cleaning moving parts with carb cleaner

I ran in to this older dude the other day and started talking to him about gear and stuff. The topic of old gear and cleaning came up.
Here's what he does for his cams, 'biners, and anything with moving parts.
He uses Gumout carb+choke cleaner. Sprays it on the moving parts, works the moving parts, then wipes off the excess like crazy. Then sets the stuff out to dry for a while and then uses this dry lube teflon spray stuff in the moving parts. I looked it up and it comes in a blue can and has something called PTFE in it.

He said he's done it for years and never had trouble with the stuff affecting his nylon. I asked about slings and draw bones and such and he said he's never had trouble. He's careful not to spray directly on the soft gear and makes sure to get the hard surfaces dry.

It's raining here and I'm bored stiff so I thought I'd try an experiment. I took an old retired Petzl dogbone and soaked one loop in the Gumout cleaner and let it dry.
Then I CHAINED it to #150 of dead weight. I dropped it about six times until my chinup bar started to bend. The bone held fine.
From everything I've read online I expected it to melt in my hands. I'm going to let it hang for a week and try another five or six falls on it. If it doesn't brake I'll soak it again and keep this up until the thing breaks.

Anyone have any research based opinions on carb and choke cleaner or the teflon lube spray? I know the carb and choke and brake cleaner stuff is pretty volatile and drys fast. I'd love to read papers or see videos of this topic.

If I didn't write this I would accuse me of trolling. But I swear this isn't a troll.

This is not "Research-based", only based on 20+ years in the fuels business, including years of lab compatibility testing.

The active ingredients in Gumout Carb cleaner are xylenes, isopropyl alcohol, and methy ethyl ketone. None of these affect nylon.

Also - glass-filled nylon is sometimes used for the air intakes of gasoline engines. You don't think a choke cleaner would be 100% safe for that?

"spray on".

Mike

I hose my cams down with WD-40, and work it for awhile. Then I get some boiling water going, and dip the cam in for a few seconds. I dry the cam by slinging the cam around quickly, and wipping down. Works great!

Gunkiemike wrote:This is not "Research-based", only based on 20+ years in the fuels business, including years of lab compatibility testing. The active ingredients in Gumout Carb cleaner are xylenes, isopropyl alcohol, and methy ethyl ketone. None of these affect nylon. Also - glass-filled nylon is sometimes used for the air intakes of gasoline engines. You don't think a choke cleaner would be 100% safe for that? "spray on". Mike

England wrote:I hose my cams down with WD-40, and work it for awhile. Then I get some boiling water going, and dip the cam in for a few seconds. I dry the cam by slinging the cam around quickly, and wipping down. Works great!

gary ohm wrote: I'd thought of using WD as well. Have you ever gotten that stuff on the nylon? How about dyneema and etc.?

In the mountain bike world there are certain combinations of chain cleaners and lube that can cause cracking and failure in chainguards/guides. The specific ones that I know about are the E.13 bash rings and I think it is a combination of brake cleaner (a degreaser) and triflow (a ptfe based lubricant). Either one on it's own doesn't seem to cause a problem. The bash rings are not nylon though but rather polycarbonate I believe (off chance they are acrylic) neither of which are really that similar to nylon. It's worth being aware though that different reactions can occur with combinations of chemicals.