You can get most of these at "dollar stores", hardware stores, kitchen stores, Ikea, and Walmart-like places

CANISTERS

Use these stainless steel canisters with lids to soak your parts.

The lid keeps the fumes contained and allows you to slosh the can around with parts inside.

The lid also keeps pets out and minimizes evaporation.

Since they are stainless steel you can leave them outside to keep the fumes out of your garage/house and they won't rust (too much

).

The typical use is for holding dry stuffs such as sugar, flour, and cookies. Be sure to consume these before robbing your wife's kitchen.

Also, it is wise to buy 2 or more and in various sizes. (I'll explain later)

BOWLS

Get at least one big stainless steel salad bowl. You can throw a lot of parts in it and scrub easily with a brush (and suitable non-dissolving gloves).

The bowl allows you to scrub while capturing all of the spatter and it makes it easy to do many parts at once... say a whole disassembled SU.

BRUSHES

Brass wire brushes are gentle and work better than plastic (which can melt/dissolve). Get an assortment especially ones on long arms, curved heads, big ones and small ones. You can get nice ones for cleaning guns that come with "T" handles and extensions. You can also use one like in the picture above with a small vice grip or in a drill.

Here is a typically smallish one that works ok. Generally the bristles will deform so buy several.

STRAINER

Use a stainless steel strainer for holding parts when you spray them with an aerosol carb or brake cleaner. You can place the strainer in the salad bowl or in the canister so that the over-spray is collected.

The other useful application of the strainer is to capture parts! As alluded to above, if you have a canister filled with carb cleaner and carb parts, it is no fun to retrieve them. That is why at least two containers are needed. You simply place the strainer in the bowl or over the empty canister then pour the canister full of carb cleaner and parts into the strainer. It will collect the parts and let the fluid pass through.

You can also place blue shop towel or similar in the strainer and run used dirty solvent through it to clean the solution.

MAGNET

This will pick up most parts that are immersed in solutions except for plastic, aluminum, copper, and brass. You may wish to use tongs or similar to cover all bases.

PAN

When you want to catch drippings from a brake bleed or just as a back-up to protect a garage floor, a stainless steel pan is great to have under your work area. I have seen some alloy pans that are ~ 4' X 2' in size.

Here is a canister filled with lacquer thinner on a pan with a clutch-fan o-ring being dipped quickly.

Edited August 4, 201113 yr by Blue

Great post Blue ........ as usual your photo documentation and commentary is outstanding.

You might consider a side job making cleaning kits to sell at a reasonable profit via EBay or other sites.

I wish I had some of these items when cleaning beaucoup parts couple of years back.

Next up: Iron chef

I forgot to say "Never use your dishwasher as a parts washer".... maybe a used one out in the garage with a recycled solvent such as varsol or better, some orange based solvent or simple green but it may exploded or the plastic melt with a volatile solvent. Could be an interesting "Mythbusters" experiment.... I just head of a used washing machine and a couple of boards with nails being used as an apple cider shredder/press.