Ultrasonic carb cleaning machines?

[jerrytug]

Greetings, I have a couple of old outboard motors, and various Primus type jets, all gunged up and unusable. The carb jets get blocked by resins etc when petrol evaporates, and the Primus jets by hard soot.
I've never had much success with poking wires, nozzle reamers etc through tiny jets.
I just googled 'ultrasonic carb cleaning' and the machines are on sale for £50-£100 which was a surprise, it would be well worth getting one, if they are effective..
I was wondering if anyone has a recommendation, or a model to avoid! Just for small parts, eg carbs of 5hp 2-strokes. Thanks for any tips Jerry.

 

[rcx132]

The cheap ones break and they are drop shipped by offshore companies so there's very limited warranty or comebacks. There's a UK company that sells them only slightly dearer so that's who I went with after first one broke. I'll dig up the name.

 

[rcx132]

It was Allendale. Just beware they sting you with the baskets. They remove the baskets from the cleaners and then charge you extra for them even though an ultrasonic cleaner is useless without a basket and the factory ships then with one!

 

[slim_boy_fat]

I have a small one I bought on the 'Bay to cleaner a mower carb, worked a treat and got the engine running properly again. I've used it since on small stuff and have been pleased with the results.

 

[dobbslc]

They are very good but probably won't remove the resin's, a strong solvent might help with that.

 

[Fazerruss]

Just so it the old fashioned way an strip n clean with petrol. A mate brought me a carb that his other mate had cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner. What a waste of time. I stripped it and washed in petrol with a brush.
I've always done it this way.
My brother in law has been an race motorcycle engine builder for 50 years resurrecting old motors this way.

Used to do my jet skis as they spent more time unused.

A tip my BIL also said was to immerse freshly built carb in petrol as this causes all the gaskets to swell and seal better so no leaks.

 

[jerrytug]

Looks like an Allendale for me.. thanks for the advice chaps!

 

[rcx132]

The Ultrasonic DOES help a lot, especially when combined with heat and solvent. The ultrasonic cleaners have built in heaters. Cleaning with petrol and compressed air will only go so far. You can also get a selection of sweepy brush hairs and use them to poke through as many passages as you can. Remove as many jets as you can, clean the passages, and replace.

Ultrasonic only HELPS though, you still need to agitate and use compressed air and decent carb cleaner. Don't assume you can just dunk the carb in there and be done.

I paid £200 for my 6 litre ultrasonic cleaner and no regrets. You can get little ones much cheaper and people on this forum have said they are happy with the small £50 ultrasonic cleaners. But I wanted to fit more parts so invested extra.

 

[bricol]

Ultrasonics will only work where you have liquid - so trapped air pockets will remain dirty. Open everything up to let air out, turn it out and agitate it in the tank to get liguid in everywhere. The effect is strongest in light of sight, but will work through thin walls, along passages etc. I'm guessing the smaller units have the transducers on the tank bottom, so you might need several goes to expose all passages to the effects, re-orienting the component each time. Detergent in solution helps too - the ultrasonics keep contaminants moving away from the surfaces, exposing more to the solution.

Be careful if you use sodium hydroxide solution with ultrasonics with aluminium - it will clean beautifully, but will rapidly eat away the ali. - the same as with detergents, the ultrasonics keeps the surface contact constantly moving, exposing fresh material all the time.

As for baskets - make your own, or simply dangle the component in from a wire on a bar across the top. You do have to be careful that the weldmesh or perf you use doesn't kill the effects, but you can even use thin solid wall material with the more powerful units. Certainly with transducers on the bottom, thin solid side walls with a mesh bottom basket will work.

Heat helps - the ultrasonics themselves will heat the water (each one of the tiny implosions caused between the water molecules by the ultraonsics has an instaneous temperature increase of hundreds of degrees - they do start to warm things up - the big units, very quickly and you actually have to start to cool things down).

