Cleaning "new" glycol tower?

[outside92129]

I thought I scored nicely with a 6 tap glycol chilled T-tower for $285... until it arrived. As I opened the box it looked alright, no visible scraches, no rust, no dents or other gouges, a tad crooked but nothing some elbow grease couldn't fix. Then i spotted some expanding foam that leaked out the side, previous restaurant owner didn't even clean it off before using it. Now i'm thinking "Uh oh... that means... ". Yup, the entire inside from top to bottom was filled with this stuff. All the shank threads covered with hardened bubbly plastic goo.

After chiseling out a small trench I got the old nasty yellowed beer lines out (duct taped together) but the now-partially-chromed brass shanks are stuck because of the gooped up threads. I'm thinking this unit needs a complete parts breakdown and cleaning but i don't know how to get rid of the expanding foam. Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[worksnorth]

That is a bummer!!! Bummer!! My only luck with that blow in foam is manually picking it out, cut/chop/gouge/pick. Sorry man, hopefully someone else has a miracle solvent or something

 

[mblanks2]

Just a thought, but could boiling the entire set-up possibly melt the foam?

 

[BadNewsBrewery]

Try acetone, nail polish remover, or goof-off. Depending on the chemistry of the foam, there's a good chance the chemicals will eat through it. Just be careful of the fumes.

 

[outside92129]

Alright, i found something to eat this stuff! I think it was polyurethane expanding foam that was in the tower. Methylene chloride, it didn't completely eat it up but broke it down so i could rub it off. And the Klean-Strip version comes in a low VOC gel so it sticks well if you apply with a paint brush, and it can just dry up and "go away". However this stuff (chemical) burns like crazy. Just a small dab hurts, but interestingly no redness or anything.

I should have bought the smaller container, now i have a gallon of the stuff i don't know what to do with!

http://www.wmbarr.com/product.aspx?catid=72&prodid=117

 

[worksnorth]

Right on!!

 

[outside92129]

cleaner update - the methylene chloride got just about everything, around 98% of the gunk that was stuck in this tower. Apparently a few different adhesives were used but i was able to get to 99.8% using goo-gone. But those last tiny sticky parts wouldn't come off no matter what - i tried every solvent in the garage to no avail. But it was on the back of the unit and since it'd be up against the wall i was done and gave up. I busted out the BKF to shine it up and what-da-ya-know, it took off everything that remained. Anyways, i now have some nice shiney new bits for the man-cave (not as sexy and awesome as the midwest folks of course)