Topic: Wintergreen oil_rubber renew test / peanut oil plastic renew test_pics

[BruceDeuce]

head gasket for a CMX 450

[SilentSteven]

Cool! Thanks for reviving this thread. I never knew peanut oil could do this to plastic

[Goofaroo]

I'm anxious to try this soon. It sounds like it could be a good solution for a lot of other hard to find rubber parts. I am however concerned about the dangers of breathing the fumes for myself as well as for other members so here is a possible fix:

I have a crock pot that I bought at the thrift store for about $2 years ago. I keep it on my workbench full of antifreeze to clean carburetors and model aircraft engines. The crock pot would also be good for this and you could just take it outside and plug it in overnight without having to monitor the temperature. Every thrift store almost always has a selection of crock pots that can be had for practically free. I like the ones with the removable liner cause they are easy to clean.

Your wife will also be pleased that you aren't using her pots and pans.

[BruceDeuce]

Im just gonna mix the solution and drop the boots in and pull it out to see the results in 24 hrs.
But I ask again, what is the opinion of the forum about my soaking a head gasket off a CMX 450?

[cookindaddy]

The wintergreen oil treatment works on natural rubber. Is your head gasket rubber? (I doubt it)

[BruceDeuce]

The wintergreen oil treatment works on natural rubber. Is your head gasket rubber? (I doubt it)

The cylinder head cover gasket is rubber. Can I get an educated answer?

[Don R]

Head cover gasket made from rubber, yes it probably soften it.  Head gasket = No

[BruceDeuce]

Head cover gasket made from rubber, yes it probably soften it.  Head gasket = No

Thank you for the correction. I should have clearly stated cylinder in the begining.

[faux fiddy]

Still wondering if anyone has done this with the 350/400  rubbers with metal flanges fused to them.

Finally got the ingredients (had to special order through Walgreen's) , so I will know in a couple weeks after I get home from traveling.

[dcil]

Grayed out black plastic can be revived with a heat gun also. Armor al is the biggest joke anyone could have ever invented. Destroys vinyl and rubber. At work we sell tonneau (spelling sux) covers. The companies that make them will void the warranty if they find traces of armor all on them. Btw, it may have been a joke, but anybody given any thought to using the Listerene on boots?

[Lavis500]

Somebody mentioned Listerine!  I've a set of hard 500 carb boots and a big, Sams club sized bottle of Listerine.  I added 1.5 cups (about 12 oz) of Listerine to about 0.5 gallon of water, and set the pot on boil!  I'm reducing to a light simmer, but even after only 5 minutes there is a huge difference!  I'll report in half an hour or so.

EDIT:  OK, so I left them simmering for about 40 minutes.  Over that time, I probably added another cup and a half of Listerine and a couple cups of water.  The boots are far more supple than they were before, sliding onto the passageways much more easily, and bending under my fingers.  However, I think they could still be a bit better.  I'm going to let them sit in the formula at room temp. overnight.  I'll check on it occasionally, but the Listerine is only 0.06% Methyl Salicate.  However, it's also only 0.092% Eucalyptol and 0.042 Menthol, but the steam from that simmer sure did clear up my sinuses!    The wife was on the other side of the house, and she didn't like it one bit.  I think she was overreacting, though.  

So far, the Pros:  Supple rubber, didn't cost me anything, good for the sinuses
          the Cons:  Complaining wife

Will update again later!

EDIT:  So after letting them sit at room temperature for 12 hours, the boots have LOST some of the suppleness that they just regained.  My guess is that the heat did more than the minuscule amount of methyl salicate.  FWIW, I ended up using about 3 cups of listerine, which equates to 1.44 oz of methyl salicate.

SO THE RESULT:  Didn't do much, wasn't worth the hassle.  I'll probably go out and buy a bottle of wintergreen and do it right.

[dbill]

Interesting thread. I ran into this last night when I was trying to find a way to soften old carb boots from a 30 year old suzuki.  I tried the steps and unfortunately didn't get the same good results.  Not sure what I did wrong.

