Who remembers doing this? Who used leaded gas and no gloves? 
Cleaning parts with gas.
- Thread starter Chris142
- Start date
There was something bad about lead, but I can't remember what it is. 
No fumah
in the army ages ago we cleaned m14 and m16 rifles with gasoline. nobody gave us an option or asked for our opinion. results were invariably fine: my piece always went bang, i consistently hit my target and i never got in trouble at inspection.
a childhood friend's dad wrenched cars in his barn. there was always a #10 can half full of gasoline on the bench with various bits and pieces in and around it on rags. he had been a b24 mechanic in italy in ww2. it's a good thing that he wasn't a smoker.
So gas has benzene in it, removing lead makes it "less poisonous"
My dad used it and diesel fuel in his parts washer for years as did his dad (my grandfather).
Great solvent! worked on anything! lol
He was a smoker and constantly heard people saying " OMG thats dangerous" and he would put his lit cigarette out in it! He's somehow still alive and well, and at 62 hes pretty healthy!
I grew up with dad using it to clean his paint brushes. I remember them soaking in old food cans with gas in them and the brush sitting in them in the garage.
I had a friend who worked with his father in his garage. They always used gas for cleaning parts, no gloves. He washed his hands every day before he went home for the day in gas. Never used a dust mask for blowing dust off brakes and clutches. He just about bathed in used motor oil. Needled to say he developed about 4 types of cancer in his life. He never thought about using safety equipment back then. He passed last November, and his last few years were spent in pain and in various hospitals for treatments they thought might help him. That was his reward for working hard and thinking he'd have a better future. None of the chemicals sold in auto parts stores should be allowed to get on your bare skin. They get absorbed into your body and health problems come next.,,,
Originally Posted by Chris142
Who remembers doing this? Who used leaded gas and no gloves?
"That was his reward for working hard and thinking he'd have a better future."
C'mon BigCahuna, that sounds real "whimpy-dimp" to me. The poor guy's cancers were a subsequence of carelessness or sloppiness or ignorance or laziness. While true, safety measures weren't in place or they may have been mocked by the tough-guy mentality, people always have known that fumes etc. were bad.
We must elevate the dialog in this country. No more self-pitying noises even if they regard someone else's relative.
My own father used to wash up in a shop with benzine. He said everybody knew it wasn't kosher but it was fast. He told me that as he lay dying of cancer 32 years ago.
"That was my father's reward for working hard....". Nonsense. He paid a high price to go to lunch early.
Oh, another thing. If they "make you" wear safety equipment, it isn't the big, bad Commies taking over.
Flame suit on I suppose.
My favorite and most cost effective parts cleaner is camping stove fuel (mostly naptha). It used to be really cheap and still isn't outrageous. It's very effective, doesn't damage paint or plastics, and is pretty easy on the skin. I wear gloves all the time now, but when I was a young lad I didn't.
When I first got into dirt bikes as a child in the late 60's gas is all I used back then for cleaning parts. I'm sure it was leaded back then too.
Also remember my grandfather had a golf ball size hunk of mercury I frequently played with breaking it apart in hundreds of pieces and then allowing the unusual properties to stick it back together into the original ball. All with my bare hands.
Originally Posted by Kira
"That was his reward for working hard and thinking he'd have a better future."
C'mon BigCahuna, that sounds real "whimpy-dimp" to me. The poor guy's cancers were a subsequence of carelessness or sloppiness or ignorance or laziness. While true, safety measures weren't in place or they may have been mocked by the tough-guy mentality, people always have known that fumes etc. were bad.
We must elevate the dialog in this country. No more self-pitying noises even if they regard someone else's relative.
My own father used to wash up in a shop with benzine. He said everybody knew it wasn't kosher but it was fast. He told me that as he lay dying of cancer 32 years ago.
"That was my father's reward for working hard....". Nonsense. He paid a high price to go to lunch early.
Originally Posted by SLO_Town
Originally Posted by Chris142
Who remembers doing this? Who used leaded gas and no gloves?
My Dad used gas to clean parts, and didn't wear gloves. Of course he's been fighting cancer for 20+ years now.
A friend of mine from the NHRA Dragracing tour regularly wears a T-shirt which says: Gas is for washing parts, alcohol is for drinking, NItro is for racing.
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Originally Posted by SLO_Town
Originally Posted by Chris142
Who remembers doing this? Who used leaded gas and no gloves?
Originally Posted by SLO_Town
Since you find them so entertaining, Lolvoguy, here is another incident while working on that big Healey. I was rebuilding the carburetors. It was late, probably around midnight, me working by myself in the detached garage far away from the house. I had a can of Berryman's Chemtool with the long plastic tube attached. I fed the tube into one of the holes in the stripped down carburetor body. I shot a blast into the carb, which literally shot out of a thin brass tube, 90 degrees from the direction I was shooting the Chemtool into. I actually remember seeing the Chemtool blast coming directly into my eye. This wasn't a misty spray, it was a solid stream of liquid! Instant burning fire in my eye! Now I knew what the bermuda grass felt like!!!! I ran into the house like I was on fire and stuck my head under the kitchen sink faucet, holding my eye open and rinsing it out best I could. That brought the pain level down from a 10 (adjusted for the fear factor that I might have blinded myself in one eye), down to an 8. Off to the ER we dashed. My vision was cloudy in that eye for weeks afterward. I actually consider myself pretty fortunate it didn't permanently damage my eye.
Scott
StanleyOriginally Posted by SLO_Town
Originally Posted by Chris142
Who remembers doing this? Who used leaded gas and no gloves?
