WD40 is one of the worst products to use for rest prevention. It does
provide a small amount of rust prevention, and might work for you if you
live in the dry parts of Texas. Someplace wetter and it won't do.
(The company that makes WD40 is either very lucky or they have the best
PR firm in the world. The stuff is mostly bought by people to use for
everything EXCEPT what it was invented for. People buy it for rust
prevention and for lubrication, and it is not very good for either use.)
If you've got lots of WD40 laying around, you can dry the parts of with
a rag then what you can do with the WD40 is to hose down the parts with
it, let them set for a few minutes, then wipe them off. Then put a good
rust preventative on them. You can buy spray products that are intended
for this, mostly made for hunters and so forth. There is a product
advertised on the TV car shows that is made for lubrication and rust
preventative, called something like "maxfilm". It is relatively
expensive. A more mundane product like "CLP" would do well also. Some
people said to use motor oil, and it would work pretty well. I wonder
if 90 weight gear grease would work, and I'm pretty sure the normal
automatic transmission fluid will work well too. If you really want
protection on the order of cosmoline, you can mix something like
Lanoline or Lee Liquid Alox in automatic transmission fluid and then put
that on the parts. The lanoline or alox will form the thick protective
film like cosmoline.
> The first thought is to embalm everything in WD40, but rust is caused by
> oxygen, not water. How is WD40 as an oxygen barrier? If I manage to keep
> everything dry, what is the best barrier for stored parts? Purchased parts
> are often covered in something really gooey.
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