Author Topic: Rinse carbs after soak? (Read 6492 times)

jakec · « **on:** October 15, 2018, 07:22:54 pm »

I have my 400 carbs soaking in a simple green solution for the last 4 days. They look like a lot of the surface grime is gone so I want to take them out. Should I rinse them with water immediately after? I noticed that the simple green leaves a white residue when it dries?

jgger · « **Reply #1 on:** October 15, 2018, 09:10:17 pm »

Yes rinse them and blow out ALL the little "holes" with air.

pjlogue · « **Reply #2 on:** October 16, 2018, 05:57:46 am »

Yes, rinse them and be sure to get clean water flowing through all the internal passages to be sure the simple green is completely removed. Then use compressed air to blow through all orifices. That white powder left behind from the simple green will clog up your small passages and jets.

-P.

ekpent · « **Reply #3 on:** October 16, 2018, 06:40:19 am »

4 days sounds like a long time.

jakec · « **Reply #4 on:** October 16, 2018, 09:46:43 am »

I didn't really mean to have them sitting that long but I left town, and then I didn't want to remove them until I knew what I was supposed to do. Luckily the white stuff just brushes off. I will remove them tonight and blast them with water. I don't have compressed air so I will go at them with the heat gun.

jgger · « **Reply #5 on:** October 16, 2018, 11:44:30 am »

Get a can or two of air like you use to blow out office equipment and computers .EZPZ

jakec · « **Reply #6 on:** October 16, 2018, 02:55:26 pm »

I got some compressed air duster stuff. Damn it's expensive at about $8 a can.

pjlogue · « **Reply #7 on:** October 16, 2018, 03:27:04 pm »

Hopefully your carbs were stripped down with all the jets removed before you soaked them. If not you need to remove everything and really clean out the passages. Pipe cleaners work well to help remove any fluffy deposits.

-P.

jakec · « **Reply #8 on:** October 16, 2018, 03:45:00 pm »

Everything was out with the exception of the emulsion tubes and needles (haven't taken the throttle arms out yet). In another thread I've detailed the take down more.

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,174470.0.html

jakec · « **Reply #9 on:** October 16, 2018, 06:25:16 pm »

Well I removed them from the simple green and put them in hot water and the white residue did not dissolve. It will only come off with scrubbing and probably some solvent like carb cleaner. I think I will just take them apart at this point and try to clean the parts individually.

jakec · « **Reply #10 on:** October 16, 2018, 09:09:43 pm »

I got the carbs 99% apart tonight. The only things I could not get apart were the final piece of linkage to the throttle slide. The corrosion left from the simple green solution is pretty pervasive. It does not come off as easily as I expected and it will take some scrubbing. I'm wondering what I should do now? I think my options are:

Dunk everything in a stronger solvent like a carb cleaner. I don't know if this will get it off though.
Purchase a Harbor Freight ultrasonic cleaner for ~$100. This would come in handy in the future I'm sure.
Pay someone to do the cleaning professionally, probably about $100 as well.

RAFster122s · « **Reply #11 on:** October 16, 2018, 09:32:06 pm »

Regular simple green is unkind to our carbs and the HD version that is purple carried by Home Depot is safe in concentration s up to 50% dilution with water. Not that it is going to clear your CARB's white deposits, this is probably a function of the green simple green reacting with the carb's metal. Hopefully it has not grown in thickness on the carbs or it could have destroyed the small passages making them even smaller. Just going to have to see if they are OK operating them. If they cannot be tuned and the passages are blowing clean, then they might need replaced.
IMHO, YMMV

David

calj737 · « **Reply #12 on:** October 17, 2018, 03:50:57 am »

Buy a few cans of Carb Cleaner. Hose the ever-loving dogsh!t out of them, internally and externally. The Carb Cleaner will also help remove the Simple Green residue. It will not remove the oxidation.

Remove the slides and the Emulsion tubes. Not doing this is a major waste of time on cleaning your carbs as they (emulsion tubes) are critically important for proper running carbs.

The screws are JIS, NOT Phillips. Get a set of JIS bits before you attack the slide screws. Or rue the day...

bochnak · « **Reply #13 on:** October 17, 2018, 06:45:50 am »

The white crusty stuff is hard to remove. Soda or vapor blast them.

jakec · « **Reply #14 on:** October 17, 2018, 07:12:41 am »

Quote from: bochnak on October 17, 2018, 06:45:50 am

The white crusty stuff is hard to remove. Soda or vapor blast them.

