Late last year I came across a thread on a motorcycle forum where they were soaking cast aluminum carbs in Pine-Sol to clean them without destroying the finish. I didn't have a spare Autolite to test but did have an aluminum spacer to sacrifice. About a 6 hour soak in full strength, rinse with a garden hose and all done. Next I had random dirty parts that have been sitting around and figured let's see how they clean up. That's when I noticed not only was it cleaning parts but also dissolving rust and in some cases it blackened steel. You can see the shift linkage is darkened but a scuff pad and brake cleaner brought back the natural steel look. I left the leaf spring as it came out of dirty Pine-Sol. It cleaned grille moulding but also easily removed the argent paint from the aluminum. On the other hand, it didn't remove paint as easily from backing plates. All these were done at full strength using normal Pine-Sol. Fog light bar only soaked for 2 hours and I only soaked 1/2 to see before and after. I'll dig out more parts when I have time and try diluting 50% with water to see what it does. At $3.50 a quart, it's hard to go wrong especially for batches of small parts. Depending on the parts, media blasting is still easier. Didn't have any plated parts to test but will find some.
