WD40 What is in it??

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WD40 has such a strong smell and the smell will linger for a long time. I checked someones tran and I swear it smells like someone put WD40 in it!! The dealership already had drained the fluid to ship the trans back as a core as it is a warranty issue. It ended up on my bench for study. Have any of you guys ever heard of putting WD40 in transmission or a product that would smell like WD40 that might be marketed as a transmission additive. It smells strong of WD40.
 
The story has been around for many years that WD-40 was never patented because that would have required listing the ingredients. True? No idea. What's in it? No idea of that, either. (Hey, maybe it *is* true!)
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We used to always have some WD40, but I have not bought any for quite a while. I don't like the fumes and there are better penetrating oils available.

I also do not believe in WD40 myself. I know a woman who thought that spraying her bicycle chain would be great, but it did not work, at least for very long. Don't ever spray a gun with WD40! I have never done this myself, but people who have often wind up with guns that will not shoot.

The more Schaeffer's Oil products I try the more impressed I am with their products. Everything seems to work as advertised. Schaeffer's Oil has a penetrating oil that I am thinking about trying.
 
This is a completely un-scientific opinion (I hate these), but WD-40 smells like amines to me. Amine containing compounds are used as oxidation inhibitors in many types of lubricants including ATF.

BTW, WD-40 is a great fish attractant when sprayed onto baits. It is actually illegal in some states.
 
The word patent means open. Applying for a patent would mean listing the ingredients. The application could be rejected as obvious, spilling the secret without gaining any protection. Besides, patents don't last forever.

The smell could be something else added to hide the odor of the real ingredients. I find its odor more pleasent than the usual fishy odor of amines. Since I don't know what is in it, I always use something that tells me it does have silicone that I can count on not gumming things up. I cringe when I hear of people spraying in it locks. Sounds like guns are not a good idea either. Still many swear by it. Perhaps the trick is frequent reapplication. Ha, great product, once you use it, you have to keep reusing it?
 
Silicon sprays are great for keeping rubber and the like softened, but for lubrication, silicons are terrible lubricators by themselves, because they have little inherent lubricity. And unless you do some interesting processing, silicons will not mix with anything.

I don't use WD40 and have never analyzed it, but the spray from the can my neighbor had smelled like perfumed kerosene; that is, it smelled like kerosene with a perfume to hide it.
 
OK long story shortened:

I used to work in the R and D lab for a company called Inland Specialty Chemical (later purchased by Great Lakes Chemical). We essentially blended chemical compounds for producing printed circuit boards. (Everything from blending UCON 14 and 140 to make solder reflow oil (HTF), machine solder fluxes, cleaners, plating solutions, photoresist strippers - which had some real cool amines - ever smell choline?) This lab was in Costa Mesa, Calif. Yes I was chemist, despite my current low position as an Amsoil peddler.
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The old man R&D Chemist in the lab, Bo Floresch, was quite bitter whenever the subject of WD-40 came up. At first I never new why. Then I asked another dude in the lab (Larry Durandette, who was to become the best man at my wedding). Larry told me that Bo was the original inventor of WD-40 (water displacer - 40th trial/page 40 of the lab book depending...). Anyhow Bo was the man, but the guy that started the company essentially stole Bo's formula. This took place physically in the San Diego area.

I don't think there are any amines in WD-40 ...being young and foolish at the time I didn't write down what Larry said, but essentially either butyl cellusolve/carbitol, kerosene and a light mineral oil. I could be wrong, but mainly the reason Bo was so pissed wasn't the intellectual rights to the idea, but that the stuff is so stupid simple. (patent? why?)

The only reason I use WD-40 is primary external cleaning of some metals, etc. I always follow up with some solvent. WD-40 cleans well, I suspect it is the butyl....

[ May 23, 2003, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Pablo ]
 
It's a great product for gunking up firing pins in .22 bolt actions.

Half a dozen times a year we have new club members with WD40 (or CRC, or whatever) misfires due to the firing pin being dragged on by brown sticky gunk.

A quick soak in a "two stroke" mix of 1:10 ATF to petrol or thinners works pretty well to degunk them.
 
What is the purpoes or function of butyl cellusolve/carbitol? Is it their to displace the water, act as lubricant or solvevent?
P.S. Thank guys for the input!!!
 
Yeah Pablo, you could convince me it is a light mineral oil with some Butyl Carbitol in it. Butyl Carbitol is a Union Carbide trademark, or who ever owns it now, for a high molecular weight glycol ether. The glycol ethers and their esters have the same sort of pleasant smell as WD-40. They will dissolve things solvents without oxygen in them won't. I worked in the paint industry as a chemist for 10 years. Paint including your latexes, has a dab of glycol ethers and their esters to keep the the film fluid while most of the solvent evaporates or coalesce the latex particles into a film. This cuts down on stuff like sand scratches showing through.

