When shite leaks: How to remove oil?

[J-T]

As per title, what's good at removing oil from driveways? First of all, I'll tell you how I got to have about 2l of oil all over it...

 

Seeing as I had the weekend to myself and it was sunny, I decided to do a few jobs on my AE82 Corolla. I changed the thermostat this morning, as it hadn't been warming up properly which went smoothly enough. Bit of a spill on the drive, but nothing too serious and it now comes off choke properly again. Result!

 

Feeling appropriately cocky due to attempting a mechanical related task without experiencing major disaster, I decided to change the gearbox oil, as the gearchange in this one has never been as nice as my others; it doesn't like rushing 2nd to 3rd and can feel 'sticky' at times. So i nipped to halfords, bought 3 litres of the correct oil. I'd never done this job on this car before, so I googled where the drain plugs were. That came up with conflicting info (surprise surprise), but when I had a look underneath I could only see 2 drain plugs, one right at the bottom, one half way up, so presumed the one half way up was the filler plug.

 

I went to undo the lowest drain plug, but then in a moment of rare common sense, decided I'd best make sure the filler plug would undo 1st. It was a 24mm socket, so tried to undo it with the rachet and.....it wouldn't budge. Tried again, hitting the rachet with a hammer (a few times from a few different angles) and succeeded in rounding it off

 

After about an hour of swearing and fighting, I finally got it undone with a breaker bar and some imperial socket hammered on to it. Why anyone would tighten it to such a degree is beyond me. So with this, I proceeded to undo it by hand, expecting a mere trickle of oil to emerge. What did emerge was less a trickle, more Exxon Valdez. All over the drive, as I didnt have the container in place, as I wasn't expecting it to do this! Seriously, it was as if I'd undone the sump plug! Once I finally got the container in place I was convinced I must have gotten in wrong and undone the drain plug and the filler must be further up. Except I couldn't find it anywhere. So I decided to undo the other lower one (that I thought was the drain plug to start with), and about another 2l came out of that one. Altogether there must have been about 4l of oil in there - it's only meant to hold 2.6l! No wonder the gearchange was crap.

 

So, any ideas as to how to get this oil spill off my drive? All I've done up to now it wipe it up with kitchen roll. Luckily the oil was pretty clear, so at least it's not black. I'm not overly concerned as they're only old concrete flags and it's getting re-done eventually, but in the meantime I'd prefer not to have an oil slick each time it rains. And I want to make it look better before my other half returns

 

But on a more positive note, the gearchange is now much improved

[Rod/b]

Cat litter or a bag of cement.

[Richard]

Bilgex http://www.force4.co.uk/1324/Force-4-Bilgex--1L.html does quite a good job of shifting oil, it's not cheap though.

[KruJoe]

Cheap cola.

That "two gallons for a quid" stuff. Shifts owt.

[Parky]

Biological washing powder. Mix it with a little water to make a paste, and scrub it onto the stain. Leave for a few hours and it should wash most of it out. Dish washing liquid also pretty good.

[Station]

Brick mortar cleaner - it's acid, it DISSOLVED 10 years of oil off driveway in front of my eyes. It also dissolved the paving stone, because I left it on too long. You have to wear gloves, it can be bought from b&q.

[Ben_L]

+1 for Tesco Blue-Stripe Prison Cola...

[Partridge]

I’ve used cola to clean patios (no joke). Be prepared for the stickiness on your shoes right after using it though.

[KruJoe]

Wellies for the win.

[wackywacerwill]

The soft under belly feathers of a sea gull is what you want. That'll learn them for eating my ice cream, the bastards.

[Bobthebeard]

The soft under belly feathers of a sea gull is what you want. That'll learn them for eating my ice cream, the bastards.

 

Lol

[vulgalour]

Could you not just spill more used oil to give a nicely uniform finish to the driveway?