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Hey gang,
I started out doing the injector replacement and my OCD got the best of me. This led to removing the entire intake and then removing the valve covers because they looked nasty and I wanted to freshen them up. This also led to removing the air pump assembly so I can do the air pump delete. Anyhow, some of my parts such as the throttle body, intake runners, and some miscellaneous brackets are covered in Grease because the previous owner never cleaned anything. I've included some pictures below but my intake runners the plenum are coated with carbon build-up on the inside. I did just finish completing my sandblasting cabinet and I am using glass bead to blast things. My question is some parts I soaked in a solution of simple green and water hoping to loosen up some of the build-up. Question number one can I soak my entire throttle body in this solution and do I have to worry about it hurting anything? Question number two what do you guys recommend as far as cleaning the carbon out of the plenum in the intake runners? Buying multiple cans of brake clean would get rather expensive. I'm trying to clean up some of these parts before I put them back on and I also want to sandblast the valve cover so that I can repaint them but I need to degrease everything as much as I can before I put it in the blast cabinet. What do you guys recommend besides brake clean and typical cans of engine degreaser? Thanks in advance for any info you guys might have.
My fav: Paint thinner. Put your dirty thinner in a sealed container, and most of the heavy crud will settle out of it so you can use the thinner again . . . and again.
Be careful cleaning the throttle body bores and throttle valve ODs. The factory put a coating on these to seal them at idle (so the IAC can accurately control the air volume at idle, I believe). You don't want to scrub this stuff off, or use strong solvents like brake cleaner on them. Use throttle body specific spray from the auto parts store on these areas. There should be quite a few threads about this if you do some searching. Also, you should check your throttle shaft bushings for wear. If these bushings are worn, it will give you intermittent high idle as the plates tend to stick just above the hard stop and you need to 'blip' your throttle to get the idle speed to come down. I bought an NOS throttle body to solve this idle problem on my 95. I measured the radial play in the shaft (at WOT) on the new throttle body, with the idea to re-measure it on the old one I took off. I don't have the measurements handy on the new one, but I can find them, if you are interested. I haven't measured my old throttle body yet, but I can get that number too. Good Luck!
Take 'em to a car wash and blast the bejeezus out of those parts with the hot power washer wand. It'll get them "like new" clean....and only take a few seconds of your time (besides driving to the wash and back).
Be careful cleaning the throttle body bores and throttle valve ODs. The factory put a coating on these to seal them at idle (so the IAC can accurately control the air volume at idle, I believe). You don't want to scrub this stuff off, or use strong solvents like brake cleaner on them. Use throttle body specific spray from the auto parts store on these areas. There should be quite a few threads about this if you do some searching. Also, you should check your throttle shaft bushings for wear. If these bushings are worn, it will give you intermittent high idle as the plates tend to stick just above the hard stop and you need to 'blip' your throttle to get the idle speed to come down. I bought an NOS throttle body to solve this idle problem on my 95. I measured the radial play in the shaft (at WOT) on the new throttle body, with the idea to re-measure it on the old one I took off. I don't have the measurements handy on the new one, but I can find them, if you are interested. I haven't measured my old throttle body yet, but I can get that number too. Good Luck!
John
This is the section from the FSM on throttle body cleaning. Removal of the DAG can result in throttle plate bypass and that can result in a high idle situation that the IACV cannot compensate for.
Sometimes that carbon can get so baked on its not worth the effort. Degrease then reinstall.
It will just start again when you drive the car
Worst ones seem to be the ltx cars as they run pretty warm its damn near impossible to get it all off.
I had the same issues with cleaning parts on my cars so I went and bought a stand alone cleaning station that has the pump for the solution coming out through the brush. I paid $100 for the cleaning station at Advanced Auto parts. Then I bought some generic de-greaser and put it in the machine and it worked okay but the old grease was still a lot of work. The next thing I did was take an unused oil pan heater (red silicone with wires inside it) and attached it to the bottom of the storage tank on the cleaning station. The heating pad had a thermal control circuit that keeps it under 140*. The pad I used is 10" square and was not expensive.
