Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion General restoration questions Glass Cleaning...

I'd love to hear your suggestions on what you guys use for this stuff...Restoring a pump now and running into a couple things...

The site glass is full of old fuel residue, I've been soaking it in parts cleaner for a couple weeks now, alot came off but still alot left on, any suggestions? I know I can purchase reproductions, trying to keep it original if possible...

Also when you run into ad glass that has been painted over, what is the best product to use for removing that without scratching or harming the glass?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate any suggestions!

Old Fuel Residue


Painted Ad Glass

Steel wool for the site glass. Add glass razor blade if you carefull. I have heard some people use a solution they buy at Home Depot, but I cant think of the name. Remember to have fun while doing your restoration.
Art

Fresh gas should dissolve the old gas residue - and a little elbow grease and some steel wool won't hurt either.

As for the ad glass, the image is fired into the glass on the backside so paint on the fornt shouldn't be a problem. Use any paint stripper you have - or just tackle it with a nice sturdy single-edge razorblade holder and scrape the offending paint off.

Later . . .

Jim

The residue in the site glass is dried gasoline. Soak it in gas for awhile. The steel wool^^^ mentioned works good. A scotch brite pad works too.
If the ad glass is reverse painted, you might try paint remover on the yellow side being careful not to get it on the back side.

The easiest way to get rid of the gas residue is to soak it in ERA and water. Someone told me this and it works great.

What's ERA?

ERA = laundry soap. I just use buffing compound and a rag to clean up sight glasses. I have them done in a few minutes and no scratches.

ERA laundry detergent. 3 to 1 ratio with water. I have also cleaned other pump items by soaking them in it. I was surprised. Just don't tell your wife that is what you are using it for. No sense of humor.

For the residue on the sight glasses 0000 steel wool works great won't scratch the glass. Make sure it is 0000 extra fine.

On the sight glass nothing works like Easy Off oven cleaner. Spray it on and let it soak for a few minutes. That heavy brown deposit will wipe right off. It works great on calculators too. I've cleaned about a half dozen calculators and it's worked great but only leave it on for about 2-3 minutes. I let a Gasboy soak for 15 minutes and it took the black paint off too. I don't think Gasboy wheels would be any different that VR model 49's but it sure took the black off. The VR's I soaked for a couple of minutes were fine and the black did not come off.

While this may be getting off the topic some, as I mentioned once B4 in a post, ceramic stove top cleaner (many brands at local grocery) will clean visible pump glass cylinders very well. Rub it clean and wipe out the dried residue with a clean cloth.

Larry

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll most definately try them! I actually tryed the 0000 steel wool and it wouldn't do it, or I should say it never got the absolute worst of it, but it did get alot of it....but perhaps soaking in era then trying it...and I'll move on from there. Never ever occurred to me to use gas but that sure makes sense also as well as the other idea's.

I'll try the paint remover as well, I wasn't sure if that was strong enough to etch the glass or not.

Thanks again, you gave me some things to try and surely at least one of them will work....

Carb cleaner and steel wool extra fine ..work well too...

You must have some x-tra nasty stuff on those sight glasses. I have never had any issue getting it off.

Any mildly abrasive cleaner like Bar Keeper's Friend, or Ajax.