I don't think it is recommended as lubricant for ANYTHING. The original use was for drying out magnetos and such. The name itself is derived from Water Displacer and was the fortieth attempt at formulating it that worked. Howard Hughes had something to do with it...for aircraft use.
I quit buying WD40 when the huge economy sizes I used to buy clogged up half way through the can, making the contents inaccessible. What a scam. There are far better things to use for penetrating/lubricating oil than this stuff.
One thing WD40 may be actually good for is removing those pesky glued on store tags which are meant to survive Armageddon..
mike
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On Sunday, June 29, 2014 2:46:27 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote :
ass
I use it on a hand lathe occasionally for drilling deep holes - the wd40 is an aerosol can so I can shoot it into the drill hole. For drilling deep hol es, it requires peck drilling - withdraw the drill entirely after every 1.5 dia .
- perfect for cnc, but a bit tedious by hand. Ethanol sounds good, because it would evaporate, but not sure it lubricates enough.
We use to be able to get some chemical in a spray can for tapping, it'd allow you to rip through the metal quick with no heating and very little damage to the tap, tap lasted many holes. It contained a coolant that worked very well. We had to stop using it because our place didn't want any thing in there with tri-chem in it. Since then doing nice clean threaded holes has been a pita along with drilling holes.
It's an old fashioned way of lubricating things that normally don't require lubrication like door hinges, and maybe because it is less viscous than real lubricating oils, it is good for penetrating threads you need to loosen up.
That was probably built for Sears for somebody like GE or Carrier.
In particular, if it is about 1.5' high x 4' long, and/or it looks like the air conditioner in every Super 8 or Motel 6 motel room, then it's probably a GE Zoneline or the Carrier equivalent. Something like this:
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(Even if it doesn't look like that, it was probably built by somebody other than Sears.)
I vote for the "clean and lubricate" suggestion already posted. Also perhaps the run capacitor, as already posted.
Make sure that you have the electricity to it shut off before you dig in... just turning off the thermostat isn't enough.
Maybe. As has been said, tell them up front how old it is when you ask.
If it looks like the one linked above, maybe find a local motel that has similar units, and ask them who they use for A/C work.
Things specific to that model like the plastic grille or maybe some of the sheet metal will be hard to find. Things like fan motors tend to still be available. Sometimes the new motor isn't exactly the same as the old one, but it comes with a bracket (or you can buy a bracket) to make it fit in the same hole. A thermostat that matches exactly may not be available, but some techs will be willing to install a "generic" thermostat to make it work.
If you have the model number, Sears may have a parts breakdown online for it, even if they don't still supply the parts. If it's really a Carrier or GE, parts will be more available, but you may have to find a tech that knows who really made the unit.
The old good stuff was trichloroethylene, which worked wonderfully on all manner of metals. It was outlawed because it also can cause liver cancer. The ozone hole issue came decades later.
For aluminum, straight denatured alcohol from the hardware store works very well, and is a standard for machining aluminum in the metalworking world. Ignore all the theorizing about if it's a coolant or a lubricant or both or neither, and just try it. I use it all the time.
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