Tips using regular household products

[gerg 10,871]

Metho is pretty benign when it comes to affecting paint, it's things like acetone that tend to hurt it.

[gerg 10,871]

I think mag wheel cleaner has a form of acid in it? Muriatic or phosphoric from memory. Good old vinegar is another excellent glass cleaner, using scrunched up bits of newspaper

[gerg 10,871]

Kero wiped on with a soft cloth can remove tar splatter off your paint without hurting it.

[gerg 10,871]

During my apprenticeship I was placed in a diesel engine reco shop and picked up a handy tip for putting on press-fitted engine parts:

 

Take a deep-fryer, fill it with engine oil, turn up to max. Place required part in it (say a timing gear) and wait for 15 minutes. Grab with tongs/pliers and just slip it on, being careful not to splash yourself... It's several hundred degrees. The oil acts as both a lube and a heating medium for the part you're installing it on (ie a crank snout). It will grab pretty quickly (within seconds) as both parts equalise. Then it's done!

[blu xe 825]

Also on the mag wheel cleaner don't use it on your windscreen cause it'll show up very light scratches that you can't see from the wiper blade wear. And yes it is acid based so needs to be thoroughly rinsed with water.

[nos2 751]

Wipe your tires with thinners soaked rag instead of tire shine.

[Gandalf 144]

I used half a cup of soluble oil (for machining), when the car radiator got a bit crappy. Leave it in for a day and then flush the system out and all the muddy crap would come out with it. I'm talking older cars here, leaves the cast iron and radiator like new. Looks like milk when added to water. It was free for me also as Dad had an engineering company.

 

 

Cheers - Steve

[Gandalf 144]

After a hard days work on the Clevo, place your spanners into the household dishwasher - and walla nice clean tools ready for the next session.

 

 

Cheers - Steve

[xm-221 1,803]

Good old vinegar is another excellent glass cleaner, using scrunched up bits of newspaper

Some of the new types of paper are crap for doing windows now, if your'e in a country town you'll find some of the smaller newspapers use a lower quality paper and I find them the best for cleaning glass.

[gerg 10,871]

Old-school diesels used to use that as coolant all the time, as they'd never reach boiling point to need an anti-boil function like glycol has. Anti freeze same thing: not cold enough mostly here in Aus

[Lord_fahrquhar 2,580]

For emergency cleaning of greasy hands to touch the missus : laundry detergent

Why? If she s wearing a light coloured top go the grab stand back and admire your handy work.

[gerg 10,871]

At a pinch, without rubber grease available, I've used canola cooking spray to help slip on rubber hoses that were a little tight. It works well as a light-duty, general assembly lube.

[Lord_fahrquhar 2,580]

toothpaste if you got no autosol.

[gerg 10,871]

toothpaste if you got no autosol.

 

Toothpaste makes for a pretty good mild polish for Perspex and plastics in general. Minty fresh too.

[gerg 10,871]

Not exactly household but anyway... When spray-painting parts, you might get a paint that needs like five coats to get proper coverage, a classic is gloss yellow over cast iron, where the edges thin out and go dark. I like to put down some silver frost as a sort of primer as it has high solids content, is bright instead of dark and dries very quickly. The rough finish gives the gloss something to grab and you might only need one or two coats instead of five. Won't run as easily either.

[ZEDJAY 24]

coke and alfoil is pretty good on rusty chrome.

used it on my 12 slots worked good.

[Slow250XC 1,513]

For those dead bugs stuck to your bumper after a weekend away, stretch a soaking wet beach towel over the area and leave for an hour. Then wash off as normal.

[351XD_Fairmont 604]

Bit of a thread revival here, anyway one I recently discovered was using old Christmas wrapping paper for masking up panels for painting. Had heaps of it laying around and it worked great.