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Hot take: the guy who showed me a trick for cleaning valve covers
Met this old mechanic, Dave, at a shop off Route 6 in Scranton. He told me to use oven cleaner on greasy covers and let it sit for 10 minutes before hosing it off. Saved me 3 hours of scrubbing on a Chevy 350 last month. Anyone else try something weird like that?
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rodriguez.mia3h ago
Did Dave tell you to wear gloves with that oven cleaner? I tried it once without and my hands were burning for hours. That stuff works scary good on engine grease though, just gotta be careful with it.
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abby_morgan183h ago
Aaah yeah that stuff is no joke. But wait, oven cleaner is actually lye based, not the same as regular degreaser. Lye is way more caustic than most stuff. If you use it on aluminum parts it'll eat right through them and ruin the metal. Stick to actual engine degreaser for grease, trust me on that one.
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lucast812h ago
Yeah abby's totally right about the aluminum thing. I learned that one the hard way on an old Ford 302 intake manifold, turned it into a pitted mess. But honestly for steel valve covers and cast iron blocks, that oven cleaner trick is a lifesaver. I mean, I tried it on a set of covers last summer and it cut through 20 years of caked on oil and grime like nothing. Just gotta be super careful with the aluminum parts like rodriguez said, and definitely wear gloves. My hands were peeling for a week after I got lazy one time and skipped them.
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