So now to continue this tale of woe (sorry Tommy),
I must confess to being very glad to see some actual liquid oil upon opening the steam chest, as up to this point all the lubricant that I'd come across was either gummy or solid varnish, so seeing some that could actually perform the proper function, especially in such a critical place, was encouraging and even a bit reassuring. At the same time I'll have to say that upon opening up the valve linkage packing gland I found no solid substance at all, where there should be a few winds of graphite yarn or a Teflon O-ring or something of the kind, all I did find was the most sticky, jet black, get on everything and impossible to wash off, tar like compound. Alcohol doesn't touch it, Acetone does little better, Gasoline sort of works it with a lot of mechanical action and any soap short of Lava is hopeless! Even GoJo had a tough time with it!!!
No problem Dan. For that black stuff, did you try Zippo lighter fluid? Mom always had it in the house for when
we tracked in tar on the linoleum. Goof-off is pretty good stuff too but I think you have to watch the paint with
that one.
I did not try lighter fluid, and yes, when I was growing up my household used lighter fluid as a sort of dry cleaning fluid for various purposed, besides keeping the folks Zippos topped off. I did eventually get it cleaned up using the methods and materials I described, but it was a lot of mechanical wiping and re-wiping to get it done. Of course I ended up wearing more than my share along the way, so personal cleanup was a time consuming followup challenge as well.
Here's the offending GUNK:
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