You don't clean them with lighter fluid while on the pin or even put them back dripping wet. If you can't clean your rubber without dripping lighter fluid all over your PF, while smoking and huffing the fumes then don't clean, just replace. Water is worse for your PF than thinner and LF. Pumping gas can be lethal if your not careful also but were all still alive. Lol.

What could go wrong?
No really I am!!!!!
I was doing a mylar removal on my day one mylar High Speed, this thing
was friggin' beautiful, I was going to take it to Expo this year! I
use the hot air gun and it comes up like a dream, colors are even
brighter than I hoped!! Unfortunately, it leaves the regular tough
glue on the playfield and I do the goo gone with the paper towel thing
and then move on to VM&P Naptha and finally on to goof off!
Nothing is working on this machine! I finally decide to heat up the
playfield a little to soften up the glue, hopefully.
I take the PROPANE torch, don't ask me why, I don't know.....(why
didn't I use the hot air gun, I did it wasn't working fast enough, but
it was working)
Well needless to say I got about 30 seconds of heating it up and
POOF!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!! Black smoke rising, tripping over the dog, and
grabbing the bucket of soapy water that I used yesterday to wipe down
the cabinet and throwing it all over the playfield only caused the
flame to roll to the underside of the playfiled! Now I'm dousing it
out with a rag trying to blow out the remains of the flames and the
fuel slick accumulating in the bottom by the coin tray.
Aired the house out, friggin' freezing now! Stripped the playfield
bare in the hopes of doing an overlay or who knows anybody have a
playfield for sale? God I'm stupid! Lets just say at this point Jesus
wouldn't be playing my High Speed!
Did I mention I'm stupid?!?!?!? Mr. coil sleeves ain't got nothing on
me! I wonder if home-owners insc. will cover this? I hope I don't have
a dummy clause.
Excuse me I have to go to bed now and cry myself to sleep....
Eric A.
P.S. Did I mention I'm STUPID?!?!?!?!?

Dont feel bad, your not the only one.....well unless this is yours

hs_burnt_sm.JPG

Lmao! That was funny!

Here's the link. It' as repairs gone bad page.

http://www.pinballmedic.net/tech-tips/coin-op_catastrophe_collection.html

Sir, this is for your own good so please do not resist. Now slowly put down the wd-40 and step away. No sudden moves, just slowly put it down and we can all go home to our family's. You will thank me for this later. I know it's tough but there's people that can help. That stuff is bad news man. Your better than that. You have a good support group here. Next time you feel the need to spray just post the question "is there a better alternative"? Lol

Wow, bit touchy are we. Well first of I did read your entire post. It's not like it was a novel or anything. Why is it bad? It's not bad, it has a use, but not for the Pf. First off I think it's silly to use something on your PF that you need to be sure you completely remove when there's plenty of things that work just as well or better and leave no residue. Why use a two step process or even two products when you can use one. Second off wd-40 contains petroleum distillates and many of them are bad for rubber and plastics. Wd-40 means water displacement 40th try. It's a solvent made to displace water. It's not even ment to be a lubricant its a petroleum based solvent. The lubricating propertys dry up fairly quickly and attract dirt. So go right ahead keep using wd-40 on all the stuff pinster68 regurgitated off the wd-40 website. I can do the same thing but if you look past the sales pitch this is what you get.

its main ingredients are all petroleum distillates:

Aliphatic Petroleum Distillate
Petroleum Base Oil
LVP Hydrocarbon Fluid
Now for your second question, have I ever used it to clean? (i paraphrased to make this an actual conversation)
I've been in the service industry for 18 years and one thing every good tech knows is you use wd-40 when you need penetrating oil. Other than that leave it alone. One can will last me years. When a bolt it stuck I pull it out, that's it. I guess you can fix everything with duct tape and a hammer also.Lmao. I'll tell you what you can use it for, you can use it to loosen up your sense of humor. Look like that's good and stuck. Lol.

Does no one get jokes anymore? Or is it no one is allowed to have an opinion, or worse yet an opinion different.than your own. How about people do a little research before developing such strong opinions based off some regurgitated sales pitch pasted on the home page of a web site. And for the record, I never said.it wasn't a good cleaner, I'm sure it is. There's lots of good cleaners out there, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid,.....(see another joke watch, here comes the lol)LOL

Any reason you assume I've developed my opinion off the internet? I've been servicing commercial and residential appliances for 18 years. All the same parts as a pinball machine but in a different box. I've seen first hand what Harry homeowner can screw up with wd-40. Wore out bearings from washing the grease away and rotted out rubber o-rings and seals from petroleum based solvents. Just to name a few.I've trained for weeks at a time at the Viking range factory and the whirlpool factory, not to mention others. The manufacturer will tell us to keep that stuff away from there product unless a bolt is stuck. When you walk around these factories you don't see wd-40 laying around and being used on stuff. It has its use but it sure isn't cleaning rubber on a $5000 machine. So next time you discount someone's opinion how about you see where they got it from instead of assuming it came from the net.