Best cleaning fluid to use?

Now I'm going to put the whole thing back together with new gaskets and a bit of LocTite (thanks to Clooney for the pointers).

There's a considerable amound of sludge in the bottom of the housing, on the bull gears, and above the fluid level, the gear oil as condensed on the inner walls as a thick wax-
like goo. I'd like to take a little bit of time to at least clean out the gunk from the bottom of the housing.

What fluids would you recommend I use to flush this out with? My boss (who's a pit crew mechanic) recommended using diesel, others have suggested kerosene.

What are everyone else's experience?

TIA

• My project

Mikey G

I don't know anything about the configuration of the gear case on the A. However, I have had to deal with that stuff you are talking about in one of the final drives on my 420. Diesel wouldn't mingle with that stuff at all for me. Fortunately I was able to get to it with a long screwdriver to scrape loose the bulk and drag it back out the back. I used carb cleaner for the final scrub out. You may have to blast something directly at the stuff under pressure. Maybe a gas bun (gun that shoots solvent with air) will have to be resorted to if the diesel won't cut it. I hope your goo is not nasty and uncooperative as the stuff I ran into. Good Luck.

I like diesel fuel. It has an oily property so that if it gets in bearing/bushings, etc, it will loosen dirt, and wash it away, but leave an oily residue behind so nothing can rust very easily. It doesn't evaporate very readily, and if you want to strain it through some clean shop rags in the bottom of a funnel, you can use it to degrease for quite sometime.

Frank-in-Tallahassee
70D // 855