Cleaning Silicone

JimKueneman

Mopar Nut
@dhutton01 warned me about cleaning up the silicone I used to get a rear glass out. The Valiant is a 1 year only and they don't make glass or gaskets so it was critical I saved both. I saturated the seal with silicone for a few days and carefully worked it loose and out. Now I need to clean up the silicone so I don't have problems. What is the best way to clean it up? Acetone? Gas? MEK?

Thanks,
Jim
 
If you are talking about the seal itself, I would use Dawn liquid and water. If you are talking about the car Dawn still would be a good choice if you can get the car wet. Two rounds of it. Lots of dawn and scrub it good then rinse well. The repeat using fresh water and more Dawn. Rinse again. Then perhaps for peace of mind, SPI 700 and wipe it down. Should be very clean doing that.
If you can't get the car wet then SPI 700 would be the only thing I would use. Probably will take several rounds of it. Change your towels often. Silicone is the Devil.
 
I just looked up the MSDS sheet for 3M's silicone paste. For skin and eye contact, flushing with water is what's suggested so, Chris's suggestion looks promising other than the paste was designed to shield out moisture/water. If it was me, I would call 3M and see what really cleans all residue from the material off surfaces. Some of the material used to make 3M silicone paste is a trade secrete and not available to the general pubic.

Here is the MSDS product sheet.
https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_zu8l00xMYtx5xtB5v70k17zHvu9lxtD7SSSSSS--
 
I googled 3m silicone paste. Looks like a can of silicone with a brush to brush it on. If it dries, it would appear to be expensive silicone.
If it stays wet, well, that's something different altogether.
 
I googled 3m silicone paste. Looks like a can of silicone with a brush to brush it on. If it dries, it would appear to be expensive silicone.
If it stays wet, well, that's something different altogether.
Stuff Jim used is a paste designed to lubricate and ease removal of the gaskets. Kinda like a super concentrated silicone spray.
 
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No doubt it'll be challange. Great that it saved glass & gasket so good job on that.
Mask area off as mentioned, do not let it get on anything & i mean anything. Little at a time, roll of Bounty.
When i couldn't get water to sheet with anything on my red car fender, i used Eagle1 all wheel cleaner. Worked.
You'll have to hose it off though.

Me, i'm waiting for pb blaster to soak in a alternator bolt atm.
 
So all kidding aside, general best practice is to go from weakest to strongest solvent to remove contaminants. In our shop, this is the order we use:

1. Dawn and water, or Sprayway glass cleaner for smaller areas.
2. Prep paste (Scuff stuff) and water.
3. SPI #700
4. SPI #710
5. Xylene
6. Reducer
7. MEK

It's pretty rare to use all the steps, it just depends on the substrate and the contaminant. I've actually never had to clean up large amounts of intentionally applied silicone oil!
 
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