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My Shop

Also working on getting this parts washer going. Put it on casters and bought a new pump, which I have installed, ordered a filter and a flow through brush. Thinking of installing a small pipe with tiny holes drilled in it for air to bubble out at the bottom of the tank.
IMG_20201005_135941.jpgIMG_20201005_135946.jpg
 
Parts washer. Take a 30 gallon drum, cut it off just above the second rim. Mount the pump above the lower ring. Plumb the pump so it comes up the back of the parts washer wall and plumb it through. I like to put on a T and a velve each side of the T outlet. One side for the flow through parts brush and the other side for a flex steel tube for just flow when wanting to soak parts.
Run the sewer at the bottom of the parts washer a couple of inches from the bottom of the barrel. Build a cover for the barrel so no sparks can get through and so that evaporation can drip back into the barrel.
Fill the barrel with solvent to the bottom ring, then top it off with water and or old prestone antifreeze to the upper ring.
The solvent floats on the water where the pump picks it up, the sludge, grease, mud and dirt settles in the bottom.
Keeps the solvent clean for a very very long time.
When its time to change the solvent, i use gallon jugs for the water and send that to the pit lined landfill, the solvent if it is too dirty can be used in an used oil heater.
 
Idk if the air pumping in would help that much with agitation. You’d need a lot of air to do that and that means running a compressor for it. I would say try it since it’s easy and if it doesn’t work, your only out an hours effort.

A vibration/ rotating brush system in there might do better but requires more effort building.
 
The parts washer was free so it will only cost me what I have into it. I don't use one very often hence the casters so I can put it outside when I'm not using it. I am planning on a 3 way ball valve so I can have both the flexible nozzle and the brush. I've been around the air bubbler system before and it works pretty good and doesn't use much air. My big air compressor would probably last all night so I wouldn't leave it on.
 
Free is good! Haha
The air ones I have used never seemed to help a lot, but maybe they were made poorly. If you know how to set it up a good way, please post it.

Best parts washer diy plan I have is our old dishwasher. Wife wanted some new wazoo unit so I kept the old one incase family or friend had one die. But that thing has been sitting in the garage for over a year so it needs to go or earn its keep! I figure it’s pretty good at blasting of burned on grub from a frying pan it, it ought to do alright. Haha
 
Will L. said:
Free is good! Haha
The air ones I have used never seemed to help a lot, but maybe they were made poorly. If you know how to set it up a good way, please post it.

Best parts washer diy plan I have is our old dishwasher. Wife wanted some new wazoo unit so I kept the old one incase family or friend had one die. But that thing has been sitting in the garage for over a year so it needs to go or earn its keep! I figure it’s pretty good at blasting of burned on grub from a frying pan it, it ought to do alright. Haha
Click to expand...
Old dishwasher is the ticket. Especially if parts with baked on oil and dirt is soaked in a bucket of detergent and water for a day or two. That crap near falls off.
Disposal of the water is the biggest problem, just like the parts washer with water and solvent in tje same container. Its easy to deal with the solvent, its that dirty water thats tough to find a place of disposal where it wont contaminate everything around it.
I see that the DOT shop here has one of those parts washer machines. I’ll have to ask what they do with the water. They might have one of those bio enzyme things that eats the oils so not much left but just water.
 
No, you hook up a tank with solvent above the dishwasher like a regular parts washer shown in his picture. The solve t gets blasted onto the parts in the dishwasher and the waste pump hose that normally goes to a drain goes back into the parts washer bucket.
you just using the dishwasher like a mini hot tank with solvent. No water involved.
 
I had a friend do it about 15 years ago, i know his lasted a couple years and he used it pretty frequently. The pump went out in the end, but he replaced the pump in that twice already when in his house, so dont think that killed it, but maybe. He finally had enough extra cash he just bought a hot tank.
 
What if something less aggressive like Simple Green or Dawn dish soap was used? I'd never thought of using a dishwasher that recirculated the water/cleaning agent to a tank before, I think it's a neat idea.
 
No, no- it won’t burst open...
There’s this guy I known my whole life that looks just like me but isn’t as smart all the time whose name might just be William when his Mom hollered at him, who grew up never having had a dishwasher. Then moved into an apartment and didn’t know to not use Dawn liquid dish soap. So I filled both soap holders full up and washed my dishes. And the little kitchen floor. And the living room floor. But the door stayed shut. Those millions and millions of bubbles just made there way right out the seal.

I don’t know what kind of solvent was used in the dishwasher, but it was solvent.

if you do a dishwasher with water, make sure to get a tiny water heater and crank it full blast hot. No clue where you could drain it without a grease trap, but bet one couldn’t be to hard to figure out.
 
Detergent, like that pink industrial stuff, about a cup of that and a five gallon bucket of hot water, throw them parts in there, after washing off as much of the loose oils nad grease as possible, let them set for a day or two, any of that baked on crap will brush right off.
I would not have believed it until I seen it. it dont have to be any particular brand of cleansing soap, it was just what this old timer used in his industrial contract cleaning business.
Even the spark plug/wire heat shields on the small block Chevrolets will look like brand new. All that baked on oil and dirt is miraculously washed off. And I know how many times I have tried to get them things to look nice without success.
 
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