Here's what I added wintergreen to water and heated it up in a pot in the stove.  I used the ratio of 8 oz per gallon (although I made a smaller batch - just enough to cover the boots).  They did get soft but also gooey.  As I stirred them with a spoon I got black rubber deposits on my spoon.  I kept them in the hot water for about 20 min.  They now feel sticky and have hardened up again (although not as hard as before).  The rubber is no longer smooth but rough and gummy and can be rubbed off.  Any ideas on what I did wrong?  Is the rubber just too old?  It was hard like plastic when I started.

[BruceDeuce]

The way I read it, it's the xylol that opens the pores of the rubber for the wintergreen to do its thing.

[cookindaddy]

dbill - The treatment worked here for me, on multiple rubber items and several sets of carb boots.

Your picture is pretty ugly though.

Maybe we should not expect miracles if the rubber has suffered some other degradation other than just simply heat and age? That is what most of us are fighting. Perhaps yours suffered some other injustice?

[wardenerd]

i used the peanut oil on my 650 gauges and the cleared up th slight fogging and renewed the black so i am a true believer. the black is deep and shiny too.

[Doggie]

I was told to soak my carb rubbers in power steering additive. After a week they were soft and pliable. Hope this works for you.
                                                                                         Doggie
                                                 

[Tugboat]

Pulled my carb boots out of the mix just now. 24hr soak in 8 oz of wintergreen oil and 1 qt of xylene. Had it all in a paint can as recommended here - Home Depot, $4. The carb ends are nice and soft.. probably a bit swolen too. (At least they look wider than when I put them in) Will measure them tomorrow and let 'em sit for a week or so then re-measure. The motor ends are considerably more pliable than they were when I put them in the solution. They were hard as rocks. One has a small crack on the inside of the throat but it's small and doesn't go all the way through so hopefully it won't leak. Haven't ever seen new ones so can't compare, but overall they seem like they'll work a LOT better than they did. Total investment was around $25. Pix coming soon.

[JAG]

I just bought my wintergreen oil from Amazon.com. I bought all I needed for $12. I went to my health stores locally and found 1 ounce bottle for $15. Ouch!

I mixed it in with water. Used the old deep fryer for my thanksgiving turkeys. Let it boil for 20-30 minutes.

The results were absolutely remarkable.

No need for other chemicals, and it had a pleasant scent for a few months.

After more than 2 years the bike is still running good, the rubber as soft as it was before.

[AshimotoK0]

I tested a 750 K0 inlet rubber by soaking  in Tri-Aryl phosphate ester (Reofos 50) at 70 degrees Centigrade (it is a plasticizer for Nitrile Rubber / PVC ). It softened up Ok - that was about 4 months ago. Will have to check its pliability again. It is still in the boot (trunk to non- 'Limeys'  ) of my car ! This plasticizer is flame retardant too.

http://www.chemtura.com/bu/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=40ff7d205ef99110VgnVCM10000053d7010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=b59f921646019110VgnVCM10000053d7010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Have not tried the airbox rubber yet - my analysis was that it was not nitrile rubber but a form of PVC (this is an early K0 about 3000 later than Sandcast with the crappy styrene resin Airbox)  -  airbox replaced with LPM PU one - which is great.

Cheers

Ash D

TREATED 16 MONTHS AGO AND STILL AS SOFT AND SUPPLE AS THE DAY I TREATED "EM. THIS STUFF IS USED IN THE RUBBER PROCESSING INDUSTRY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kong]

As long as this thread has already been revived I'll add my experience with restoring boots using Wintergreen Oil.  I did it about 6 weeks ago to a set, it worked perfectly, and they are still nicely restored today.

I bought 4oz of Wintergreen Oil on E-bay for $6.  There were many vendors selling it for about that same price.  I used two of those ounces to revive my boots.  I bought 1 gallon of Xylene at Lowe's, it cost me ~$20, I also bought an empty new clean 1 gallon steel paint can with lid. 

The two ounces of (100%) Wintergreen were mixed with approximately 1/2 gallon of the Xylene in the clean can.  The mix was NOT HEATED even though the temperature at the time was hovering around freezing.  First I washed the boots throughly with hot water and liquid dish soap to remove any grease or oil that might have been on them and might have blocked the mixed juice from soaking in.  The cleaned boots were put in the can and allowed to soak for 24 hours.  They came out like new, and remain so to this day. 

