I'm in the middle of a head gasket job on a car, and it is a messy job. Oily coolant oozes from numerous places in the engine bay, threatening significant stains on my concrete floor.
In the past when I would pull an engine or otherwise do major service (i.e. messy service) I would use a piece of cardboard to catch dripping oil and coolant.
This doesn't work well. The oil soaks through relatively quickly, and then you have to try and fold up a piece of cardboard into the trash because you can't recycle that ish.
Insert stroke of brilliance:
Pee pads, wee wee pads, training pads. Whatever you want to call them, slide one under the car before you start. Advantages:
Not just for major projects either: if your vehicle "marks its territory", a pad under the car keeps it off the concrete too. Wind will blow them around a little, so weight the corners down if you find them shifting. Or perhaps some tape?
They are also handy for babies when you are changing them and are a little slow with the new diaper or if you need to allow things to air out or if you're out and about and they have a "blowout" and need to provide a clean spot to work from.
I would think a little spray adhesive and cardboard would be a good solution for weighing it down under a car and making it disposable/portable.
That's a pretty sweet idea. I use pig mat all the time under aircraft and always figured it was a weebit too expensive for my garage so I just dealt with the stains. I'm going to have to try this.
Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote:
They are also handy for babies when you are changing them and are a little slow with the new diaper or if you need to allow things to air out or if you're out and about and they have a "blowout" and need to provide a clean spot to work from.
I would think a little spray adhesive and cardboard would be a good solution for weighing it down under a car and making it disposable/portable.
I wasn't going to mention why I had these pee pads in the garage in the first place, but since you brought up babies, I feel compelled: My wife bought the pack of extra large pads when we were preparing for the home-birth of our daughter. She planned to use them to sit on if her water broke. 
We didn't use them, and they sat in the garage for years before my epiphany. Spray adhesive would be great.
I wonder what the price difference is between a pig mat and the pet mats?
I was using cardboard on top of a sheet of plywood under my Chevy that was doing it's best impression of the Exxon Valdeez. But the heavy trans leak would spill off the cardboard sooner than later.
I'll have to look in to these, thanks
A 10-pack of 10 28"x30" puppy pads was around $12, but there was a wide range of prices & sizes. We use them in the bottom of our sugar glider's cage.
