G'day,
I recently bought a very grotty bank of FJ carbs, upon receiving them I discovered they were well seized, everything in the bowl was awful. The aluminium was filthy, lots of oxidisation internally too. I considered that it would take me ages to soak and scrub with go knows what to clean them up, either that or use the house dishwasher....
I decided instead to try baking soda blasting, mainly because it is fairly harmless stuff, cheap, and not harmful to alloy. I came across this youtube video showing how to make a blaster out of a bit of tube and your compressor hand piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KULVhW2tw4I&t=14s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KULVhW2tw4I&t=14s)
Within a few minutes of blasting I got some great results. I did soak them before hand in some degreaser, without much affect. The thing I really like about baking soda is that it is water soluble, and you could even blast things already on the bike, a general cleanup, removing oil gunk from under the engine without removing the paint perhaps. I will be trying that later.
Like with anything like a fine powder, it will get everywhere, the finished carbs will needs a good soak and blast with air. The carbs here are different, all in the bank were equally filthy. I will be trying salt later for the harder to remove oxidisation.
(http://fjowners.com/gallery/10/1121_04_10_18_4_08_21.jpeg)
(http://fjowners.com/gallery/10/1121_04_10_18_4_08_51.jpeg)
(http://fjowners.com/gallery/10/1121_04_10_18_4_09_14.jpeg)
Great before and after comparisons. Having examples of DIY results is helpful. I became aware of soda blasting maybe ten years ago, so I got curious.
What I gathered is that the blasting soda in large bags is not exactly the same as a household box of kitchen baking soda, being harder and more aggressive. But good for you getting that kind of result from the domestic product at minimal investment.
Impressive results. I too heard about soda blasting for car bodies. Nice to see there is a DIY solution too.
Joe
I must say I learnt a valuable lesson about blasting, I got covered in baking soda, if fact I think I can still taste it. Great stuff, cooking salt not so much, too big. I tried using a homemade blasting booth, but the soda just goes into a white cloud, couldn't see what I was doing. Still, very happy with results, just gotta clean it all off.
Note to self: don't blast anything near a clothes line full of wet clothes......