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Tips around the shop

Here are some useful tips that I have learned around the shop in no particular order.

How many times have you just had to take a look at a problem under the hood knowing full well that you wouldn't get that good shirt you are wearing full of grease and road dirt. Normally just about the time you have closed the hood and come in for dinner your wife notices a large spot of grease in your sleeve. What now? Dinner smells too good to wait but you need to do something right away. I have learned that good old DL or Go-Jo hand cleaner works wonders on these problems. Back up the dirty spot with a piece of clean paper towel and rub in some hand cleaner - use your fingernail to scrape the grease spot and press the grime thorough the cloth and into the paper towel. Change the towel to a clean spot and repeat the process until all of the grease has been dissolved and pushed thorough the shirt sleeve and in to the paper towel. A quick rinse with warm water will remove any emulsified grease and you can pat it dry enough to get back to the dinner table before the steaks are cold!
After a major repair job in the garage I normally have a lot of grease and oil spots on the cement floor. A putty knife will scrape up the majority of the garbage but if you want the floor to look really clean try this. Get a cup of kerosene and a large coffee can full of speedy dry. Dump the kerosene on the spot and brush it in with a stiff bristle brush. Now spread the speedy dry down on the kerosene and let it sit for an hour or so. When you brush it up you will find the brightest spot on the garage floor where there once was a grungy greasy dirty looking spot. I used to use gasoline for the job but it is highly flammable compared to kerosene and kerosene works just as well as the gas did.
Want to keep peace in the family and not have your wife scream at you for tracking in all that dirt and grease from the garage? I mean like you do have to run down to the cellar occasionally for a tool that isn't in the garage and you don't want to remove those boots just to dash across the carpet to get to the cellar door and of course you don't want to run outside and into the cellar through the back door! If you have a medical supply place nearby stop in and buy those paper booties that they use in the operating rooms to cover their shoes. If not, get a box of baggies, not the zip lock type, and slip one over each boot as you enter the house. You can secure it with a large rubber band. They will protect the carpet from your dirty boots. Be careful going down the cellar stairs because the polyethylene is a bit slipperier than you might expect. When you are ready to go back out into the grunge just slip them off and leave them next to the garage door for the next trip. The paper booties really do work better and have a less slippery surface which makes them a safer choice. Either way you are much better off than if you had gotten grease on that family room carpet since a broom across the behind hurts a lot more than you may think!!

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