My machinist uses Purple Power to clean aluminum heads. Has anybody had any experience using it to clean aluminum wheels?
You can you a spray on wheel cleaner on polished aluminum as long as the P-H is a neutral balance. Look at the label on the bottle and it will state if it has a neutral P-H.
Purple Power really works well for just about anything (esp. cleaning aluminum trim on houses), but no matter how many times you wash your hands, you still feel a residue. I've always been leery about using it to clean something that is going to be painted, because of the residue factor. Any opinions on this?
HEY, make sure if you are going to clean wheels (or anything ) with Purple Power that ist is cool to the touch! It will ruin a polished wheel if it applied while the wheel is hot or warm.
that's not a residue you feel. Purple Stuff is caustic..that is dissolved skin that feels slick. It reacts with the fatty tissue of your hands. We use a chemical thats a lot like purple stuff to clean BEER STONE from draught lines , it does that same thing to my hands.
Amen......... We use purple power ( and have for some time) on the reman distributors. Heres how we use it..... Clean the greasy , nasty distributor in a cuda wash at 185 dgrees and a mild soap..........dis***emble and gl*** bead all parts ( approx 80psi with the gl***)........blow dry and put back in the cuda for another high temp and pressure wash to remove all gl*** beads etc. Final wash for a few minutes in the purple power , makes the aluminum look orginal etc..........one more rinse in the cuda, blow dry ........looking good and orginal...............great stuff !!!!!!!!!!!!!! $ 25 or less for 5 gallons at advance auto........
If you read on the back, theres a guide to dilute it. Its extremely caustic and yeah, it melts skin. I use the ratio for chrome to clean aluminum (15:1) and it works well. sometimes a bit closer to 10-12:1. Oddly though, Purple Power and Simple Green wil straight up MELT pearls for some reason. crazy
Does anyone have a line on this stuff? BTW.........what a wealth of info available through the HAMB. Thanks you guys.
It has Sodium Hydroxide, which you'll also find in oven cleaners and commercial grade floor wax stripper. Wear gloves, as it will eat paint and skin. Castrol super clean is same type formula and works better IMHO. Model car builders dunk old "glue bomb" built ups in Purple Power or Castrol SC as it disolves paint but doesn't harm model car styrene palstic.
Find another machinist..fast! That **** is citric acid. It will eat up aluminum and won't disolve grease, the grease and oil become a layer on top of the purple power (theres a bunch of other stuff with different names but is the same) in the parts washer, when you pull your parts out they'll get a coating of the **** you are trying to get off. The only good thing is that it is environmentally friendly. I don't know of any professional that would consider using it. I missed a couple linkage arms from injectors and left them in there for a week (in the small parts basket) and when i pulled it out to put some stuff in it there was hardly anything left of those arms - looked like something you'd find that had been in the ocean for a century or two. Nasty stuff that purple power.
Do NOT use it on aluminum !!!! Read the fine print on the front. I sprayed some on my dirt bike cylinder, let it sit long enough to spray the rest of the bike. It pitted and corroded the casing, leaving that nasty, white corrosion look. Some guys in here said they used it without problems, I had HUGE issues with it on aluminum. I'm not calling anoyone out here, jsut stating MY personal experience. I would STRONGLY recommend using it on an incon****uous place first, THEN go from there. When in doubt, use Simple Green, diluted. THat stuff will clean ANYTHING. Just my $0.02.
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