How to Clean Fuel Injectors

There’s really only two ways to clean your car’s fuel injection system. Do it yourself or take it to a professional. Ok, ok, so I’m a wise-guy! No really, that is the choice, and dependent on the complexity of your car, truck, boat, RV, or whatever it is, on the “do it yourself” side, you really also only have two choices, a) dumping in a pre-made product into the fuel reservoir, or b) dis-assembly and the use of either an injection type cleaning solution, or real down-and-get-your-hands-dirty take the whole thing apart and clean the crap out of it (caution – for real men only).

If you are like me, you are probably the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” type of guy, especially considering the complexity of today’s internal combustion engines, and you probably also got a limited resoure of tools, time and sufficient space to become “Joe Mehanic” for an afternoon, or a day, or maybe even a week dependent upon how much you pay attention to what you are doing, how many parts you loose or get mixed up, and how far the chain of screwed up parts or broken bolts on the engine you encounter. I could give you many examples of that last situation but I am sure you have probably already “been there done that” too, and that’s why God created professional auto mechanics.

The simplest solution is to take your car to one of the local franchise auto parts stores, have them put it on the scanner and tell you exactly what’s going on with the air/fuel mixture, RPM, idle speed, etc, usually the resultant code printout will give you a decent enough game plan on how complex your fuel injection cleaning has to be, and usually I end up letting them sell me two bottles of the “dump in the tank” fuel injection cleaner, and I head out onto the highway (with radar detector in hand) and “open ‘er up” to let the magic juice do it’s thing.

I used to be real cool and opt for the take the fuel line off and insert the injection type cleaning solution, which usually took about 15 minutes to accomplish, but it seems that in this day and age, the parts stores are not selling these kits anymore, probably because the number of guys that blew themselves up made the corporate lawyers go berserk, so these type of systems are only available to professionals or online, and I preface them with a word of caution. DON’T DO IT. I don’t want to be responsible for you not having any eyebrows for four months, OK big guy?

The last, more complex option is for the real hardcore do it yourselfers. Get out the trusty repair manual or go to your favorite DIY (Do It Yourself) automotive website, take the injection manifold completely off the engine, put it on the workbench, soak it and scrub it with all kinda wierd shaped pipe cleaners and brushes and nasty smelling solvents, put it all back together, and be happy all that expensive gasoline is getting to where it is supposed to be getting and getting there nice and clean (and burning a bigger hole in your wallet right?).

Whichever is your method of choice, it is a very important milestone of regular vehicle maintenance, and if overlooked can lead to other more serious “out of spec” problems, so it should not be forgotten or put off too long.

How to Clean Your Reading Glasses

Even if you bought your reading glasses from a store instead of an optometrist’s office, they still need special care. Any glass or plastic lens can scratch and pit, making it hard to see through them. Most scratching and pitting is caused by improper cleaning.

The easiest way to keep your glasses clean and minimize the risk of scratching and pitting is to buy a system. Optometrists sell containers of cleaning fluid along with soft, lint free cloths, or cloths already saturated with cleaning liquid. These are quite expensive, but they’re very safe for your glasses, prescription or otherwise.

Since the main ingredient of this cleaning liquid is alcohol, if you want to save money, you can buy rubbing alcohol from the health care section of your grocery or drugstore. Alcohol dries quickly and doesn’t streak, but if you don’t wipe it quickly, you won’t get smears or splashes off the glasses.

Dish washing liquid diluted with water will clean lenses and frames of oil and dirt. The most thorough cleaning is done by making up a small bowl of a drop dish washing liquid and warm water. Dip your glasses into the mixture and rub with your wet fingers. Rinse well and wipe dry with a soft cloth. Alternately, you can wet the glasses, put a drop of dish washing liquid on each lens and rub with your wet fingers. Rinse and dry.

There’s third mixture that’s more convenient and works well in a spray bottle. Mix one quarter cup of plain ammonia, one teaspoon of dish washing liquid and a cup of water. Stir this together and spray it on your glasses, rinse and dry.

Always clean the frames when you clean the lenses. Oil from your face and fingers is acidic and will degrade plastic frames over time.

Don’t use tissue of any kind to either clean or dry because they contain small fibers that can damage glass or plastic lenses.

How to Clean Wine Stains

Some stains are a huge nuisance to remove especially if not treated immediately. Red wine stains definitely fall into that category. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to make sure your garments or furniture aren’t ruined forever!
First check to see if the garment is dry clean only. If it is there’s not a lot you can do about as treating it can cause irreversible damage to some fabrics. Instead, try to immediately get it to get it to a cleaners immediately. Either way, you can blot the stain with paper towels to remove as much wine as possible.

If your garment is not dry clean only you have a few options. But before you pre-treat your fabric make sure to lay a towel or washcloth between the front and back of the garment to make sure the stain doesn’t soak through, staining the back of your clothes. You could make a solution using a teaspoon of laundry or dish detergent and one cup of hydrogen peroxide in bowl, soak a sponge in it, squeeze about half the mixture out and then gently dab on to the stain.

Or you could mix one third a cup of a white household vinegar with two thirds cup water and gently dab on. Or to really fight fire with fire, you could even try pouring white wine over the stain (this works even on table cloths and carpets!) as white wine has been proven to get red wine out of fabrics.

After you’ve treated the stain with one of the above methods then wash it. If the garment is machine washable, wash it in cold water and let air dry. If it’s hand wash only, wash it in the sink with cold water and a mild detergent.
With proper pretreatment and delicate care, red wine stains hardly cause a problem!