The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop home made penetrating oil!

Bolters,
I did a quick search and didn't come up with this info...so I will jump right in. I recently subscribed to a little paper/magazine called Farm Show. (www.farmshow.com...which I HIGHLY recommend!)It is a collection of all the incredibly creative things that people do on their own to invent, create, re-purpose and generally do amazing things with old iron! In their "More Great Shop Ideas" magazine you get free for subscribing there is an article on Homemade Penetrating Oil. Seems that Machinist's Workshop magazine did a test of all the major branded penetrating oils back in '07 by artificially "rusting" what appears to be pins inserted into place and then measured the force it took to press them out. They found that the best/easiest product was a 50/50 homebrew mix of ATF and Acetone! There test ran from Nothing-requiring 516 pounds to the best performing OTC Kano Kroil spray at 106 lbs and all the way down to...yep, you guessed it the Homebrew at just 53 lbs. I gotta go down to Ace and get some Ace-tone

How much experience have you had using acetone? Let an old geezer who has managed to survive his own stupidity offer some friendly advice about the stuff. Wear some good-quality rubber gloves while using it, and either use a good respirator or at least have a fan blowing the fumes away from you while you're mixing it with the ATF. Acetone is a pretty potent carcinogen, and it absorbs through the skin almost as well as it gets into your bloodstream from inhaling its vapors. Either way, it's pretty toxic stuff. Be careful.
Jerry

Man I've been rinsing my hands with acetone to get gemseal concrete sealer off. Maybe that's why I'm messed up. Ohh and don't smoke a cigar while pouring it either..

Guyz,
Good advice (well...I'm not so sure about the "hand rinsing" stuff) I've done some pretty risky things in my lifetime with chemicals as well. Now, after they've outlawed stuff like Trichloroethylene, etc. I'm much more careful. My thought process now runs toward treating anything more caustic than kerosene like it's acid and then go from there.

Acetone is extremely volatile and will evaporate within moments of exposure to the air. I read this years ago when it first started circulating. I find it difficult to believe acetone mixed with anything would make a good penetrant since it will evaporate from the compound after application.

I use a fair amount of acetone as a solvent, particularly with resin work, while it is volatile, I haven't found it to "evaporate within moments" .... and as far as it being "pretty toxic stuff", it's excellent for removing stubborn paints, glue residue, and resins from skin, and while I wouldn't drink it, it is found in some foods - and it's naturally produced in the human body

as with any chemical, reasonable precautions against ingesting it and it's fumes in quantity is advised

Bill

Jerry, Tiny, Bill, all good comments guys. I've had some experience with Acetone going back to the early 80's. I use to even keep it around to put in my dried up wood filler putty to make it pliable.
I've worked around some nasty stuff in my professional life from MEK to Chromic acid. Regardless of what is bad, and what is not so bad, SAFETY conscious folks will always need to exercise good COMMON SENSE. Heck Bill, I've ran a many yds of coating on fabric that contained formaldehyde. We all know what that stuff will do to you...in certain quanities. The same stuff they embalm folks with is, or use to be, found in the meat we eat.

Bottom line, practice good safety ALL THE TIME. I do like the ATF and Acetone mix but the times Kroil wouldn't handle the job has been few. Therefore I don't keep acetone sitting around on the shelf. Just my own personal doings.

Nifty63, as you can see its been around a while. Surprised it didn't show up in your search....but that's why good guys like the ones above are here. To help us.

Good points, all! I've worked around some extremely hazardous stuff since the early 1950's when the family race car ran on a mixture of methanol and concentrated hydrogen peroxide that would literally eat the bottom out of a carburetor float bowl if we didn't run the carb dry at every engine shutdown, and chemicals such as concentrated sulfuric acid, acetone, and hydrogen peroxide can be used to produce a high explosive so unstable it must be mixed at the site of its use to avoid unintentional detonation. MEK will dry out skin to the point knuckles crack and bleed. All these things have legitimate uses, just be very careful to protect yourself and others and have a good understanding of the hazards involved.

BTW, KROIL is manufactured about 50 miles north of my place, in Nashville, so picking up a gallon of it is a good reason to take a nice ride on my Gold Wing!
Jerry

Does anyone know what is in kroil? I wouldn't be surprised if it had some acetone in it.

Which carcinogen list is acetone on?

I can't see what acetone does to rust... it doesn't affect it chemically, maybe it breaks down the ATF which would have friction modifiers and some detergent but also nothing that affects rust.

I'd rather just heat a part then try and shoot goo all over it.

Did the test try heat???

As noted in the beginning of this thread, that acetone/ATF
formula has been around for several years. I've been using it
since I first heard about it and it does indeed work just as
good if not better than PB Blaster, Kroil or Liquid Wrench. The
Acetone simply thins out the oil so it can seep into very small
cracks. Here's a link to a copy of that test data:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59511

My experience with Acetone goes back many many decades. I've
been using it for cleaning, thinning or removing since I was a
kid. It was one of the only chemicals that we used at the
accelerator lab that I worked at for 30 years that wasn't
banned as a cleaning agent. The lab was operated under contract
to the DOE who was so strict that we couldn't have any lead in
the shop and Simple Green was banned.
Acetone is used as a paint thinner and it's the main ingredament
in your ladies finger nail polish remover.
As with any chemical solvent, just don't drink it or take
a bath in it.

