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Added 03/06/2004

HI Kip,

    a friend of mine swears by a product called Marine Clean for the bilge's on the boat. <http://www.imperialrestoration.com/prep.htm>  I would follow up with one of the organic enzymes which you add to the bilge water which eats petroleum products and converts them to a harmless soluble residue.  I use simple green and water myself, but I have gas not diesel, which either evaporates away or explodes.  Either way it leaves no troublesome residue.

Regards,

Bill Jacobson

Encore c8.3  

My wife and I used one of the citrus household cleaners on grease and oil spills in my garage.  We were amazed at how well it cleaned the cement.  I've since used it successfully on my garden tractor.  It's not as powerful as carburator cleaner.  I don't know if the stuff is friendlier to our swimming friends or not, but the boat would sure smell nice when you're done!

Jim

1)I have used WM bilge cleaning products as well as Starbrite bilge concentrates.  Both work well and are friendly to the water. Fill with clean water, add appropriate amount of concentrate, scrub off heavily stained portion and let it sit or sail her for a while.  Then bilge out or hand bilge if too dirty for our friends living in the water.

  2) Before painting my Atomic 4, which was heavily rusted and had lots of oil on her, I used Carburetor spray cleaner and brake spray cleaner on the engine and accessories.  It cleaned the hell out of everything and then some.  It was caustic but did the trick.  I then bought a waterless foaming engine cleaner at Kragon.  All in all it worked out fine.

Out,

Stephen Isaacson

1967 C28  #120

DESTINY

Gunk has an engine cleaning spray that needs to be rinsed off, just putting more mess in the bilge.  The solvents in it are pretty noxious in close quarters.  You could use Brak-Kleen spray--has a dry cleaner fluid smell--on the engine as well.  It's used to clean rotors and drums for brake work on cars, etc.  I found it does a good job of cleaning out bearings before repacking them as well.

  Use Pampers, Depends, or some other form of absorbent under the engine to catch the drippings and save some clean-up effort.

  The Dow would be sprayed on the hull surfaces to remove any of the bilge cleaner's residue.  I don't see why it could be tried on the engine block as well.  Any house-hold grease cutter would work and should be safe to use.

Dan