I was in town buying a can of engine gunk and I got thinking about how one would degrease a bike in ye old days. Say in the 40's-50's or such when such products where difficult to find, how would you clean grease and oil from an engine? Some household method or would you just use a rag and deal with it? Anyone have any ideas?

paraffin and a paintbrush

GUNK has been knocking about for donkeys years, but as above paraffin and a brush was the preferred method but steam was good to. In the 1960s we used whatever was available and cheap usually just hot water and a rag with loads of washing up soap. There were very few Japanese bikes back then.

I use a 50/50 mix of petrol and diesel in a spray bottle , plus whatever rags and old toothbrushes etc . It'll shift most oily muck .

modern stuff is now bio degradable, ( and rightly so) but it was generally just a wipe over with a  rag, keeps the rust away yer know

before 90, in romania we use diesel for this. this was the official degreaser for this job :))

9 hours ago, drewpy said:

modern stuff is now bio degradable, ( and rightly so) but it was generally just a wipe over with a  rag, keeps the rust away yer know

I tend to leave a lot of oil and grease on the bike for that exact reason  Why wash away perfectly good rust prevention? 

14 hours ago, Variomatic said:

I tend to leave a lot of oil and grease on the bike for that exact reason  Why wash away perfectly good rust prevention? 

I wouldn't be one for powerwashing the bike .  Generally a squirt of WD  and a wipe of a rag . Different for off road bikes though .

I only use my powerwash for my snowfoam attachment, hosepipe for everything else

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I do powerwash but on lowest power and 3 ft away and just to wet and rinse down.

 

I use autoglym products which smell really nice too.