Dishwasher as a Parts Degreaser

I've used a dishwasher many times for cleaning parts but beware this is a very dangerous practice if you have a wife.

For your own machine in the garage normal washer tabs work fine. It would be quite difficult to different fluids etc.

Steve

have read that they are good for cleaning the rear lights

My greatest 'fail' in the kitchen was when I put two spotlamp shells, which I had repaired with Araldite, in the oven. I had read that warming Araldite makes it set quicker and harder. I got distracted, forgot they were there and left them to heat all morning. My wife eventually opened the oven door to find the entire oven coated in thick black soot! The chrome spotlamp shells weren't light alloy as I thought but plastic and, apart from a lot of soot, not a trace of them was left.

My chances of using the dishwasher are now zero.

Good idea this ! (even apart from peace in the house....)

Why don't you try to disolve two/three tabs and put them in the machine in a plastic container, to so 'enrich' the mixture (and avoiding breaking the machine with solvent degreaser ?

Frank

Not sure why this would happen to be honest. My plan was to clean the parts in my solvent tank first and then use a water soluble degreaser in the dishwasher (at 60C or whatever the dishwasher runs at) to remove all traces of degreaser and other remaining crud ready for powder coating or re-assembly.

To be honest it should improve the old dishwasher by clearing all the old ste it had in the system.

Pete

Possibly the pump and gaskets in the machine would not be able to withstand solvents based stuff (?), whilst the 'normal' tabs are just a solidified degreaser, and compatible with the machine ?

Frank

Though a dishwasher on the highest temperature with a good strong 'tab' would degrease metal parts, you would need to get them out and dry them quickly as the water and salt would soon start to cause corrosion on raw steel. Also remember that steel will start to corrode quite quickly, so parts should be protected as soon as possible before painting. I do like the concept though, if you went for a slimline type it should do most of what you want whilst not taking up as much room! Regards, Pete

Hi Pete, pondering on what you suggest above got me thinking about the cycle and process of a dishwasher (why do I do this!!). Firstly it will go through an intake of water from the mains feed, then give a prewash. It then releases the 'tab' or detergent and the water is heated, then the wash cycle at whatever temperature set is carried out. All the 'dirty' water is drained and a refill takes place and is heated, this along with any 'rinse aid' takes everything through a rinse cycle, finally finishing in it being drained and the contents of the washer standing through a dry cycle.

So, questions to be considered in respect of using 'other' cleansing chemicals instead of water:

1. what volume of fluid does the washer need
2. Fluid would have to be pumped under some pressure to simulate water mains pressure as the normal water fill is not pumped! It relies on water mains pressure!
3. A collection tank would be required for the pumped waste from the washer
4. Depending on what chemicals are used a check would need to be made of the seals within washer to ascertain they would not deteriorate.

Should you go down the path of using a dishwasher, I would consider water based degreasing materials! I use an excellent citrus based water degreaser, no solvents, no environmental issues etc.

Just a few things to ponder Pete whilst in the outbacks of 'Whereveryouarestan'.

All the best, Pete

The gearbox housing I did was Al alloy, it suffered no ill-effects from a couple of cycles with ordinary dishwasher detergent; all I did at the end was rinse it off with fresh water then dry it with an airline and leave it somewhere warm to finish off. There was no visible corrosion after that and machined surfaces were nice and shiny, although there was the odd bit of white blooming on very rough bits of the raw cast finish(the casting was particularly crappy quality, some of the 'dirt' turned out to be compacted casting sand).

To be fair I had already used a parts washer and then blasted the outside. I wanted to use the dishwasher to remove any oily sheen and blasting dust remaining before powder coating. My mistake was underestimating how much water the aluminium housing must have absorbed, hence the pinprick bubbles in the powder coating. Pete