I used to design industrial ultrasonic cleaning equipment in the many kW range, and I really do miss access to equipment for "testing"purposes . . . ;-)

I'm hoping the units come with a warning not to put your hands in an operating tank - the same imposions will happen in your blood and cell tissues - not exactly the best thing to do to them.

If you want an illustration, take a bottle of coke, open it, and suspend it in an operating tank . . .

 

[jerrytug]

Ultrasonics will only work where you have liquid - so trapped air pockets will remain dirty. Open everything up to let air out, turn it out and agitate it in the tank to get liguid in everywhere. The effect is strongest in light of sight, but will work through thin walls, along passages etc. I'm guessing the smaller units have the transducers on the tank bottom, so you might need several goes to expose all passages to the effects, re-orienting the component each time. Detergent in solution helps too - the ultrasonics keep contaminants moving away from the surfaces, exposing more to the solution.

Be careful if you use sodium hydroxide solution with ultrasonics with aluminium - it will clean beautifully, but will rapidly eat away the ali. - the same as with detergents, the ultrasonics keeps the surface contact constantly moving, exposing fresh material all the time.

As for baskets - make your own, or simply dangle the component in from a wire on a bar across the top. You do have to be careful that the weldmesh or perf you use doesn't kill the effects, but you can even use thin solid wall material with the more powerful units. Certainly with transducers on the bottom, thin solid side walls with a mesh bottom basket will work.

Heat helps - the ultrasonics themselves will heat the water (each one of the tiny implosions caused between the water molecules by the ultraonsics has an instaneous temperature increase of hundreds of degrees - they do start to warm things up - the big units, very quickly and you actually have to start to cool things down).

I used to design industrial ultrasonic cleaning equipment in the many kW range, and I really do miss access to equipment for "testing"purposes . . . ;-)

I'm hoping the units come with a warning not to put your hands in an operating tank - the same imposions will happen in your blood and cell tissues - not exactly the best thing to do to them.

If you want an illustration, take a bottle of coke, open it, and suspend it in an operating tank . . .

That's very helpful thanks. I was wondering if they clean oil from underneath your fingernails

 

[KemppiFrog]

That's very helpful thanks. I was wondering if they clean oil from underneath your fingernails

Don't. Dentist friend used to do that, until he read that it does bad things to the capillaries in your finger tips..

Judging by your 'wink smiley' this has come up before?

 

[jerrytug]

Don't. Dentist friend used to do that, until he read that it does bad things to the capillaries in your finger tips..

Judging by your 'wink smiley' this has come up before?

Hi Kf, I actually WAS wondering! I knew nothing about these machines until today..

 

[jerrytug]

Cooking in one (containing water of course) might be interesting though!

 

[KemppiFrog]

Cooking in one (containing water of course) might be interesting though!

Humm. Everything with texture would come out as mush. Stick to microwave.

I have just started using one for carbs. Put acetone in and let it go for a while. Nice & clean.

 

[Agroshield]

I just googled 'ultrasonic carb cleaning' and the machines are on sale for £50-£100 which was a surprise, it would be well worth getting one, if they are effective.

Might be worth checking your local charity electrical shop for ultrasonic jewelry cleaners. I actually saw one today in St Luke's Hospice shop in Harrow...

 

[wristpin]

As for baskets - make your own, or simply dangle the component in from a wire on a bar across the top. You do have to be careful that the weldmesh or perf you use doesn't kill the effects, but you can even use thin solid wall material with the more powerful units. Certainly with transducers on the bottom, thin solid side walls with a mesh bottom basket will work.

The manual that came with mine says that a plastic basket absorbs about 30% of the ultrasonic energy, aluminium containers 20% and stainless containers about 8% .

 

[chriskelland]

I got a 4 litre one from Allendale, with basket at a reasonable price at a model engineering show. Works very well. Quick tip, if you have a lot of small parts put them in a glass jar with the cleaning fluid and fill the bath with water
saves a lot on cleaner. I have even used it to remove paint from small bits & pieces.
Chris.