1971 HLS30-14938 "Lily" build

[Patcon]

Ok, so today I ventured out in a new direction.

A container of wintergreen oil. About 4 oz of oil in 3 gallons of oil. Ran it over a propane burner. It never really boiled sort of simmered things for about 45 minutes.

I started with a gas cap seal. It was really hard when I started...

 

This is it when it came out

So then I stepped up to a filler neck. These are really hard. I suspect the gas fumes make the rubber hard. These were too hard to get back into the chassis

 

So simmer for about 45 minutes. Had to turn it over because it was too tall for the pot.

Results were fabulous!!!!

Indulgences for the videos. It's my first try at "You tube"

[Mark Maras]

Interesting I've tried a mixture of wintergreen oil and Xylene at room temperature for varying lengths of time. My results varied with the condition of the rubber but none of them were what I would have called fabulous. Mine were more in the reusable category. Yours are fabulous. What was the other oil that you used and which oil was the 4 oz.? BTW, good job on the videos.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Mark Maras

[Patcon]

4 minutes ago, Mark Maras said:

Interesting I've tried a mixture of wintergreen oil and Xylene at room temperature for varying lengths of time. My results varied with the condition of the rubber but none of them were what I would have called fabulous. Mine were more in the reusable category. Yours are fabulous. What was the other oil that you used and which oil was the 4 oz.? BTW, good job on the videos.

My apologies.

That was 4oz of Wintergreen oil in a couple of gallons of water. I think the heat helps the rubber open up and absorb it. I didn't want to use a solvent like xylene or alcohol as that seemed counter productive...

[Mark Maras]

 

1 minute ago, Patcon said:

My apologies.

That was 4oz of Wintergreen oil in a couple of gallons of water. I think the heat helps the rubber open up and absorb it. I didn't want to use a solvent like xylene or alcohol as that seemed counter productive...

 I'm going to give this a try. The theory of the solvent, as I understand it is, the solvent was supposed to soften the rubber (which it does, sometimes overly so) and the w. oil is supposed to keep the rubber from drying out again. 

[Patcon]

12 hours ago, Mark Maras said:

 

 I'm going to give this a try. The theory of the solvent, as I understand it is, the solvent was supposed to soften the rubber (which it does, sometimes overly so) and the w. oil is supposed to keep the rubber from drying out again. 

Just be careful wintergreen oil is toxic. I found this on WebMD. I didn't use gloves but I did try to stay out of the steam. After I removed the parts I washed them with soap and water.

Wintergreen is safe in the amounts found in foods, and seems safe for most adults when used as a medicine.
The oil is UNSAFE to take by mouth. Taking wintergreen oil or large amounts of wintergreen leaf can cause ringing in the ears, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, stomach pain, and confusion.
When applied directly to the skin, wintergreen oil can cause skin irritation.

Special Precautions & Warnings:

Children: Wintergreen leaf and oil can be poisonous for children. Taking 4-10 mL of wintergreen oil by mouth can be deadly. Don’t even use wintergreen oil on the skin of children less than 2 years old.
Pregnancy and breast-feeding: Wintergreen is safe in amounts found in food, but there's not enough information to know if it's safe in the larger amounts that are used as medicine. Don’t take it by mouth or put it on your skin, if you are pregnant.
If you are breast-feeding, don’t take wintergreen by mouth or put it on your skin. Wintergreen products might be toxic to nursing infants.
Stomach and intestinal inflammation: Taking wintergreen by mouth might make these conditions worse.

Salicylate or aspirinallergy, asthma, or nasal polyps: Wintergreen might cause an allergic reaction in people who are allergic to aspirin or other salicylate compounds, or have asthma or nasal polyps. Use wintergreen with caution if you have one of these conditions.

 

[Namerow]

Looks very promising. The question now is whether the softening effect is long-lasting vs. temporary.  Hope you can give us a few updates over the coming weeks.  Even if the effect turns out to be temporary, it may prove to be valuable during the installation of components where some 'give' is needed (such as the fuel filler neck that you've shown in your video).  I find it curious that none of the commercially-available 'rubber and vinyl softener' products come anywhere close to delivering this kind of result.

[Mark Maras]

 There may be a commercial product. In my original notes I have a reference to Thor Tire Prep #12. As I recall, this product has wintergreen oil in it. I haven't done any research on the product.

[Patcon]

2 hours ago, Namerow said:

Looks very promising. The question now is whether the softening effect is long-lasting vs. temporary.  Hope you can give us a few updates over the coming weeks.  Even if the effect turns out to be temporary, it may prove to be valuable during the installation of components where some 'give' is needed (such as the fuel filler neck that you've shown in your video).  I find it curious that none of the commercially-available 'rubber and vinyl softener' products come anywhere close to delivering this kind of result.

I had sort of similar thoughts. I didn't think it would have been possible to get that filler neck back in the car as hard as it was. So I figured even if it wasn't permanent it would be short term useful.. I did 2 filler necks so the extra one I have can be monitored for how long the improvements last.

[Patcon]

Ok, I am working on getting the headliner installed while I can still rotate the car upside down. I bought a new headliner from MSA and it looks much better than any of the others I had. Since I'm an idiot, I threw away the other ones before I compared them for size!

So, do I need to trim the MSA headliner some. Do I tuck all the extra in to the ceiling, which seems really difficult from my experiments? How much should extend under the flange?

Need some input here...

[240260280]

FYI:

Wintergreen oil is MUCH cheaper when purchased as horse liniment. About $10-$15 for 16 ounces.

[Patcon]

9 minutes ago, 240260280 said:

FYI:

Wintergreen oil is MUCH cheaper when purchased as horse liniment. About $10-$15 for 16 ounces.

Good to know. I paid about that for commercial oil plus shipping.

[240260280]

Hmmm I posted too soon... some Horse liniments are not 100% WG.