Author Topic: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?  (Read 16498 times)

SteveU.

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2009, 08:50:51 PM »
Yes Doug you and I are on the same race to with that Devil.
But I have a decades head start with my early heated Triclorethlyne electrical shop days. 275 gallons US evaporated every three months up into the Portland Oregon airshed. Plus the leads and asbestos then too.
But what a great cleaner, eh? Quick. Degreased. Hot. Just blow the dry dirt off.

Later in automotive service work they "saved us" from the asbestos by giving us cold aqueous brake/clutch cleaning washers:  that didn't clean - and then didn't dry. No more air blowing allowed!! So then to get the jobs out, can after can of, yes, chlorinated brake clean. (Legal here. Declared as safer than blowing asbestos fibers). Just kinda hard on the users. One in five for cancers here now having done this work. We'er doing our part to save the Social Security program

I would use on this problem a hot water, not steam!!, moderate!!, pressure washer, weak safety nozzle air dried while hot, followed up by a low temp!! oven drying.

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SteveU.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2009, 08:54:11 PM by SteveU. »
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Doug

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2009, 09:02:45 PM »
Compressed air above 20 PSI tends to do more damage then good since it drives dirt in further.


Seems to me we have been through all this before guys why is this all come around again?


Clean warm water is fine but the armautre./ stator will need to be dried usualy in an oven to prevent rust
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jzeldorado

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #17 on: October 01, 2009, 09:27:06 PM »
Well, there, buckaroos, I have completed stage I and it was: bought a spray can of crc electric cleaner, dragged out an old gal can of naptha, moved the carcass outside and away from the house, took a picture of me just in case I wanted to remember myself with hair and etc.  I have a full facemask with 2 chemical filters.  I donned a throw-a-way suit, rubber gloves and proceded to clean the machine.  The crc worked OK, but noone has it in the quanities I thought I needed, sooooo, on to the naptha.  There is a little side trip here for later.  I used an old spray bottle with the nozzle on stream and it worked pretty well.  Actually, it loosened the muck quickly and flushed it to the other end.(i have it up on its drive end balanced with 4X4 support).  I used about 1 quart that way and then dumped it on via the qt bottle.  1/2 gal gone, and it is starting to look lots better.  The trip-since I was using an atomized type set-up for the soap dispenser, I decided to try it on the naptha application.  I didn't want the foamy mist coming out like the soap, as I wanted a strream and not a mist.  changed the spray nozzle froom 3/8 to 1/8 for a good jet of naptha, and the feed stayed at 3/8.  Stuck the feed into the can, tapped the air, and a geyser like explosion erupted from the can.  At least a bubble of fuel 3 feet high.  Tried it with the rubber hose to the fuel smaller and the same happened.  Later I will try it with a pressure control valve on the spray nozzle , and start at 0 psi.  
I have a big old starter/generator motor that I used to turn the lister over, but I think I'll return to the hand crank method.  It works and the generator is approx 30 lbs. and it spins the while away while the genset operates..  I was thinking of using it for a charger, but don't know how.  If you guys cold tell me how to send pics. I would.  Thank you Doug.  I'm late 60's and hope you guys stay around awhile to help me stay safer.  JZ

Doug

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #18 on: October 01, 2009, 10:19:00 PM »
I've no place to go

You could probably use it for a charger of some sort....
It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

Wizard

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2009, 12:13:55 AM »
I thought so.

I find chlorined chemicals too harsh and I now avoid to use it unless absolutely have to, but spray stuff and let wind blow vapors away from me.  I also use acetone only on swabs to spot clean from time to time.  (cleaning flux off solder joints).

Varsol is about as strong as I can stand it, that why I like using water-based degreasers.

Cheers, Wizard

Doug

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #20 on: October 02, 2009, 03:36:43 AM »
Try low odor mineral spirits. Thats what I use.....
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aqmxv

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Re: How to clean a generator covered w/diesel soot?
« Reply #22 on: October 29, 2009, 09:53:59 PM »
Re badness of solvents: they're all bad in different ways.

Organo-halides like perchloroethylene, triclhloroethylene, and the infamous carbon tetrachloride are all pretty bad news for your liver.  I hurt myself with TCE and no gloves back when I was young and foolish.  My liver enzymes eventually went back up to normal levels (I was in a job that included a full tox panel every six months), but it took about five years after a summer of exposure to the stuff.  Now I'm quite careful not to get any of that class of solvent on my skin - it goes through it quite well.  Neoprene gloves are quite helpful for this sort of thing.  There's also an inhalation risk, of course, but if you have any sense, you use it outdoors, so contact is the more dangerous problem.  In the longer run, several of these compounds are known carcinogens, so limit total exposure, and give your body a rest of a week or more between exposures if you get a hole in a glove or something like that.

On the other side of the ring we have aromatic hydrocarbons.  Benzene, toluene, xylene, and naptha (which is a distillate soup) are typical.  Many of these are carcinogens as well (particularly benzene and naphthalene), but don't have the liver hazards associated with them.  That doesn't make them safe, exactly, and they're vastly more flammable than the chlorocarbons, which is why they aren't used much as industrial solvents anymore - things that kill workers in five minutes in a plant fire get banned a lot faster than things that take decades to do the deed.

Modern low-VOC pump gasoline acutally has relatively little aromatic hydrocarbon content - EPA hates the things, so they're on the way out - replaced with branched aliphatics like iso-octane.  There's no lead either, of course, unless it's avgas.  It's distinctly possible that sticking your arm in pump gasoline is now better for you than sticking it in xylene or a chlorocarbon.

If I had one to choose, it'd probably be something like n-hexane.  It's highly flammable and has a high vapor pressure, but it's a great solvent and is pretty cheap and not particularly toxic.  Winter-blend gasoline should be close to that as well.

When I'm cleaining my own stuff, I usually use something like Stoddard solvent/varsol/kerosene initially in the parts washer, then, if it's sensitive, I rinse it with brake cleaner to strip the residual oil off.  Sometimes parts go into the dishwasher - the detergent plus washing soda does a great job on kerosene residue.

For electrical stuff?  I'd take it apart, find somebody running a motor shop, and see if they have an evap tank, dip tank, or something similar.  An evap tank with the right chlorocarbon in it will solve your problem, and because you're not doing the cleaning, you're not getting the exposure.  Don't know where such a motor shop is?  Call the local safety-kleen distributor...


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