A little chemistry and statistics lesson for everyone.

Flammability is irrelevant; volatility and flash point is what matters. Volatility does NOT equal flammability. Volatility is a measure of the propensity for a liquid to state change to a gas. This determines how much of that flammable substance is floating away from the liquid pool or gas soaked rag, etc. It is incredibly easy to ignite gasoline vapors. Proper cleaning solvents, diesel, and kerosene all have very low volatility. The difference in volatility is what make those suitable for cleaning solvents where gasoline is not.

"I've used it a million times and never had a problem." Many people think that proves that it's safe. Nope. That is not how statistics work. The only thing proven by that is that you have been lucky as f#ck a million times.

Give away your excess gas to friends and neighbors to use in their lawn mowers, or burn it in your vehicles.

I see that you don't like my tone. Sorry. Litterally, one of the stupidest f#cking things a human being can do is to use gasoline as a cleaning solvent.

You do you. Good luck to you. Seriously.

 

Are you a south pole elf?

 

Husqvarna bar nut for scale. This is the brush I dip in the gas to scrubs a small 2x2 inch section of casing at a time. It is flamable but in such a small amount there's little to no danger when you're away from ignition sources. Don't do this while lighting your cigar with a Roman candle.

By the time the rags are used to wipe down the case it's more sludge than it is gas. Gasoline evaporates quickly. There's more gas on the rags we use to clean up after a static leak on a carburetor. Again because we work with gasoline daily we have proper storage containers for disposal.

To add fuel to the fire here's how we have always honed engine blocks

Clean cylinder walls thoroughly with gas soaked rags until clean.

Hone cylinder. Clean again with gas soaked rags until clean. Now do 45 degree cross hatch. Now clean cylinder again with gas soaked rag until clean. Now coat lightly with 30wt motor oil.

If piston/head are not ready for immediate install....clean once again with gas soaked rag until clean. Reapply light coat of oil and now install your piston(s)


Again, common sense. We always let our rags safely dry a before disposing of them in a metal storage container.

When cleaning something really dirty, like a rover transfer case we'll get some of the old rags back out to clean the really nasty stuff off before using fresh rags for the final cleaning.


If the gas was good we wouldn't be removing if from the tanks to begin with. The only time I give it away is when it's mixed with motor oil and used to kill yellow jackets aka ground hornets.

The largest fire I've set in the shop was bumping a key for a horizontal engine powered cub cadet. Didn't realize the customer didn't have the plug screwed in. I was turning over to listen for compression and check spark. Plug flew in the air, static leak had filled the cylinder full of gas. Gas shot 10ft in the air after passing the spark so I had a small flame on the ceiling plus the puddle that came down all over the mower/floor.

 

For the record, I didn't reply for your benefit, I can see that you are set in your ways and believe them to be safe. Like I said, you do you. I really replied for the benefit of others who might listen.

Cheers.

 

Again, we are a shop. Because we deal with open gasoline and paint products on a regular daily baseis even our air compressor is located outside of the shop. We are able to safely paint with no risk of explosion.

Acetone has a flashpoint of 0 degrees vs -43 of gasoline. Both can easily go boom at room temperature if exposed to an ignition source



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Pistons installed. Getting the ring gap properly set while minding avoiding the thrust side of the cylinder is fun....to do 8 times.

It will be much easier to install the pistons without the head studs installed. I'm too lazy to fight them in sub freezing temps so they stayed minus one that came out with the nut. I never bother to loctite head studs in place. When assembling in the vehicle you can't have the studs in place unless you want to raise the back of the transmission and even then you might not have the room to raise/lower the head especially on the NA driver side.


I have new lifters to pair with the low mileage 4.6 cam.

If the snow holds off this weekend I hope to get the transmission set back in place and reinstall the interior.

Really wish I had time to get the block hot tanked before reassembly but the race shop has had my 4.6 block for over a month and she's still not done.

I may do a seafoam treatment or two after the break in period along with a few frequent oil changes.


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Did you change the o-rings on the center shaft of the tcase?

 

My friend owned a 1935 Bentley and was having trouble getting it to run right. We drained a bit of gas to see what we could see and noticed a crumb in the bottom of the container. My friend reached in with bare hand to fish it out. He must have noticed the look of surprise on my face, he said, "I'm old, it doesn't matter." I'm glad this Forum has enough room for folks to be different.

We got the Bentley running, put on our driving hats and went for a drive with his wife to Country Mercantile for ice cream on a warm sunny day. That beautiful vehicle drove and sounded sort of like a tractor. He usually started out in 2nd gear. What a wonderful day. Ed passed away some time later. God rest his soul. We all go around once. Pretty fun going around in a Land Rover.

 

The center shaft was surprisingly not leaking so I left it alone. There was a huge glob of permatex all over the transmission side of the case where it appears someone has been into it before. There was no thread sealer on any of transfer case mounting bolts which was likely the source of my leaks.

I did watch a video on the shaft o ring replacement early today and it looks simple enough so long as one remembers to count the turns to remove the nut. The nut isn't staked on this transfer case....which is wonderful to find but luckily as it's not blown apart yet. Not gas it made any weird noises so I'm giving the previous repair person some credit... maybe too much ..that it was assembled properly.


Every other o ring I've removed so far has been closer to that of plastic than rubber o ring.

If I have time at in the morning I'll take a stab at it. I still have plenty of permatex left.




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​​​​​​Many of the old timers I worked with over the years felt the same way. They didn't wear gloves when handling a majority of chemicals they didn't immediately cause chemical burn.