I'm partial to the idea of the ultrasonic cleaner because I could use that in the future. Is vapor blasting going to be the only way? Also can I give someone all of the individual pieces of the carbs or would they only do the bodies? There is some white stuff on the slides and some other small parts.

calj737 · « **Reply #15 on:** October 17, 2018, 07:18:54 am »

Send them to Nils @Restoration Cycle. He’s a member, offers discounts, but delivers World Class Service to everyone. And you will never deal with a nicer, more honorable guy.

johans · « **Reply #16 on:** October 17, 2018, 07:51:02 am »

I used the HF ultrasonic cleaner on my 76 750f carbs w/ simple green . After that i ( bathed ) rinsed them with Toluol. Worked great .

bochnak · « **Reply #17 on:** October 17, 2018, 08:18:30 am »

Quote from: jakec on October 17, 2018, 07:12:41 am

Quote from: bochnak on October 17, 2018, 06:45:50 am
The white crusty stuff is hard to remove. Soda or vapor blast them.

I'm partial to the idea of the ultrasonic cleaner because I could use that in the future. Is vapor blasting going to be the only way? Also can I give someone all of the individual pieces of the carbs or would they only do the bodies? There is some white stuff on the slides and some other small parts.

I have an ultrasonic cleaner and have not been able to get rid of crusty stuff. It needs to be picked, scrubbed, or blasted off.

Yes, individual pieces can be blasted.

Can you post some pics of what you are dealing with? Do you have a compressor?

jakec · « **Reply #18 on:** October 17, 2018, 08:49:33 am »

I feel like a big dummy for using simple green... ahhhh. Anyways, I don't have any photos of the bodies from last night but here are photos of the components. You can see the white stuff formed on the slides where the bore is. And some of the other small components have it as well. It seems it only affected certain metals. I will contact Nils, I've talked to him before. Also, if you view the thread that I linked previously there is some (severe) corrosion to the inside of the float chamber. One body in particular seems to have the hinge pin post corroded to the point where it may not take the pin any longer. So I may source a new body for that carb before sending it all off for blasting.

calj737 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 17, 2018, 09:52:39 am »

Send the corroded body to Nils, get it vapor blasted, then send it to Jim French for welding. He will return to you a perfectly good, usable body that Nils already blasted. Nils will forward the body to Jim for you.

Saves you from sourcing another body that may, or may not be any better than yours. And it will still need cleaning...

jakec · « **Reply #20 on:** October 17, 2018, 10:10:38 am »

A new body would be about $60-80, and I could get it before sending my stuff to Nils. I wonder if the welding by Jim french would be more or less?

As for the vapor blasting I already heard from Nils, he said not to feel stupid because I'm not the first to try this... anyways what part should i send? I would assume the only ones it would be necessary for would be the ones with tolerances i.e. the slides and choke butterflies. Anything else I could clean myself.

Also, can anyone explain how to remove the final piece of linkage from the slides? Thanks

TwoTired · « **Reply #21 on:** October 17, 2018, 10:17:21 am »

The carb bodies are an alloy which includes zinc. The chemicals in simple green have converted some of the zinc to zinc oxide, which is white.

You can't put the zinc back into the alloy bodies, it has to be physically removed from the surface like a mineral deposit. It is one way damage quite similar to corrosion which you accelerated with the simple green. It will be quite a challenge to remove the oxide from all the small passageways.

In the future don't listen to idiots that recommend kitchen cleaners for carburetors. There is a very good reason why auto supply stores keep cans that say "Carburetor cleaner" on their shelves.

Sorry for your loss.

jakec · « **Reply #22 on:** October 17, 2018, 10:30:35 am »

The way I ended up using simple green was I was suggested another chemical that presumably would have been fine.. then i did some research and saw a comparison between the two used on some automotive carbs, and I thought, well simple green is easier to find so I'll just try that.

Anyhow I just talked to the Nils and he said that considering the preexisting damage (corrosion seen in the linked post above) the economically the best bet for me is to just source a new set of carbs. Regardless of the damage that I've done with the simple green he says that a new set of carbs for 2-300 would be cheaper than a microwelding repair. So I will look into that option.

calj737 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 17, 2018, 11:35:23 am »

I doubt Jim charged nearly that much to repair a float post. Might give him a ring before you proceed.

TwoTired · « **Reply #24 on:** October 17, 2018, 11:47:53 am »

Quote from: jakec on October 17, 2018, 10:30:35 am

The way I ended up using simple green was I was suggested another chemical that presumably would have been fine.. then i did some research and saw a comparison between the two used on some automotive carbs, and I thought, well simple green is easier to find so I'll just try that.

Um...were the automotive carbs made from the same alloy material as employed by Keihin?

Sometimes our mistakes are costly. Nobody is perfect.

Cheers,

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Author Topic: Rinse carbs after soak? (Read 6492 times)