OT - Best way to clean out carbon from intake

slim pickens · Jul 6, 2006

Anyone have a good recipe to clean out the carbon (soot) and tar deposits on an aluminum intake? I have a 2 piece Ford upper/lower, and the screwdriver method wont work. The holes are too deep and curve too much. The intake runners arent too bad but the EGR ports are pretty gummy and sooted. I have flexible engine brushes, you provide the chemistry!

I looked at carb and intake cleaner MSDS, its mostly xylene and acetone. I think we have some xylene at work but it seems pretty nasty.

PS Aluminum cant be hot tanked, unfortunately, otherwise I'd be done by now.

aboard_epsilon · Jul 6, 2006

ARE you talking about cleaning whilst its fitted to the vehicle ..

If you are I cant help you ..

Head Off the vehicle the gunge in the intake can be cleaned with white spirit soluble paint stripper.... caution..with all plastic parts removed.

Exhaust would need wire brush in drill treatment ..

you can get flexible drives with small chucks on them for badly reachable areas
all the best..mark

Cyclotronguy · Jul 6, 2006

The guys at BMW used to open both intake and exhust valves, bead blast with crushed walnut hulls down the intake runners and suck the garbage out at the exhaust headers.... on vehicle.

When done, button everything back together and light the powerplant right back up. Any walnut hulls in the combustion chamber went up in smoke and out the tail pipe.

With any luck the induction / exhaust system cleaned right up and carbon induced high compression ratios were gone.

I've seen a few engines that were torn down shortly after (classroom exercise) worked great.

Cyclotronguy

slim pickens · Jul 6, 2006

I should have mentioned, I have the intake off the car for an engine rebuild.
Is "white spirit soluble paint stripper" what we would call mineral spirits here in the states?
Thanks!

PBMW · Jul 6, 2006

Bead blast it.
Done...

slim pickens · Jul 6, 2006

Bead blast sounds great... except these holes are effectively 18" long but only span probably 9" from hole to hole... overall shaped like a number 7. Unless there is a flexible deep neck radial spraying tip for a sandblaster that i dont know about, that isnt going to work. I wish it would!

aboard_epsilon · Jul 6, 2006

white spirit
is also called turpentine-substitute or oilbased household paint thinners.....here

I don't know what mineral spirits are.

I'm just trying to differentiate between the water soluble paint stripper ...that is week and no-good.

all the best.mark

Gary E · Jul 6, 2006

Slim,
Is this a Diesel engine you are talking about?

I hope so, hope its not a gas engine.

hello113 · Jul 6, 2006

slim the best way is take it to a auto machine shop and have it hot tanked drop it off pick it up done!

Ralph_P · Jul 6, 2006

I use a drill bit the same size as the hole. These right angle holes were drilled at the factory, they're not cast in place. You may have to remove a plug.

E. Bobicki · Jul 6, 2006

Can't hot tank aluminum, but you can bake it, some shops bake the carbon off all parts now because the hot tanks cost too much cause of chemical disposal.

lazlo · Jul 6, 2006

Slim,

If it were a cast iron block, I'd say go the carburetor cleaner (methyl chloride, xylene, tolulene, acetone,...) route, but some solvents eat aluminum.

I know the methyl chloride solvent containers say not to use on aluminum, don't know about the others...

Robert

gbent · Jul 7, 2006

What about taking it to a car wash with a good high pressure wand? It won't get the stains off, but should remove almost all carbon.

Dave Koehler · Jul 7, 2006

Go ahead. Check with your local auto machine shops. There is more aluminum in auto shops than cast these days. They have the stuff for cleaning aluminum. Some even have dedicated machines including the heat method mentioned.

michigandeer · Jul 7, 2006

stp makes a product for this...

"Air intake and Throttle Body Cleaner" in gray or blue spray cans about the size of carb cleaner

ive used a few cans to clean plastic and aluminum intakes and had no problems with it

FarmallMan · Jul 7, 2006

Here's an article on it for the F-Series mod engines: http://www.fordf150.net/howto/throttlebodyclean.php

Nick :cool:

Rich McCain · Jul 7, 2006

Try SeaFoam Deep Creep. It is a spray and made for carbon removal/top end engine cleaning. May work with just hosing it off after it sits awhile.

rich p · Jul 7, 2006

Find a vapor degreaser. We clean aerospace parts (alum) with no problem.

macona · Jul 7, 2006

Brake cleaner works good for me. Use it to clean out my trottle body. Also carb/choke/throttle body cleaner just blasts carbon off.

sinned · Jul 7, 2006

BioDiesel or Hoppes No 9. and oven cleaner are soem nto mentioned- though not sure abour the aluminum and oven cleaner... The purple Castrol Degreaser works well on gungy oily soot too.

poke around tdiclub.com for how vw folks clean our aluminum intake manifolds.

OT - Best way to clean out carbon from intake

Aluminum

Titanium

Stainless

Aluminum

Titanium

Aluminum

Titanium

Diamond

Cast Iron

Stainless

Cast Iron

Diamond

Diamond

Plastic

Plastic

Hot Rolled

Aluminum

Cast Iron

Diamond

Aluminum

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