Another use for drain cleaner

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I've got a quad in the garage with a host of issues. One of which is a damaged oil cooler. I started taking the oil lines off the cooler and ran into a problem. One of the lines would NOT come off. I could budge it just a bit but no further.

After heat, acetone and atf mix, a bench vise and way too much effort, I ended up getting the hose off and destroying the cooler.

Once it was off I could see the problem. The male aluminum threads from the cooler fused to the female steel fitting.

I tried cleaning the fitting with heat, files, picks...I couldn't get the alu out of the female threads. It's like they were fused in there.

In comes the drink cleaner. I used roebic professional strength crystal drain cleaner. It contains lye, aka caustic soda. http://m.lowes.com/pd_486650-331-HD-CRY-DO_0__?productId=4751600

I plugged the hose, put hot water in a plastic container, then dumped in a ton of drain cleaner and stirred it up. It immediately got very hot and started smoking and putting out nasty fumes. You need protective gear with this stuff.

I let it soak for about 20 mins. When I came back, it was still hot. The water was very dirty looking. I pulled the fitting out and inspected. All the alu was gone. Even the OEM yellow plating was gone. The fitting was shiny bare steel. you need to plan on protecting it from flash rust.

I rinsed everything with cold water then neutralized it with vinegar. One side of the oil cooler still had good threads. I cut some diagonal lines across the threads and used it to chase the fitting on the line. It went right on.

New OEM lines are over $100. I'm sure one could be made or modfied by a hydraulics shop much cheaper but I figured the drain cleaner idea would be an interesting experiment. I'm surprised it worked!








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[Fire-medic]

An interesting use for chemical stripping. There are others (below).

"You need protective gear with this stuff."

And that includes no exposed skin anywhere in the vicinity. Wear good eye protection!

One of the rescue calls I answered was a guy whose wife came home and caught him in the sack w/his lover. The couple didn't stop 'doin' what they were doin,' and the enraged wife ran to the kitchen, made a big pot of lye, and returned to the bedroom where she treated the rutting couple to a lye bath. Since the Mr. was on-top, he got the worst of it, and lost the top several layers of skin across his buttocks, his lower back, and down one flank, primarily, not to-mention what washed across his groin area. He was a 'person of color' and now he was a person of pink-color across his affected areas. The damaged skin just sloughed-off his body. :surprise:

Surprisingly, the female partner received very little damage, which was of great disappointment to the enraged wife. :damn angry:We threw the husband into the shower and left him in-there for 5 minutes to rinse that stuff 'right-down the drain.' He took a trip to the hospital w/us, the partner refused, dressed, and when we left, was being questioned by the LEO's. End result-he had a very clean tub drain!

Wear your protection-today's lesson from real life.

 

[Tex85]

Lmao!

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[dannymax]

Every call is a whole new experience!! :rofl_200:

 

[Fastatv]

Thats some very good "out of the box" thinking.....and a great way to save some bucks by not replacing parts. I try some different chemicals here and there, usually with good results. Thanks for sharing the experience....I enjoy learning and saving bucks as well. This past winter, my 76 model CJ7's heater was hardly blowing warm air at all. Changed to a hotter t-stat, no change. Told my neighbor that I was going to install a new heater core and he said wait! try this first. He said to fill the heater core with Sno-Bowl toilet cleaner. So I did, and it removed the blockages, blew nice and hot afterwards. Said he had been doing that for years and never had any damages/leaks occur. Morale....lots of inexpensive fixes out there...and out of the box thinkers! :eusa_dance: