Not all brake cleaners are flammable.
Using gasoline to clean, NO, HUGE FREAKING NO. DON'T DO IT. All it takes is flipping a light switch, static electric spark, or any other number of possible ignition sources and YOU become a human fire ball, burned severely and maybe even dead.
Safety Clean (thats the kind of stuff you run in a parts washer) or any other NON flammable cleaning solvent for cleaning parts.
Little story bout gasoline. Buddy of mine threw a big bonfire party. He had a pile of dead tree limbs and old wood and who knows what else, all piled up in a pile that was approximately 20 feet in diameter and and like 8 feet tall, grabs a five gallon can of gas and starts splashing it all over the pile and and then after he had almost emptied the can he poured a trail from the pile for about 20 feet or so, and as he takes the can back towards the garage he says to me "Quick light that before it evaporates."
Let that sink in a minute.
I, dressed in shorts, tank top and sandals and having already drank enough to not be thinking straight, withdrew a lighter from my pocket, leaned over and flicked the Bic, and just like I was watching a movie in slow motion I remember seeing the wheel of the sparker on the lighter turning and the sparks start to spray out to where the gas from the lighter was shooting out, saw the little blue flame start and started to form the typical lighter flame shape BUT IT NEVER STOPPED GROWING!!!! That fireball was seen over a mile away. I don't remember actually running, but everyone that was there said that that was the fastest they have ever seen a guy 6' tall and 240 lbs run while literally parallel to the ground (I guess I was thinking just clearly enough not to try to run away by standing up to run).
I did not stay for the party. I was stone cold sober, a little shaken, and I stunk of burnt hair. It burned ALL the hair off my entire right arm, my arm pit, my entire right leg and right side of my left leg, I had about a couple weeks growth of beard and mustache before the incident but the right side was now gone, burned my hair on the right side of my head, and my eyelashes.
Moral of the story, gasoline is magical stuff when used inside a combustion chamber, it can be downright deadly outside of that chamber.
Go ahead, laugh, I can laugh about it now, but the truth is, that could have ended VERY badly. I got freaking lucky. :yup: