Refresh your old rubber safely (boots or other)

You will need some wintergreen oil, and rubbing alcohol.
I used a 3 to 1 ratio of alcohol to pure wintergreen oil.
4oz bottle for about $9 on amazon cheapest I found.
Mixed with 99% isopropyl alcohol, I've heard you can use 70% too.

Mix togather to make the solution.
I needed to soften my airbox boots that were rock solid.
There was not enough solution to fully submerge all of my boots, so I placed each one in a separate glass cup, added small rocks inside the hole and around the edges to fill up empty volume and have the boots fully submerged with the solution.

After less than 24 hours, I checked and I am amazed at how pliable and flexible they are now. I could leave them longer but I think it's great right now!

I'm gonna save the solution in a jar so I can reuse it for whatever else I need in the future.

Hope it helps someone!

 

Were the airbox boots mis shaped or something? Why did you need to soften them?

 

I've just fully cleaned and rebuilt a carb that was not good, and since I had to take them in and out a lot(learning, bought the bike not running) it was a real pain having to use heatgun to pop them in and out of the airbox. So before reinstalling I thought I'll just give them a nice little care, now they're soft and pliable, less risky to damage them with the heatgun, or to burn myself and curse at the bike lol.

This works for all kind of rubber tho, old fuel hose etc, so it can be used to prevent cracks when the rubber gets too hard. Thought it was pretty cool so I shared here

 

Thanks for posting this. I have this little hack book marked I think there is a vid on youtube that also shows the process.

 

Yes, there is a few. I added my personal touch of adding small rocks, or I guess marbles can be used too. 4oz bottle at 3:1 ratio isn't enough to soak 4 boots, but filling the volume and picking the right container(s) worked perfectly!

 

I have had some wintergreen oil in a small bottle for past year or so and did not use it yet. I got it for a different engine that I thought I could not find parts for but eventually did.
I have some small rubber vibe dampeners in an XS650 I may take this oil process to and see if it softens it up and affects the foot peg vibrations in a positive manor.

Found this: