Alternative to Trichloroethane

Try Carbo-Solv.

--scott

I use acetone or lacquer thinner. Acetone IS a lacquer thinner, but not all lacquer thinners are acetone. Anyway, lacquer thinners, whichever the type, are good cheap cleaning solvents. They are better than paint thinner. Do NOT use gasoline- it leaves residue. Methanol is probably okay. They also sell in some hardware stores now a tri-cloro substitute, with various names like carbo-clor or such. I have used it- I prefer the lacquer thinner/acetone.

CRC Brakleen in the RED can. The "green can" brakleen (aka "non-Chlorinated" and allegedly more environmentally "freindly") is actually a hell of a lot nastier than the "chlorinated" cleaner in the red can. The green can crap contains Methyl-ethyl-ketone and other really toxic and potent solvents. It'll strip paint and attack many plastics. Red-can Brakleen is benign to most plastics and most paints (not all!) and does a great job of cleaning mold release agents, oils, greases. The exact same brew is also sold as "LectraMotive" motor/alternator cleaner and is safe enough for laquered motor windings.

Neither of these is even remotely similar to 1,1,1-Trichloroethane, and both of them will dissolve or damage a great many materials unaffected by

No, it's readily available at good parts stores, in either a spray can or a jug. CRC red-label BraKleen brand brake cleaner.

I agree with Daniel...They are considerably different, but should remove mould release compounds. The damage they may do is certainly a factor, especially for fibreglass components.

That may be true, but I have never found it to affect either fiberglass epoxy or fiberglas polyester.

What do they use in "non-chlorinated" brake cleaner?

Never mind. I missed Steve's post in which he says methyl-ethyl-ketone is used.

I missed that post. I have never used a "brakecleen" solvent that contained MEK. What brand does? The can of CRC Brakleen I am holding contains tetracloroethylene, according to the label.

The can I have is "Certified" brand. It mentions no specific chemical, the label simply saying "non-chlorinated", and "formulated with a powerful cleaning solvent".

One of the ones I bought at one time was based on methanol. Lately, I just use 90% isopropanol, available at the pharmacy. It's cheap, and cleans the rotors just fine.

I use denatured alchohol, which works well and is even cheaper than isopropal.

A witches brew of solvents, rather than a single one. A lot of them contain MEK (methyl-ethyl ketone) which is about as nasty as they come. IMO, the "non chlorinated" brake cleaners are both riskier to use on delicate parts (because if one solvent in the blend doesn't attack the part, one of the others will) and more dangerous to be around (for one thing, they're a lot more flammable than trichloroethane, plus if they have MEK they're EXTREMELY toxic.)

Typically the MEK comes in the "non chlorinated" brake cleaners. I just pulled the latest MSDS on CRC's non-chlorinated Brakleen brand, and it no longer shows MEK (good!) but it doesn't look very useful either- just a hydrocarbon solvent, acetone, and isopropanol.

I did not think of the MSDS.

My "Certified" brake cleaner was purchased at Canadian Tire, which apparently obtained it from a company called Trileaf Distribution. Since I've had no luck locating Trileaf Distribution in a Canada411 search, I'll go to Canadian Tire tomorrow and see if I can get an MSDS for the stuff.

Trileaf's Postal Code of M4S 2B8 (equivalent to the US Zip Code) places the company at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto. Those familiar with the area will know it's office-building territory; it's highly unlikely there are any manufacturing facilities there. Looks like Trileaf is a marketing company that probably has several other names.

Well, today I journeyed to Canadian Tire to obtain the MSDS sheets. It turns out the MSDS's for all Canadian Tire chemical products are available online from their Web site.

Anyway, they have two kinds of brake cleaner, a "regular" kind, and a "professional" one. The "pro" variety is a couple of dollars more per can, of course. Here are their ingredients:

Regular ("non-chlorinated")

-------------- Hexane 60-100% Isopropanol 10-30% Carbon dioxide 3-7%

Professional

------------ Perchloroethylene 60-100% (dry cleaning solvent!) Carbon dioxide 1-5%.

I don't understand the percentage ranges, which do not appear to add up to 100%.

They are not required to add up to 100% on an MSDS. They give possible ranges of concentration for the hazardous components.

If you have a product that really is special, you don't give away the formulation to the competition by way of the MSDS.