any parts degreaser solvent recommendations NOT gasoline

[Jim Dupree]

Right up front I know more about Audi's than dishwashers but ...
My old (recently deceased) dishwasher used the lower part of the tub or
housing as a reservoir for the hot water. When started the dishwasher just
filled the lower part of the housing with hot water. It had a level sensor
to shut of the hot water supply and then turned on the pump and away it
went. If I am correct in my assumption you could simply connect the drain
hose to a elevated catch tank with a course filter and connect a drain hose
from the catch tank back to the dish washer supply valve. Fill the catch
tank with degreaser and the dishwasher would open the supply valve when you
started it. Gravity would be your pump and the dishwasher would fill with
degreaser to it's proper level and shut off the supply valve and start
washing. When it switched to the rinse cycle it would pump the degreaser out
into your catch tank where it would drain through your filter. When all the
degreaser was pumped out, the dishwasher would then open the supply valve to
fill with fresh hot clean water except the supply comes from your filtered
catch tank and the dishwasher would just fill up again with degreaser. Rinse
and wash cycles would be the same except for the time they ran. The trick
would be having a large enough catch tank with a filter that would allow all
the degreaser to be pumped out with out backing up all over the garage
floor.
I guess if this part worked you then set about adding a controlled heating
element for your catch tank so your degreaser was hot.
Just a random though or two!
Jim
1984 4kq
1985 4kq
1985 5kt


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Huw Powell" <audi at humanspeakers.com>
To: <Eric_R_Kissell at whirlpool.com>
Cc: <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: any parts degreaser solvent recommendations NOT gasoline


> > Most materials used in a residential dishwasher have not been tested for
> > compatibility with many chemicals that you might use for degreasing. I
> > would be concerned about environmental stress cracking of plastic
> > components.
>
> Good point, although...
>
> > I have heard that more than one major appliance manufacturer has been
sued
> > by Darwin awards contenders doing things like using a dishwasher with a
> > flammable solvent to degrease parts and then burning their house down.
>
> Perhaps my dna is sufficiently well coiled to at least be thinking along
> the lines of using non-flammable degreasers.
>
> It would be fun, to take a used/junk dishwasher (ie, free), set it up in
> the garage, with a pumped feed supply/filtered reservoir comprising a
> few gallons of something like simple green and let it rip.
>
> There wouldn't be a real "rinse" cycle since the only fluid would be the
> simple green, but it might work well enough and long enough to be worth
> the trouble of setting it up.  The only pita would be setting up the
> external pressurized supply thing.
>
> Might be enough to just pour the simple green into the machine up to
> capacity and keep 'rewinding' the knob so all it does is spray, spray,
> spray.  Eventually let it discharge itself and capture the dirty solvent
> in a bucket.
>
> If it worked well, you could hack the control knob wiring and replace it
> with two switches - "run" and "drain."  Let experience teach you whether
> you want to use the "water" heater while running or not.
>
> Of course, you will have as a by-product a bucket of grossly
> contaminated degreaser, which would require proper disposal, say, behind
> a tree near your neighbors well.
>
> If and when the fittings finally give up the ghost, you've got a couple
> gallons of simple green on the garage floor, good time to scrub up all
> the accumulated crud there...
>
> -- 
> Huw Powell
>
> http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi
>
> http://www.humanthoughts.org/
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