The dangers of asbestos dust in brake pads has been known at least since 1970 when I first started working on cars. The sad part is that the CRC Brakleen I and others used to regularly use to deal with the asbestos brake pad dust (soak the pads with the CRC sprays and use it to clean the dust off any drums or discs) when changing pads at that time contained carbon tetrachloride , trichloroethene or tetrachloroethyene or something similar that was later found to cause liver and kidney cancer and probably more dangerous than the asbestos dust. I used to but it by the drum and decant it into spray bottles. And no carbon filter mask in those days. The formulae has since changed - some discussion here
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages...tml?1408150589
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Just an fyi, but trichloroethylene is the same thing as trichlorothene. Those are just synonyms.
Also, there is only one Brakleen that still has chlorinated compounds in it.
There appear to be 6 varieties of Brakleen. See
http://crcindustries.com/auto/crc-br...-parts-cleaner
Two are red cans, four are green. All the greens are non-chlorinated. Only one of the reds is chlorinated.
The non-chlorinated red can says non-chlorinated. The other says "original" formula, and it's Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) says it is 90-100% perchlorothyelene (a.k.a. tetrachloroethyene). See
http://www.crcindustries.com/faxdocs/msds/5089.pdf
I do not know if Brakleen has always been tetrachloroethlyene or if it was, at one point, trichloroethylene. Both are common degreasers/solvents.
If anyone wants to know, generally, what is in a commercial chemical mixture, just google the name and "MSDS" and you should be able to find out pretty quick. Just understand that the can that has been on your garage shelf for thirty years may have been different at the time it was made.
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