is Simple Green safe on aluminum???

[EazyM3]

what do you guys use to clean in between greaseless and polishing compounds? i accidentally use Easy Off oven cleaner and it totally messed up areas i couldn't buff out...

Any recommendations? Is Simple Green okay?

[sswee]

Simple green is good. Dawn dishwashing liquid, or the more harsher chemicals like thinner or varsol. The down side to the harsher chemicals is the disposal when they are no longer effective. SS

[fly]

if possible heat the bath up made of soap and it will help or purchase the SP degreaser from caswell and heat it up, when you heat the bath it helps get into those hard to get areas...

[rides20]

Simple green is what alot of Harley stealerships use to clean the entire bike..

[fly]

Yea I like simple green just about anywhere even in the washing machine and in the windshield washer fluid..

[sdold]

Regular simple green causes corrosion in aluminum

[rides20]

umm.... I have never had a problem with it, and have used it for a while now.

[sdold]

[Umm removed ] It's slow, but it happens. I ran some tests with strips of aluminum in straight simple green, diluted simple green, and the new aluminum-safe simple green, and the worst offender was the diluted regular simple green. It caused slight surface dulling after a couple of hours. After a week, the strips had turned dark and were very rough. But it's your call. If you rinse it off fast you probably won't notice anything.

[rides20]

Okay...thanks for the info, I wasnt being short with the "ummm"..i was just thinking back on all the stuff I've used it on. Now i'll keep an eye on it. Thanks

[sdold]

Yeah, a bunch of were talking about it in an airplane forum. I used to use it a lot, and some guy came on and said that it caused corrosion, and we blew him off as a troublemaker. But I wondered about it, and so I took some strips of 2024 alclad (pure aluminum clad) and immersed them in the stuff. I was amazed at how bad it turned the surface.

After a month sitting in the stuff, several thousanths of the surface was gone! And the piece went from black to grey.

BUt like I said, if you get it off fast, it might be OK. No one soaks anything in the stuff, but it's nice to know.