Now when I am going to clean something I turn the heating pad on and wait 1/2 hour and then even the heaviest of grease will wash right off with a lot less effort. Some solvents will make dangerous fumes and dangerous to work with when heated up. I have tried a couple different de-greasers and found the water based ones work well when heated up and have fewer nasty fumes when heated up.
If you are going to paint those parts you might wash them then bake them in an oven to get the solvents out completely. I have a full size oven in my garage for powder coating and that does a great job getting a part ready for paint or powder coating. I take parts from the car, wash them with the hot de-greaser, sand blast them and then either powder-coat or paint them and then re-install them.
Dawn dishwashing liquid dissolves grease and such pretty good. In fact, car paint suppliers will recommend washing a car with Dawn to get rid of silicones etc. There is a reason you see them using Dawn on birds that got covered in oil gunk from oil spills.
It cuts the grease but is not too harsh. Warm to hot water and Dawn does wonders.
in the two c4's that i have pulled appart to refurb and reseal, i have soaked everything (including the throttlebody) in old gas, in a huge translucent plastic tupperware bin.
They sat in the bin in my backyard for weeks.
I wont be doing it like this again as the flammable solvent sitting outside just seems really really dumb in retrospect. Granted it was so old that it had converted itself to turpentine. Still.
the amount of hardcore scrubbing even with gas soaking was crazy. the top of the intake manifold is pitted and corrosion and grime just bakes into those pits.
Recently i developed my basement and before it got all closed up i ran a hot water tap directly from my new hot water tank outside. i modified a short garden hose and now i hook my pressure washer up to the hot water and its bliss.
im with tom400 on this, i now use my same clear bin to hold them in place, and blast the crap out of them and it happens a million times faster.
then, after they are dry, i spray all my aluminum parts with eagle1 or alumabrite as it is known up here in canada. i repeat this a few times rinsing off afterwards.
im with tom400 on this, i now use my same clear bin to hold them in place, and blast the crap out of them and it happens a million times faster.
then, after they are dry, i spray all my aluminum parts with eagle1 or alumabrite as it is known up here in canada. i repeat this a few times rinsing off afterwards.
my parts look new after that.
^Bingo^. "Like new"....for little effort/time/cost.
Dawn dishwashing liquid dissolves grease and such pretty good. In fact, car paint suppliers will recommend washing a car with Dawn to get rid of silicones etc. There is a reason you see them using Dawn on birds that got covered in oil gunk from oil spills.
It cuts the grease but is not too harsh. Warm to hot water and Dawn does wonders.
Believe it or not BLUE Dawn is the best....before claying a car with Zaino, they recommend washing the car twice with blue dawn
Thanks all. I did use the pressure washer today and it helped get a majority clean enough to put them in the blast cabinet. I plan to spray high heat clear coat on the parts once they have been blasted, except the valve covers, those are being painted with a black wrinkle finish to help cover up the piiting anf finish issues of the original valve covers.
Phosphoric Acid is used by welders working with aluminum, it works great on aluminum parts once the grime is removed. Once sprayed on clean aluminum it takes off the oxidation preparing to be welded. Aluminum has to be free of any oxidation while welding it. Just don't get phosphoric acid on any painted surfaces. I use it to clean my aluminum radiator and A/C condenser on the car and home and lots of other places.
Heat does help, there is no question about that. I just don't like heating up certain solvents that will start gassing off some pretty unpleasant smells inside the garage. The water based de-greasers work but they work a WHOLE lot better when they are warmed up.
Some detergents will attack the clear coat on the car, my father-in-law found that out the painful way.
I was able to finish the valve covers today. They turned out pretty good. I sprayed the clear coat on some of the other parts but I don't have pics yet.
vc's look great. did u leave the wmblem on the vc and cover with blue tape or whats the blue stuff?
if u r trying to save the coinage like i was, i used my kids paint and teeeeenie brushes and even a toothpick to dob paint on. worked amazingly well! then i cleared it all with a 2k clear coat in a can.
I used the blue tape to mask off the PCV valve holes and the area where the emblem is supposed to go. The old emblem fell off a long time ago. Sometimes it he so doesn't stick very well to paint so I wanted those areas to be bare.
Parts Cleaning Question
