Re: home grown carb cleaner


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.163] on Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 19:05:52 :

In Reply to: home grown carb cleaner posted by Glen of Idaho [70.41.244.80] on Wednesday, October 07, 2015 at 18:23:33 :

The original Chem-Dip was good stuff. It not only dissolved the oil, tar, and gum, but also the carbon deposits, and left a corrosion-resistant light yellow chromate finish. I still have a gallon of the old stuff, and I save it for important things. The new stuff, even though the can and label look the same, appears to just be a general-purposes solvent like acetone and lacquer thinner. The only MSDSs I can find on-line are for the new ecological formula. If anyone has an MSDS of the original stuff, I'd appreciate a copy. I think I have all the ingredients needed to recreate it. I know it contained methylene chloride, which is a much better "gunk" solvent than anything else, and some hexavalent chrome salt (the main toxic thing they had to remove) to give that nice chromate dip finish. I believe there was also cresol and/or phenol in it, based on the smell and what I vaguely recall from an MSDS I found years ago. To keep the methylene chloride from evaporating, it had some kind of insoluble oil on the surface. It was really quite a wonderful assortment of chemistry -- some to dissolve grease and tar, some to remove carbon and lead deposits, and some to passivate the surface to prevent corrosion.

A hot detergent spray (detergent needs at least 140 deg F to be properly "activated") might succeed at getting the oil and similar gunk off, especially if you can force it through the passages, but you won't get the nice yellow chromate finish without toxic chromates or chromic acid. Also, beware that hot detergent is alkaline and will eat into bare aluminum pretty badly. Not sure if the carb bodies are straight aluminum or a zinc-based pot metal, but I would watch it carefully at first. Pits in an accelerator pump bore, for example, would mean scrapping the carb. For the most part, I get by with gasoline (outdoors) and a variety of brushes, but the original chem-dip was definitely better.



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