Topic: Wire wheel brushes?

[climbingaz]

I've got the carbs off my bike (engine still in frame) and want to try to clean up the engine a bit....lots of grime and gunk in between the fins.  Don't really care about stripping off the paint since it's all chipping to hell anyway.

What's the best/quickest/easiest way to clean up the engine?  Was going to buy a few wire wheel brushes and hook them up to a drill unless someone has a better idea.

Thanks!

[scottly]

Wire wheels may be a bit too aggressive: they can sort of smear the aluminum. You might try one of the plastic "wire" wheels.

[Duanob]

Yeah even the brass can scratch aluminum casings. I use the nylok plastic wheels and plastic bottle brushes. You can clip then into shorter peices and use them with a drill motor to get those hard to reach places. Use plenty of Simple Green while you're scrubbing.

[climbingaz]

awesome, thanks guys! 

[Kong]

My first reaction to such things as grimy engines is to seal the engine up real good, toss it in the back of the truck, and head for the quarter-car-wash.  If I had a pressure washer, and for the life of me* I can not understand why I do not own a pressure washer, but if I had one I'd blast the road-crap off of it myself.


* what makes this double-perplexing is that my wife has suggested to me several times that we need one; generally I don't need to be told twice to go buy a power tool of any kind.