Cleaning aluminium engine case

[paul_f]

I need to clean my aluminium engine case - it has some burnt on oil on the inside. The only form of blasting that won't damage it is soda blasting - but I can't find anywhere in the south east that does that.

I have used an old dishwasher and oven cleaner which cleaned a lot from the engine.

The last engine I built I took the case to an engine builder and he dipped the case and it came back completely clean. Unfortunately he has closed.

Anyone got any idea what I could use to get it clean?

 

[knoba]

Would pickling paste (for cleaning stainless steel) work?

I haven't really had time to ...ahem, experiment with it yet!

 

[wyn]

Frost's do a soda blasting kit for around £200

There was a thread about it not long ago

 

[fingers99]

Phosphoric acid, maybe? Avoid oven cleaners as they contain caustic soda, which will generally turn them brown.

Bead blasting should be OK, or media blasting with some kind of pulverised nut. Blank everything off well first, protect bearing surfaces, etc.

In the past I've been known to put them in the bath and scrub like mad with a strong detergent. Not recommended if you have a live in partner............

 

[Hitch]

I think theres a number of cleaners specialy formulated for aluminium cleaning.
One we use sometimes is called Alishine, based on a hydroflouric acid solution.

 

[rtbcomp]

I use glass beads in a blast cabinet on a regular basis to clean ally engine parts. I usually do them with a fine grit first. This is a very common process, look in Yellow Pages under gritblasting, shotblasting, beadblasting &c

 

[paul_f]

We have a bead blaster at work, but I can't guarantee to be able to get all the fine particles out.

The advantage with soda blasting is that the soda is water soluble so a good scrub in soapy water should ensure that nothing will be left behind.

 

[fingers99]

I'm guessing that you could simply empty the bead out and use soda.

Given that you degrease it thoroughly and mask/blank off all the holes/bearing surfaces, I think you'll get all the bead out with a good rinse or 3.

 

[jimmy shoes]

brake cleaner is some powerful stuff, would that work?

 

[hareng]

The stubborn grimed in oils carb and brake cleaner wont shift on its own. As before bead blast and block or mask the holes up.
Dubios whether hydrochloric acid would either, it eats bare aluminium.

 

[shenion]

I found gel-type paint remover to work great. First the non-caustic "Orange" stuff. Then some old paint stripper (MEK, Touline and other nasty stuff) on the difficult parts.

Acetone works well for final cleanup.

Glass Bead blasting works well but it a real pain to get out of threads.

BTW, paint remover works great at removing carbon deposits on pistons/heads.

 

[Sam]

Boil it up with Rhubarb believe it or not! was an old remedy for cleaning casings tried it on a Triumph I was building worked a treat.

 

[fingers99]

The active (and pretty poisonous) ingredient in rhubarb is oxalic acid: sometimes used for bleaching pine furniture post stripping in caustic.

 

[busastars]

A fair few members on another forum have been using Cillit Bang for cleaning all there carbs etc, the rest have been geting them ultrsonic cleaned for about £20.

 

[paul_f]

I have only tried the paint remover - and it works very well. Will do it properly tomorrow!

 

[eil]

I have been boiling aluminium condensers that have been caked in oil/grease, what they affectionately call "chineese restaurant syndrome" in broken up finish dishwasher tabs comes up nice, and that is really caked and baked on old frying oil.

 

[ben8vgte]

hi there i've made a hot tub out of an imersion heater element and old plastic 200ltr barrel and i boil up all my engine part's over night in really strong tfr (traffic film remover) and water, it's caustic so the ally turns a little black but the dirt comes real easy, then i clean it up with phosphoric acid ( £11 ltr) from a hydroponics supply company