I know some people are using diesel/kero in their parts cleaners

[RIP]

And I was one of them. I just drained the parts cleaner to unblock the pump and found that the diesel had destroyed the cabling and even the paint. Wouldn't have taken much longer to create a short. I'm going back to water based degreaser,

 

[Kram]

Hmm in what way, disolved/attacked it?
How long were you using diesel, for that to happen?

 

[JOEPRO]

I use a water based degreaser in my parts washer from day one - no issues.

 

[minimutly]

I recall adding heating oil to my parts washer to make it up - the resultant gloop took ages to remove.
Now only use heating oil, but don't top up with water....

 

[rtcosic]

It's the diesel with the bio-ethanol in it.....

Diesel is diluted with Fatty Acid Methyl Esther FAME not ethanol.

Petrol is diluted with ethanol. Ethanol is ethanol - there is no reliable way to identify the production method. In the early days large quantities of ethanol produced from coal were exported from South Africa to Brazil. Brazil was the largest exporter of 'renewable' 'Bio' ethanol to the USA.
Not hard to work that one out.

Tangent completed - back to the actual topic. I find it difficult to envisage Diesel dissolving modern ploymers used for insulation, but I'm willing to be enlightened.

 

[Sean]

I use the low odor paraffin in mine , get it from the garden center as its supposed to be for greenhouse heaters.
I expect it'll creep under the paint and into the potting in the motor eventually.

 

[RIP]

Hmm in what way, disolved/attacked it?
How long were you using diesel, for that to happen?

The cable to the pump was rock hard and cracking. The plastic of the pump itself was breaking down. I bought a new pump. The paint inside the parts cleaner has also softened and started breaking down. I've had the parts cleaner for a year.

 

[Ubique]

There's wiring, sometimes lots of it, in fuel tanks - both petrol & diesel.
It doesn't suffer from insulation degradation due to the fuel & it's additives, it looks like standard thinwall insulated wiring and probably is.
The SafetyKleen pumps & wiring have to be resistant to the product and the contaminants, so that's probably why they have additional, HOFR-like wiring - that, and the higher voltage.

 

[m_c]

I've got a parts washer that the pump casing fell apart due to diesel, and that was long before bio-diesel was a common thing.

I suspect the cheaper parts cleaner are simply not designed to be used with fuel, as the official recommendation was citrus degreaser.

 

[RIP]

I suspect the cheaper parts cleaner are simply not designed to be used with fuel, as the official recommendation was citrus degreaser.

Yup mine is the basic parts cleaner.

 

[MetalMonkey]

There's wiring, sometimes lots of it, in fuel tanks - both petrol & diesel.
It doesn't suffer from insulation degradation due to the fuel & it's additives, it looks like standard thinwall insulated wiring and probably is.

Most likely TXL, PTFE or FEP, unlikely to be standard pvc