water based products should only be considered when the soiling is mild or when the user has time to waste
Click to expand...
 
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