Cleaning advice for a Hardinge VMC 600 II

[darron]

So, can anyone offer advice on the best way to clean 19 years of grime and residue off a used machine?

I'm using Zep heavy duty citrus degreaser to (carefully) clean up the outside of the machine. It works really well... does anyone know how safe this stuff is if I try to use it on the machine covers inside the machine? (tool changer cover, spindle cover, enclosure, etc). We can cover the table, but it'd probably still run off at least as little into the coolant tank. We haven't filled that, so we could clean that as well I suppose...

Is there something I can safely rinse the inside of the machine down with? I could imagine covering the table, taping a small trash bag around the base of the spindle, and hosing down the interior with diluted Zep degreaser... then rinse with some coolant... then dump that contaminated coolant and clean the coolant tank... then refill with fresh coolant. I'd probably have to be careful to avoid splashing up under the way covers, etc...

What do I not know that I need to know?

 

[trevj]

Has it run water soluble coolant it's whole life?

If it has, I'd suggest mixing a small batch of coolant and using the coolant pump to hose the innards off.
Heck, even rig a sprinkler on the coolant hose and close it up and run the sprinkler a while.

A sponge, some warm water in a bucket, and a rinse afterwards with the coolant again.

 

[Kingbob]

Most coolant manufacturers also make machine safe sump cleaners. I use qualichem coolant so I get their EQU-KLEEN SMP cleaner that I run through the machine between complete coolant changes.

Honestly though before I run the cleaner and also after I just take a hose to the inside of my machines. That may make some people cringe but we run damn near ALL the materials here, cast iron, steel, aluminum, sand cast stainless, copper alloys, stelite, ti, zirconium, teflon, carbon filled teflon, bakelite, peek, uhmw, so the coolant and the inside of the machines get messy often. Clean water in between coolant fills is the least of my concerns. I always rig up a coolant wash down hose though to make sure any pure water gets washed away by coolant so as not to lead to rust.

 

[aarongough]

I recently used that same Zep citrus degreaser to clean up 3 machines, 1 that had run cutting oil for it's whole life and never been cleaned, and a pair of mills that had been cutting graphite and aluminum (with coolant) alternately... All three machines were incredibly gross and I was pleased with the zep degreaser and I honestly love the smell!

I didn't have any issues with after-rust like I have had with some other degreasers, and I didn't hit anything it wouldn't clean up except for some 25 year old cutting cutting oil varnish that was resistant to everything except paint stripper... I didn't have issues with it melting any plastics or attacking any paint either. Overall I'd say it's pretty safe for the machine.

Only thing I hate about it is that the sprayers inevitably fail while the bottle is still about half full... I went through literally 12-15 bottles of the stuff and they all failed the exact same way. Maybe buy a better spray bottle, but the degreaser itself has worked well for me!

 

[darron]

We've used a spray bottle for a while... it's lasted for us fairly well. We've put a few jugs of product through it at this point (on other things)

Yeah, the small isn't bad.

I'll check with the coolant supplier to see if they have something they'd recommend.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[aarongough]

Sorry, I meant specifically the trigger sprayer that they sell the degreaser in it... Those were dying on me left and right. Other brands/types of sprayer worked fine with the degreaser, just the bundled one is crap!

 

[jmullett]

I've had good luck with MK144 Markee Corp. Washing Compounds It also woks great in out walk behind floor scrubber. They also sell a multi-machine water based coolant product called MKGoldturn that has offered us good sump life in conjunction with our Nexjen coalescing skimmers.