whats your best trick to remove grease ?

[sweetk30]

i have a tank that has a max 2" dia hole port in it so i cant get in easy at all to remove some grease a little kid pumped in with grandpas grease gun years ago .

its not much mabye half to 3/4 tube worth . i have had it soaking in kerosene for some time now in hopes of make it more workable to remove out .

whats your best trick for getting the grease out ? thanks for any good tips / tricks .

 

[Shiftless]

How big is the tank?

Here is my first thought

swish the kerosene around and dump it out
squirt in some Dawn dishwashing soap
pour in enough boiling water to fill the tank maybe 1/4 full or less
swish it around a lot, pour it out and insert your pressure washer nozzle and rinse thoroughly

That should work

 

[sweetk30]

120 gal tank

i did plan the dawn soap for final clean out .

 

[tool_scrounge]

As previously posted, use Kerosene. For oil, adding 10% kerosene reduces the viscosity by 2x.

 

[Shiftless]

A warm water self serve car wash wand might be a good tool if you won’t get into trouble there.

 

[subroc]

You are doing what I would do. Soaking it with kerosene. What is the final use of this tank? What is the final cleanliness inspection going to look like? What does access to this cleaning operation look like?

One other question, how much does this tank weigh?

 

[sweetk30]

You are doing what I would do. Soaking it with kerosene. What is the final use of this tank? What is the final cleanliness inspection going to look like? What does access to this cleaning operation look like?

One other question, how much does this tank weigh?

120 gal I.R. compressor tank .

plan is back in service . got the whole setup half apart cause 10hp electric motor died and scrappers took all the copper . so this left the 1 hole open for little kids to pump grease in it .

 

[Vvmvbb]

Kerosene sounds right. Maybe a stronger solvent (paint thinner/mineral spirits) if that doesn’t cut it. Certainly a soapy wash then a long water wash to get the kerosene or other solvent out. How clean does it need to be? Might never be clean enough for painting, say.

 

[PoorUB]

Pressure washer.

 

[Zephyr]

I've used WD-40 before to clean the grease off a fifth wheel for inspection and a rebuild. Turns it to a liquid that can be either washed away with a pressure washer or a ton of shop rags.

 

[Renegade1LI]

Try using a shop vac with a cheap cyclone to catch the grease, use an old vac hose with a piece of pipe on the end.

 

[johninct]

Kerosene and Grease are greasy/ oily so the compressor will always be no good for painting. Best that you can do is pour it out, wipe it out and now need a solvent to clean it up. Next I would use gas and maybe a rag or brush on a long stick to try to scrub it out. Next I would use laquer thinner. Could try water/ Simple Green and draining it a few times too. You will never get it 100% for safe painting.

 

[subroc]

How long has the grease been in there? If the grease has actually dried in there the situation is different than if it is fresh grease you just need to liquefy with a solvent. I have overhauled a number of machines that have had dry grease in some of the working parts and most if not all required some mechanical means, a scraper or wire brush to get to bare metal as well as soaking/cleaning with kerosene. Maybe it was just that I wanted to complete the task now, that warranted the mechanical effort and the soaking with kerosene alone would have done it.

I would want to agitate the gallon or so of kerosene that is sitting in the bottom of that tank. If none of the parts are sitting on it because of the repair to the motor and it is just a bare tank, put it in the back of the pick up, tie it down real good and ride around with the kerosene splashing around for a few days. That might get it done.