The Porsche was full of nasty old brake fluid and the inside of the M/C reservoir has a nasty film along the inside. Since it's chambered, I can't get to most of it to wipe it off. I've run water and various solvents through there as well as possible and still can't get most of it off.
Any advice?
I've never figured out what the goo is that coats euro master cylinders. Some combination of DOT4 fluid, German rubber and sausage...I've never found a chemical that cuts it without killing the plastic reservoir.
The best sucess I've had is to remove the reservoir and use hot water from a garden nozzle, so fairly high pressure. Spray up through the fittings that plug into the m/c, and hose away.
Would Dawn dish soap damage vintage plastic? It cuts grease for sure
I used Chem-Dip to clean up pistons from my junkyard PT engine. It's a different kind of gunk, and I guess you'd have to pour it in, but it worked amazingly well and required almost no actual effort on my part.
wrap a long Philips driver with a rag and spiral it to the handle jam it in without scraping the sides with the driver and twist. pull out spray with carb clean or acetone and redo until clean.
New one?
wae wrote: I used Chem-Dip to clean up pistons from my junkyard PT engine. It's a different kind of gunk, and I guess you'd have to pour it in, but it worked amazingly well and required almost no actual effort on my part.
All kinds of no. Chem dip annihilates anything carbon based including plastics.
For a neat experiment, put an O-ring in there. If you have the good stuff, you can wear it as a big squishy stinky bracelet.
I wonder if some sort of controlled application of steam would work?
A vibrating cleaner full of sawdust would probably do the trick.
Alcohol? It's a solvent, and comes in a plastic bottle. Won't introduce moisture into it, either.
Professionally speaking, you're not going to get the crud out without some sort of mechanical interaction (scrubbing with a rag). As you note, impossible with a chambered style reservoir. Usually it is cheaper to buy a new one than to spend the time and money trying various concoctions of boiling water or alcohol or brake cleaner, that won't get all of it out anyway and you're still left with a 30 year old yellowed reservoir.
This is assuming that Porsche parts-bin engineered the brakes on the 924/944 like they did the suspension, of course. If it's a super rare part that they want $600 for, well you can boil a lot of water with $600.
I wonder if it'd fit into an ultrasonic cleaner. Guy I work with has a 3 liter capacity cleaner for his gun stuff, says it works really nice. But pricey. Not sure how well the Harbor Freight units work.
Once you get it somewhat clean the rest can be made translucent again with "hair bleach" AKA hydrogen peroxide gell. pour h2o2 in zip lock bag pour some in the reservoir and place in the bag then zip it closed and shake. It will get rid of the yellowness. how long does it last I do not know but its a big thing with vintage motorcycles as they yellow / brown with time.
Knurled wrote: Professionally speaking, you're not going to get the crud out without some sort of mechanical interaction (scrubbing with a rag). As you note, impossible with a chambered style reservoir. Usually it is cheaper to buy a new one than to spend the time and money trying various concoctions of boiling water or alcohol or brake cleaner, that won't get all of it out anyway and you're still left with a 30 year old yellowed reservoir. This is assuming that Porsche parts-bin engineered the brakes on the 924/944 like they did the suspension, of course. If it's a super rare part that they want $600 for, well you can boil a lot of water with $600. I wonder if it'd fit into an ultrasonic cleaner. Guy I work with has a 3 liter capacity cleaner for his gun stuff, says it works really nice. But pricey. Not sure how well the Harbor Freight units work.
Thanks to Jumper K. Balls, now we know. Rolled down to HF this morning with my 20% off coupon in hand...
not 100% perfect, but it got about 95% of the crud out. I may run it through a couple more times.
In reply to irish44j:
Very nice! Impressive what the right technology will do. How much did it cost?
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