There seems to be a misconception that these penetrating oil
compounds dissolve rust. None that I know off do that they
simply seep into and lubricate the fastener lowering the
friction.

I found this at several sites concerning the toxicology:
"Acetone is believed to exhibit only slight toxicity
in normal use, and there is no strong evidence of
chronic health effects if basic precautions are followed."


Denny Graham
Keeping things slippery in Sandwich, IL

i have been using it for the past 5 years best thing i have found and a lot cheaper to make per oz than what you can buy. i put it in a small oil squirt can when i need it then put the rest back in the container till i need it again

Only draw back is the acetone evaporates pretty quick. I've left
my bottle open (old Plockmans mustard bottle) and the acetone
don't stick around long if you leave the cap open.

Denny G

A link to the original would really clear things up.

What postion was the bolt in (vertical? Horizontal? Upside down?)

What about heat?

I'll put my MAPP torch up against any goo for breaking lose a bolt. Plus when the bolt is vertical or upside down you are hoping for capillary action. Heat physically breaks the rust bonds in any position.

I'll try it, but I'm not getting rid of my MAPP gas anytime soon.

I found THIS LINK where a guy tried it and could not get the solution to mix... it was like oil and water... he called BS on the whole idea.

It seems the article dates to 2007... and without the original article a lot of people asked the same question I did.. how did they set up EXACTLY the same rust for 4-6 equal tests? Did they repeat it or just do it once?

There's always one, isn't there!

DG

My point exactly. How can it make a good penetrant when it evaporates so quickly.

Acetone isn't like ether Tiny, it doesn't evaporate so fast that
it won't seep into small cracks. Once the solvent does it's job
of getting the oil into the threads it isn't needed any more.

If you haven't tried it guys you shouldn't knock it. And one bad
apple or experience taken from a Porsche Parts and accessories
blog doesn't stack up against the hundreds of other reports
that have been posted since this was first published. The way
the guy approached the removal of his rusted parts was far from
scientific also, that is I'll try this, then that then
something else, then finally get a hammer out and blame all the
previous attempts as no good.
What do you care anyway Richard, Sweetie taint got a rusty part
on her anymore, does she????
We pulled the badly rusted complete bed off a friends '50 a few
years back and used the Acetone/ATF and to my surprise dang
near every old badly rusted nut came off it's bolt/screw. I was
just expecting them all to shear off with the impact driver we
were using.
Bottom line is, like a Ford, Chevy or Dodge, just pick your
favorite, they're all pretty much the same.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

discussion thread that includes note by original author [post #18] and info on where to get the magazine back issue

Bill

Here's the authors post:

"Allow me to appologize one more time. The test material was intended to be automatic transmission fluid. In the auto parts department, I grabbed a bottle of power steering fluid by mistake. If you read the article, the power steering fluid shown was used. The table you quoted has not been corrected.

One salient point not covered in your question -- these are loads required to free the test piece after 8 hours of immersion in penetrating oil. This is probably not representative of a quick squirt just before a wrench is applied. "

So he used POWER STEERING FLUID, not ATF, so all those cited tables are wrong and people have been living off the placebo effect hahaha

This is one reason why you should NEVER BLINDLY TRUST EVERYTHING YOU READ. Plus the bolts artificially rusted for only a few days using an electrical method (which seems not to be described... so again, cannot say its real world or simply something for a repeatable test).

I say the biggest fault is that heat was not used as a test point. Who waits 8 hours to soak a bolt???? 20 seconds of MAPP and off it comes.

power steering fluid and ATF are pretty much the same animal, different color, check the data sheets .... and they weren't 'bolts', it was pins in drilled holes all done the same way ... as Denny says, pick your favorite technique, no need to carry on and on

Bill

There are no doubt other methods of getting rusty things loose. No question that heat is faster, many times using heat is not an option. Many times soaking for even days or weeks ends up in a better result than the faster more destructive methods. Anything can be taken apart by some means but when it comes time to put things back together is where it makes a difference. So each to their own but it sure helps knowing more than one way to achieve the same thing.

..... I'm just thankful none of you think WD-40 is a penetrating oil

I have most of what you guys mention. PBblaster, Aero-Kroil, Sili-Kroil, liquid wrench and some AFT but out of acetone. Tried a few others but MY favorite is Aero-Kroil so that's what I use.
....so you guys do the same. Use what works for you.

Break time is over, lets get back to work!

Been back to work Alvin, thought I stirred the pot enough the last few days.
You're quite right, use what ever is within reach at the time.
DG

In case it helps:

We use the 50/50 mix ATF & Acetone in our shop. The master mechanic is a retired bus mechanic, and he showed up with a squirt can you can pressurize with air - can't remember what it's called. Anyway, just pull the trigger and it sprays - works great, and doesn't evaporate. Think the air squirt cans are quite pricey, but very nice to have. And yes, practice good sense - wear eye protection, the penetrant splashes back typically.

-Michael