I've been collecting a list of "Household Hints" since I first started to Bodge as a youth. The recent provocative discourse on cleaning ones head in the dishwasher has prompted me to expand my list thru your collected expertise. If there is interest, I will repost the revised version after the e-mail frenzy subsides...Don't blame me if these don't really work, or back-fire on you!
My list of household items for bodging thus-far is as follows:

Dish detergent-liquid:makes rubber temporarily slippery(handgrips,tires,cushdrives)

Dish detergent-granular:use as abrasive, in dishwasher to clean alloy parts,cleans white-wall tires

Lemon Juice:deoderizes stuff,secret writing for club members....

Olive oil:restores leather parts

Mineral oil:there must be some good use for this stuff....let me know....

Salt:can bend and shape plastic which is immersed in salt in a saucepan on a hotplate.

Flour:with some water can be worked into a paintable dough to plug certain holes. Dusted on a tank, it can help find a leak.

Dry lube Corn Starch: dry lube. Leak finder.

Foot powder:spray-on kind makes great leak-finder.

White-out:white touch-up paint, marker for timing marks, insulator qualities

Nail polish remover:paint remover,carb cleaner,contact cleaner.

Nail polish:insulator, scribe mark.Stiffen little plastic parts.

Bread:can smash wonder bread to plug holes. Can be used as a crude fuel filter.

Ammonia:good for cleaning brass,speedo internals.

Cat litter:picks up oil pretty well. In canvas bag use as metal beater's buck.

Rubbing alcohol:clean and dry contacts

Witch Hazel: must be good for something...let me know...

Drain cleaner:strong base can be used with water in heated tub to strip paint.

Oven cleaner:spray on type works as paint remover.

Potato:I forget what, but it's a real good one...(was it for removing broken lightbulbs from sockets?)

Egg white:in desperation, use as stop-leak in a leaky radiator....

Milk of Magnesia:use to loosen up tight-assed antique Harley riders and also good as an anti-seize compound (so I'm told)!

Aluminum foil:use to scrub rust off chrome.

Boraxo-Bonami:use to seat brakes and rings.

Coke:gets rust off small parts

Molasses:also gets rust off steel (and baked beans)

Toothpaste:mild abrasive/chrome/plastic polish/lapping compound (some brands better than others)

Tang:cleans dishwasher after you've used it covertly to "hot tank" your alloy

Oil of Wintergreen:we used this on slot-car tires as kids, must be good for treating rubber?

Lemon Pledge:slippery stuff, can be used as a lubricant or to clean off painted body parts (on the bikes!)

Shoe polish:touch-up nicks in leather or naugahyde seats.

Vinegar:weak acid could probably used to de-corrode water-cooled alloy engines (like your coffee pot!)

Soft-scrub soap:good on fiberglass or plastic parts.

Chlorine bleach:cleans whitewalls, rust stains. Makes a great bomb(or poison gas) with ammonia(saw that on "I Spy" once...)

Chlorine cleanser:use with steel wool to emulate SOS pad on chrome/rust.

Petroleum Jelly:lubricant for.....

Pencil/erasers:scrappings of graphite make a good dry lubricant. Have used the lead to replace the graphite bar (recently atomized) in the distributor rotor of my 53' Olds when no replacement rotor could be located. Eraser can be fashioned into little rubber bumpers,washers and grommets.Laminate to metal with super-glue.

Candle or Soap:dry lubricant.

Crayons:dry lube. Use as clue to exhaust pipe heat- where might cross-over be most effective. Use to transfer patterns on gaskets (ancient temple rubbing technique)

Greg

A few others:

Windex: great for grips, makes them slip on, then makes the inside of the grip tacky as it dries.

A word of warning: Lye based oven cleaners and drain uncloggers react with aluminum to form Hydrogen gas. It also eats up the aluminum in the reaction.

Candles: also work great on quieting noisy fan belts.

WD 40: use as a tire lube for mounting and dismounting tires. Works better than soapy water. Also great as a chrome rim cleaner (not polisher).

(Quite a few wrote to disagree about the tires part:

As a petroleum product, WD40 should not generally be used as a tire lubricant. Though the rotting effect on your tires may not be significant, most British bikes use inner tubes which will be seriously weakened by any petroleum based products. This is the same reason we don't use Vaseline for...and use water-based lubricants instead- Latex condoms (which have a rubber ring which may be substituted for the O-ring on your concentric carburettor flange in a pinch) are dangerously weakened by contact with petroleum-based lubricants. Inner tube or condom blow-outs can be dangerous; I know as I'm a British bike rider and a Pharmacist.....)

Coca Cola - dissolves the corrosion on battery terminals

Robert - San Francisco

Mineral oil:there must be some good use for this stuff....let me know....You can fill a Lucas ammeter with the stuff, and slow the needle down to the point where it's more or less useful.

Petroleum Jelly:lubricant for.....    Shame on you! Always use water-soluble lubricants for ...

Martin Lodahl, of Auburn, California
lodahl@foothill.net
Beer Brewer, Writer and Judge
Winner of the Quill & Tankard Award

Actually, I like baby powder for mounting tires.

Fine pepper is good for sealing radiators.

I have seen mineral oil used as hydraulic oil. It also cures constipation

Eric Lamberts

Talcum Powder - Great for getting tyres on the rim. Makes the bike smell nice, too.

Section of Wire Coat Hanger - Handy 'on the road' top dead centre locater.

Half a wooden clothes peg. Wedges open the auto advance retard mechanism.

Blackburn double-action Mountain Bike pump. Incredibly compact and powerful ATB pump that will inflate a 19" wheel to get you home after that puncture. FIts in the pocket (almost).

Ken Hastie

Somebody asked about removing rust stains from aluminum rocker boxes, and somebody else suggested Muriatic Acid. DON'T!!  Muriatic acid is Hydrochloric and will eat the rocker boxes. Sure the rust stains will be gone. So too will be the rocker box. What about Oxalic acid? Also known as Salts of lemon, available phrom your local farmacy, probably on special order. Maybe some chemists would know if this will work, or will it damage the aluminum too? It is used for removing rust stains from sinks, etc. Or what about that CLR stuff? any good either? How about Phosphoric acid? Will that eat aluminum? Just some phood for thought.

OK, I'll jump in. The acid in lemon is citric acid, and will not eat aluminium. An even better solution is to use vinegar (acetic acid). According to the CRC handbook, Al is insoluble in ac.a. while rust will dissolve. Be sure to use the "uncoloured" version though, as the red "naturally brewed" vinegar might stain the covers even worse.

Super glue and baking soda is a great mix. use it to repair saddlebags all the time Not a joke! Wells, who is a motorcycle aficionado, is also the repair technician for our UNIX computer equipment at work. He showed me that trick when he repaired some plastic parts in a tape drive. These parts needed to be able to stand up to stress and needed to be built up as well as re-attached. I was skeptical, but the repair has lasted for years of hard use.

Righteous Rides
Jon Hose
hose@pacific.net