cleaning side pipes

[Steve Gallegos]

picked up a plastic bag on my polished pipes, now it's melted on. Any suggestions on how to remove it

[RedEye]

I would do a couple of chemical tests (rather than try to remove with head or physical abrasion). Some plastics will melt with acetone, alcohol, lacquer thinner, MEK, and similar solvents. This would probably be the best way. If it's burned that may have changed the state of the plastic, but even if it can be dissolved, it may be advantaged to use a release solve such as one of the above to remove it from the adhesion surface.
Good Luck!

[Rick Parker]

Be VERY careful with MEK, bad stuff!!!

[Ron61]

The type of side pipes that you have will also make a difference in what works well. I had stainless steel and they were relatively easy to get stuff off of.

Ron

[ha_pe_1968]

Hi Steve!

Try this: Removing plastic from sidepipes

[danw]

I, too, caught an escaped plastic bag on my stainless steel pipes last year.

Tried cold water on hot pipes. Nothing!

Tried nail polish remover (acetone). Nothing!

Tried EZ Off oven cleaner. Nothing!

The problem is that bag material (polyethylene or polypropylene) is chemically inert. Nothing cuts it.

Finally...
I heated up the pipes (the old fashioned way, I drove the car around the block), then scraped off most of the heavy stuff using a wooden paint stick with a sharpened end. Repeated the process until I was mostly down to bare metal, then used Borla Exhaust Cleaner and fine bronze wool and worked my way in from the edges of the plastic that was left. Done! Clean! Let's go for a drive!

[Steve Gallegos]

Ron61 What did you use to get the plastic off your pipes?

[itstock]

Ceramic stove top cleaner did the trick for me.

[ox_ford_guy]

Stainless steel pipes. I carefully used a heat gun and a wooden shim to scrape the plastic off. Then very fine steel wool to get the small bits that remained...