The Butyl Carbitol would help dissolve things and displace the water. It takes it a while, but it does eventually evaporate. Anything it dissolved would be deposited where it was. This could easily explain the sticking firing pins. I will stick to silicone that doesn't dissolve anything.

Any analytical lab should be able to check it out.
 
Mystic, I can assure you, you'll be more impressed with the penetro 90 spray that schaeffers puts out. I have die hard customers that have used nothing but pb blaster that now uses the penetro. Ask anyone on here that has a can and let them tell you what they think. Fact is, I think Mola told me a story the other day about penetro he had experienced.
 
My experiences so far reveal that Penetro 90 is a rust and corrosion penetrant, a light lubricator, and leaves a milky-colored rust preventative coating. It has a slightly yellow-colored dye.

I had a water pump the other day with a 3/4 Hp electric motor that wouldn't start up after being shut off, even after cooling. The motor's innards see chlorine-based water spay all the time.

What I determined was happening was that the electromechanical (centrifugal) start-winding switch was not flipping back to its original start position on the shaft, after shutdown, due to chlorine residue and corrosion.

I used PB, Amsoil's MP (light) and a host of other sprays to no effect. I received the case of Penetro 90 (that I purchased, BTW) and went to work using one of the cans. Sprayed the sliding ring and electrical contacts with a blast of Penetro 90 for about 2 seconds and wolla, the centrifugal switch flipped to it's start position on the shaft and the motor started up when power was applied. Have had no problems since, and it has been cycling on and off for over 360 hours now.

I have used it since on a number of mechanical devices that have rust and corrosion.

I also found out that you can foam the Penetro 90 by barely touching the button and letting it kindof leak out the spray spout.

The only disadvantage I have seen is the spray pattern. It comes out in very large droplets or streams, and you had better aim correctly or place a barrier behind it if you don't want it carrying 9 feet past the target.

[ May 27, 2003, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: MolaKule ]
 
This may sound nuts but WD 40 is known to contain " bunker oil" { fish oil } as matter of fact some local fishermen where I live swear by it & use it as a fish attracant.
I think the bunker oil gives it it's protectant qualitys & makes it hard to rinse off .
 
I thought I saw on TV (History Channel?) that the new WD-40 wasn't flammable like the old versions were.

I beleive they said it was a result of new technology and the switch was made because it could be transported much cheaper since it wasn't considered dangerous and didn't require special safety measures.
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There is very little that doesn't burn, corrode or poison. I am sticking to things labeled as being silicone. I am also keeping as much of it as possible off me and out of my lungs.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Scali62:
This may sound nuts but WD 40 is known to contain " bunker oil" { fish oil } as matter of fact some local fishermen where I live swear by it & use it as a fish attracant.
I think the bunker oil gives it it's protectant qualitys & makes it hard to rinse off .


Bunker oil, also know as "Number 6 fuel oil is a thick, syrupy, black, tar-like liquid. It smells like tar, and may even become semi-solid in cooler temperatures. No. 6 fuel oil, also known as bunk oil, bunker oil, or black liquor, is a petroleum product consisting of a complicated mix of hydrocarbons with high boiling points. It is a "leftover", or residual product of crude oil after the more valuable hydrocarbons have been removed.

"Manufacturing companies use it as fuel for steam boilers and power generators. It is generally bought in large quantities and stored in large tanks, either above or below the ground. Since No. 6 fuel oil is so thick and viscous, users heat the oil up before they burn it."

There is no bunker oil in WD-40. I know bunker oil. I've bought and burned (and sometimes cleaned the mess) of about $100,000 worth a week for years on steam and diesel ships. Yes, diesels--they use a slightly better blend, still black and viscous, that is heated to 100-120°F to be pumped and settled, heated again to 200° and centrifuged, heated again to about 250° and injected into engines made for heavy fuel.


Ken
 
quote:

Originally posted by goldfinger:
I thought I saw on TV (History Channel?) that the new WD-40 wasn't flammable like the old versions were.

I beleive they said it was a result of new technology and the switch was made because it could be transported much cheaper since it wasn't considered dangerous and didn't require special safety measures.
confused.gif


I can safely attest to WD-40's flammability, I usually keep it in the motorhome and have regularly used it to start campfires, which it does admirably. I use PB Blaster for the real work, have to try some of Schaeffers brew after this reading.
 
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