Wow! I have an old bottom bracket that I'm working on rebuilding and I can't seem to get the old, gooped up grease out of it. The stuff is hardened and nasty. Simple Green isn't putting a dent in it.

What should I use to soften and remove the old grease? Would gasoline do the trick or should I consider something else?

Thanks for the input!

Texbike

WD40 plus scotch brite pad or fine steel wool. Remove the easy stuff first. I pretty much clean up every bb cup with WD40. Be careful using gasoline as it is very flammable.

Fingernail plus carb cleaner or wd40 is usually my MO.

A hair dryer can work wonders on old grease by softening it so it can be removed, just be careful if you use chemicals at the same time.

Mineral spirits and a brass brush, but carb cleaner cuts anything!

Ooooooh, carb cleaner! I forgot about that miracle worker. :0)

Thanks for the reminder and thanks to everyone else for the suggestions on the WD40 and the hair dryer. I have both a bottom bracket and a headset that are in about the same shape. Fortunately the surfaces underneath the grunge look pretty good. I may try the WD40 on one set of parts and carb cleaner on the other to see which works the best.

Stay tuned...

Texbike

This is what I use:

Something like Liquid Wrench also works well to dissolve old grease.

Careful with carb cleaner, it will damage paint if not careful. Also use in a well ventilated area and wear gloves.

Lately I've been liking Kingsford charcoal lighter fluid.

I have lighter fluid (ronsonol) for cleaning old grease and oil off of small parts. Carb cleaner or brake parts cleaner will generally get anything off of anything though.

Hi everybody. This is my first post so I try to say something useful.. Nice alternative to solvents is to use a steam cleaner and rag for gunk & grime removal, works well on general cleaning also and doesn't harm the paint etc. Cogs and chain are a bit pita to clean with it, but for everything else it's really easy and green way.

Put it in a small pan of water with a good dose of liquid dishwashing or laundry detergent and let it "simmer" for 20-30 minutes.
Any residue left should wipe out with a rag.

Some citrus degreasers work pretty well, given a bit of time . Hot water and liquid dishwashing soap also work well, if the dishwashing soap is an anti grease type, so much the better . All non-flammable options .

Citrus degreasers will remove the grease very nicely, this is true. They will also remove the anodising from aluminum, and do it in a very unfortunate way, leaving a mottled appearance that's really hard to polish out. I'm not saying don't use it-- obviously, it works and works well-- but try keep it off any alloy parts you've grown to love.

OK, here's a quick update...

Since I didn't have a drill press and wire wheel like the one displayed above by JDT, I decided to do a head to head comparison between liquid Dawn (grease-cutting) detergent and carb cleaner. I would have tried a citrus cleaner as well, but the only thing citrusy in the house was lemon pledge (it does great on the wood furniture, but probably wouldn't have worked as well on a goopy BB cup).

I mixed the liquid Dawn fairly strong with water and dropped a BB cup and headset cup into the mixture to sit over night. The water was definitely MUCH dirtier this morning and the goop in the cups did wipe out for the most part but it was tough to remove it and there were still small vestiges of the crud in the spots that were tough to get to.

After this, I took the carb cleaner to the remaining two cups and gave each one a good spraying and let them sit about 5 minutes. The gunk wiped right out! I then finished the bearings, BB spindle, and the two cups that were in the liquid Dawn with the carb cleaner. They cleaned up perfectly as well.

As much as I would prefer a greener approach to cleaning out old, gooped up grease from parts, the carb cleaner is tough to beat.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions!

Texbike

Glad to hear all is well .

I have a plastic coffee can filled with non-citrus degreaser that I use to soak the cups. It may take two or there soaks followed by wiping out the goop, but it works for me and I do not have to use any potentially hazardous chemicals.

heat makes all the difference in the world, simple green in an old pan on the stove on low and soak the parts for 10 minutes. or mix boiling water with room temp smple green and soak...

my next in line is Wd40... no need for gas, kerosene, carb cleaner or any of that potentially harmful stuff

for really stuck-on old grease i use bamboo shish-kabob skewers to scrape it off. they're soft enough that they don't scratch up metal, and much better than your fingernails. this is in combination with Goo Gone and Simple Green. I also use a brass wire brush on an electric drill, but carefully, as it can damage the finish on some metals. generally i don't use anything abrasive on cups / cones and only polished faces.

I use the point and back side of an xacto knife blade to break up the hardened grease. Being in the architecture field, I had plenty of xactos lying around and one day gave it a try. Works really well; I even use them on hubs. You should just always be careful to not get into the surface of your component.

I scrape out what I can with a popsicle stick, then spray down with Zep citrus degreaser. Let it sit for a while, then scrub with an old toothbrush.

+1. Citrus degreaser and WD-40 work about equally well, in my experience. Scrape with wood, scrub with a soft brush -- don't use any kind of steel on a bearing surface.

Zep Purple degreaser blows the 'citrus' degreasers away, but it's nasty stuff that requires gloves and eye protection.

The 'green mineeral spirits' in stores now isn't even mineral spirits, but is still more powerful than Simple Green.

I've got an old 1 qt cast aluminum sauce pan.

I fill it with water, a half-cup of white vinegar and put it on the stove with the parts in it until it boils. Nothing grease-based can withstand this treatment no matter how dried-on or old. This works great with old hub parts that even carb-cleaner doesn't want to touch and there are a ton of nooks and crannies to get into.

Takes 4-5 minutes of boiling and it's gone. It leaves a mess as the grease floats to the top of the water and burns onto the sides of the pan above the water level. Sometimes I have to fill it again a little higher and re-boil just to clean the pan before putting it away.

This trick works with old gunked up carburetors too -better than carb cleaner, I might add.