Carbon Removal?

[CCI]

When driving cast iron valve guides out of aluminum heads it is essential to either get all of the carbon off the guide or soften it chemically so the aluminum bore is not damaged.

I used to have access to a cold tank, not any more.

I glass-beaded the heads fairly clean, but a little carbon on the guide that is not removed by the bead blasting will do a lot of damage.

I'm looking for a chemical I can put on the guides to reliably soften the carbon.

Any ideas?

 

[Lapham3]

I'm sure somebody will have a better suggestion, but when I've done teardown and cleanup of old engines to build, the PB Blaster that I spray around liberally and soak about everything, seems to do that job-good luck.

 

[spackard]

I used to use Permatex gasket remover to remove all the carbon from the tops of pistons. It takes a few days of spray, soak, scrape with a plastic or wood spatula.

It was recommended to my by a BMW motorcycle mechanic.

 

[camarokiller]

Berrymans b12 works pretty good for built up carbon

 

[CT8]

How do you get all the glass beads out of the metal?

 

[DoubleWasp]

LC20 mixed with a little ATF. Bye bye carbon.

 

[CentAmDL650]

I don't suppose you have any Marvel Mystery Oil leftover from your shovel head experiment gone awry, now do you? Leave it soaking on the carbon/ varnish/ resin for about a day and the junk will dissolve in it and wipe away with a rag. Much safer and healthier for a mechanic than using paint thinner/ brake cleaner/ carb cleaner solvents etc.

 

[CCI]

Now that right there is funny.

 

[CCI]

That's on my mind every time I put a motor part in a blast cabinet.

One of the advantages to a dry-sump system this simple is it's easy to figure out where the beads will go next if they get loose, and I don't ever use an abrasive of any type anywhere near a part that has an oil supply passage in it. So the combustion chamber doesn't bother me a bit, and in fact I have successfully re-conditioned pistons twice using glass bead blasting.

Scotch-brite pads, plenty of hot soapy water, and attention to detail has worked for me for a long time, never had a problem.

There's no way I'd bead-blast crankcases, rocker boxes, or anything with a drilled supply-side oil passage.

 

[CCI]

Originally Posted By: CCI
Now that right there is funny.


And the funniest part is I'm actually trying it. Intake and exhaust ports are full of MMO right now.

 

[CCI]

Originally Posted By: CCI
Now that right there is funny.


And the funniest part is I'm actually trying it. Intake and exhaust ports are full of MMO right now.

 

[CentAmDL650]

Originally Posted By: CCI
Scotch-brite pads plenty of hot soapy water, and attention to detail has worked for me for a long time, never had a problem.

WHOOOAAA THERE !!!!!

I am speaking of your other thread where using MMO or Seafoam in your gas preceded scouring up the rings and cylinders on your two shovel head engines. It has been mentioned on the BITOG boards numerous times before:

- NEVER USE SCOTCH-BRITE PADS ON ANY OF THE INTERNAL SURFACES OF YOUR ENGINE -

The super fine aluminum oxide strands embed themselves onto surfaces and are gradually released in heating and cooling cycles, then contaminate the motor oil, and wreak havoc on oil film load-bearing surfaces like rings, cylinder walls, wrist pins, bearings, cam lobes, lifters, rockers, timing chains and faces of gear teeth. No matter how careful you are in washing clean the surfaces, some of that junk gets left behind and eventually knifes you in the back. The MMO and Seafoam probably just sped up the process because they loosened up lots of aluminum oxide particles all at once.

Link: Ten year old BITOG thread warning about using Scotch-Brite in engines

If you find it hard to believe - do a UOA on your used motor oil from those engines to see what they say about aluminum levels.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
LC20 mixed with a little ATF. Bye bye carbon.


Yep, that will do it for sure.