How to clean plastic bottles.

Put a handful of sand in them and a tiny bit of water/cleaner, shake like mad and wash it out very thoroughly of course! Works like an abrasive scrub then. Will get rid of the muck inside but i think the orange is the plastic itself discoloured, nothing will help that

I've had a tip off for denture tablets too, which is something I should've remembered.

I will try as many of the above as I can, apart from the dishwasher. I only know one person with a dishwasher and he's unlikely to let me use it for car parts because his Dad *would* find out and kill us both, no doubt.

summert like Detol, bit of water and some rice and give it a good shake

Rice. Basmati, long grain, whatever it doesn't matter - rice doesn't scratch the inside surface like some other materials used, yet still scrubs all the crud off.

Add some 2K thinners or petrol, half a pint will be fine.

Give that a good shake for a while, then wash it out with dishwash water. The plastic of the expansion tank will still be yellowed, that's permanent. If you want it to be milky translucent white like it was 25yrs ago, you'll need to buy a new one.

Bleach FTW then!

Something which may be of interest that I noticed the other day that was quite odd - I had one of the large plastic mixing bowls you have in the kitchen that start life off fairly transparent and then gradually turn more and more white/opaque...

I filled it up with a strong mixture of warm water and non-bio washing liquid to clean up after the cat had murdered a pigeon in the front porch (little sod), when I washed the bowl up again afterwards, it had been perfectly restored back to it's original clear plastic - wierd!? Might help with discoulored plastic bottles too?

^^ This. Or:

Rigger Boots
Waterproof trousers
Power Washer.

Ironically, this worked for the plastic tank in my dishwasher after I'd washed a set of CM gears in it.

ChasR: lots and lots and lots of rinsing out with fresh clean water.

Insomnia. Good excuse as any to do some tinkering.

Right, I've been going through suggestions as I've got the stuff to do it. First was to soak the bottles overnight with some extra strong denture tablets. This loosened up a lot of the crusty stuff in the bottles, but didn't do much else. Not worth photographing it really.

Next thing to try was rice. This was much more successful. After spending about half an hour swirling each pot with rice, warm water and a bit of laundry detergent I got this. I found that on the first attempt using fairy liquid it seemed to make the rice go too soft to work, the laundry detergent seemed to keep the rice hard and useful.





This bit of greb is stubborn and I can't quite get the toothbrush in at it.


I was astonished at how much it cleaned up this bottle though.






All that crusty blue-black stuff in the bottom is gone.


Next was to try some course sand, I suspected the rice wasn't fine enough to get the reddish scale off. I was right too. Another half hour swirling per bottle.










I'm actually quite pleased with that. I reckon they'll need another swirl with some sand before I bleach the yellowness out and they'll be ready for detailing and the little bit of repair on the screenwash bottle.

When I get frustrated at how long it's taking to clean up I remind myself that this is 26 years of sediment that I'm getting rid of, it's not something I can do in five minutes.

PROTIP - paint the outside of the tank with a white rattle can. For a truely professional finish, paint the bottom half pale blue or pink depending on if you prefer strawberry or blueberry antifreeze. Nextdoors cat loves both.

I wonder if it's worth getting an old second hand dishwasher for purely garage use? Probably not, lol.

Been busy with the grinder lately so I've not done any more on these just yet.