‘Paraffin’ Gun in compressor accessories set

[UdderlyOffroad]

Whilst watching ‘Wheeler Dealers the other night, I saw big tall Edd use a small pump up garden sprayer full of some kind of degreaser to remove years of accumulated crud on a G-Wagon’s transferbox to replace a speedo transducer. It appeared to eat the grease really well.

This got me thinking – I’ve got one of those red ‘Paraffin’ guns that came with the compressor. Thus far it’s only got in the way in the garage. Has anyone else actually used one of these things for its intended purpose? And if so, what did you use in it? Gunk? Diesel?

[Orgasmic Farmer]

I use a mix of clean oil and diesel to spray the back end of my tractor after I have pressure washed it. Gets a bit of lube back on the bare metail bits and moving parts/linkages which would otherwise cease up if left untreated. For general degreasing I find that brake and clutch cleaner works well but watch it around paintwork as it can fade it very quickly.

[zardos]

Edd was probably using Brake cleaner as this works well.

But be warned Brake cleaner eats a most plastics if stored in a normal pump up sprayer.

I found that a lot of sprayers for brake cleaner are expensive but I've found this is cheap and holding up well with it's Viton seals

The only other sprayer I've hocked up to my compressor is a Cuprinol Hand Fence sprayer and boy does that make spraying the fence easy (no more pumping it up every 30 seconds but you do need a long air line )

[Bowie69]

BTW, paraffin guns work REALLY well for spraying warmed and diluted waxoyl, both for outside the chassis, and on through all the access holes, turns it into a bit of a mist if you get the nozzle right, so it settles just about everywhere you could want

[UdderlyOffroad]

Thanks chaps, seems you can get the pukka Wurth kit on the bay of E for less than £40 notes (with 5l refills coming in at £11 delivered)...However being a tight wad (and with two engines and a transferbox to clean next weekend) I was wondering what I could put in the paraffin gun I already have? I'll give Gunk+diesel mix a go tonight to see what happens.

[FridgeFreezer]

My local motor factors sells 5L tins of brake cleaner for about the same price (£11 ish), recently there was an offer on the Swarfega stuff where it came with the spray bottle for free, bought about 4 tins in the end as the sprayers cost ~£10. Well worth it though, even at full price.

[David Sparkes]

I have used paraffin in that style of gun. Nowadays I found it easiest, and cheapest, in B&Q of all places, although it tends to be a seasonal product, sold for winter heaters in greenhouses. Standard packaging seems to be 4 litres, which is another way of bumping the price up. I've also seen it at normal fuel stations and Garden Centres, but they are the places that make B&Q look cheap.

Personally I tend to prefer water washable solvents. Having first tried Gunk, Jizer was my first preference, but I also found that got expensive, so the most recent purchase, although a couple of years ago now, was Comma Hyperclean. Then it came in 5 litre containers.

The guns look interesting for cleaning small items, although I'm not sure which one to choose. The Wurth one MUST be compatible with the cleaning solvent, which I see is about £2.20 a litre, so making the gun expensive at £32, compared to the Master gun from Arco at £13.00 + delivery, which will 'probably' cope with the solvent.

Just looked online for prices, a sample of Comma Hyperclean was £19.00, probably plus delivery if not VAT.

My local PG Automotive Motor Factors in Matlock sell Jizer at £21.00 incl VAT.

Around £20 incl for 5 litres seems to be a general price, so if you can cope with any residue the Wurth Cleaner leaves, at £11 for 5 litres it seems an attractive deal.

Rambled a bit, but HTH

[zardos]

I pay £8 for 5L of Brake Cleaner and the delivery on the spray was free (pickup from local branch)

[UdderlyOffroad]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I didn't manage to try anything tonight in the paraffin gun tonight, got dragged shopping instead. But, Tesco's were doing pump-up garden sprayers for £2.98, so I picked one up and will buy some proper brake cleaner from my local GSF branch on the way home one evening and give that a go in both guns. I've also got some Machine Mart water-based stuff that I bought originally for the bench-top parts washer, but I stopped using it as it was pants and fur grew in the parts washer! Will report back tomorrow pm hopefully.

The bad news is that Tesco have put the price of oil-spill absorbing granules up to £1.51 a bag! (That's value Kitty Litter, in case you were wondering...)

I pay £8 for 5L of Brake Cleaner and the delivery on the spray was free (pickup from local branch)

Where are you getting this from Zardos?

[zardos]

I got it from a localish trade supplier place http://www.maccess.co.uk/ and from memory was just over £8 inc vat the last time I bought 5l (Jan 2011)

And I give a Tesco sprayer 30mins before it packs up when using a non water based brake cleaner

[godzilla84]

I have the same red parafin gun as udderlyoffroad and used it to great effect cleaning my engine bay and round my gearbox where years of overflowed oil mixed with road crud had made a gloopy mess. I used it with "gunk" and the gently pressure washed it off after it had time to soak, worked a treat.

Gonna try it on my chassis too before i start repainting it in the summer.

[UdderlyOffroad]

Thanks Godzilla84, will give that a try at the weekend...

Actually, today I arrrr mostly been cleaning off an engine using a 50/50 mix of MachineMart detergent and water using the Tesco pump-up sprayer. Worked quite well, but I can't help thinking something solvent based would be better for shifting it.