Just a side note:  After they came out of the mix I had to leave them outside for about 2 weeks to let the smell die down, the she-ape would not let me bring them in the house claiming, and rightfully so, that they made the place smell like the men's room at a well maintained Exxon station - and I wondered how she would know.   

[stampederunner]

Bengay and other creams like that have up to 30% wintergreen oil. I wonder if you coated the rubber inside and out if it would do anything?

[cookindaddy]

That's an interesting thought. I wondered also if it was necessary to make up the bath to put the parts into. So I tried a little experiment here this morning. I had an oil pressure switch cover that was as hard as a rock. I used a Qtip to apply the wintergreen to the part, waited about 1/2 hour and then wiped off the excess.

You can see the result below. The rubber is now quite pliable and feels different, newer. I did not notice the cracks in the rubber until I zoomed into the picture. As has been said here before, if the rubber is cracked, the wintergreen treatment won't fix that but it will make the rubber softer. The part does not seem to have swelled but I won't know until I try to put it on a pressure switch.

The chemical I am using is an industrial product sold for renewing rubber. It contains wintergreen but instead of xylene, it has 1,1,1 trichlorethane which is pretty nasty stuff, now outlawed. Similar products should be available to you at an electronics wholesaler without the trich. The bottle was cheap, about $8. Perhaps someone could try brushing full strength wintergreen oil onto a part? I will when I find another that needs treatment.

The bonus of the Qtip method is that it is quick and easy and uses only a small amount of the solution. Good for small parts. Also good for selectively renewing a part where for example, if you didn't want the solution to touch some embedded metal as someone said earlier, since you are not soaking the part, you can apply the solution only where you want it.

[AshimotoK0]

I tested a 750 K0 inlet rubber by soaking  in Tri-Aryl phosphate ester (Reofos 50) at 70 degrees Centigrade (it is a plasticizer for Nitrile Rubber / PVC ). It softened up Ok - that was about 4 months ago. Will have to check its pliability again. It is still in the boot (trunk to non- 'Limeys'  ) of my car ! This plasticizer is flame retardant too.

http://www.chemtura.com/bu/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=40ff7d205ef99110VgnVCM10000053d7010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=b59f921646019110VgnVCM10000053d7010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Have not tried the airbox rubber yet - my analysis was that it was not nitrile rubber but a form of PVC (this is an early K0 about 3000 later than Sandcast with the crappy styrene resin Airbox)  -  airbox replaced with LPM PU one - which is great.

Cheers

Ash D

TREATED 16 MONTHS AGO AND STILL AS SOFT AND SUPPLE AS THE DAY I TREATED "EM. THIS STUFF IS USED IN THE RUBBER PROCESSING INDUSTRY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Has anyone tried this too? why mess around with 'witches brews' when you can use the stuff designed for use in the rubber processing industry? just my 2 pence 9cents) worth.

Cheers

AshD

[theofam]

So, you've undoubtedly read about the restorative properties of a gallon of xylene mixed with 4-8 oz of wintergreen oil then simmered at 200 degrees to restore those old, brittle carb boots?!

So, I got it all set up:




After about 10 minutes, I figured Seamus' carb boots were hard, too, might as well go into the garage and pull them off for this magical concoction to do it's trick.  Then, I heard, "WOOOOOF!"  I looked outside, and saw black smoke billowing across my driveway.  Adios, carb boots!



One humbling call to 911, and these guys dropped by to say "hi":



This forum would be worthless without all the lessons we learn from one another.  Here are mine:

• If you're going to do this xylene/wintergreen oil thang, be REAL careful about the heat you apply.  It's flashpoint will sneak up on you.
• Do it outside and away from the house.
• I didn't have an MSDS or accurate info on how to put out a xylene fire, so I had to call the fire house.  What did they do? Hit it with a fire extinguisher and out it went.  Now you know!

So, now that you're done wetting yourself with laughter over my stupidity, who wants to sell me a set of 78K carb boots?

[faux fiddy]

Yeah, that's a bummer when you get the fire people out.  Kind of hard to explain that away.

Good thing you weren't under a tree or in the garage.

Mine the xylene was less than a cup, and in a plastic bag- double boiler style and mixed with over a gallon of water after the bag broke...not as much volatility.

But it worked.