Piston Cleaning
 

Whats best for cleaning the carbon off the tops of pistions I was thinking oven cleaner would work well but am A bit worried this may damage the pistons as its caustic, Any advice?

Steve

Wire wheel works pretty well. Just soaking the tops in water will soften the carbon quite a bit.
-Chris

I did what Chris said. Wire wheel and a little brake clean. And then I polished them a tad and the heads.

I haven't done it to pistons, but boiling exhaust parts has done the trick in softening carbon build up dramatically.

The best thing I've found is the gallon can of Berryman's carburator cleaner. It's not the same stuff as in the spray cans. It smells like creosote (unless the EPA has outlawed it, it's been awhile since I bought my can). Put a piston or two in it for a few hours or a day, take it out and clean it in regular parts cleaner, and voila a shiny clean piston. It also works for soaking carburetor parts, who knew?

Gunk has carb cleaner in a gallon paint can that comes with a little basket in it for soaking small parts...a piston would fit in that basket if you want to do one at a time, but I just poured some out of the container into an aluminum pan about 1/8" or 1/2" deep and put the pistons in upside down. You can adjust the depth if your ring grooves need cleaning too.

After a day soaking (while you are at the work), the carbon slides right off. I use an old tooth brush.

The Berryman works the same...

Berrymans is very good but use it outdoors. Carbon comes right off after an overnight soak.

I used crab cleaner and a small brass brush to clean my pistons worked pretty good. A friend of my cleaned his with a 2 liter of coke and a cookie sheet. he said after 24 hours of that his pistons were like new. i never saw them so i cant say for sure

What kind of pistons? Whatever you do, make sure you don't use anything too abrasive (media blasting, harsh chemicals, etc) that would remove any coatings, like on the Alusil CIS pistons.

A hand held steamer works wonders, makes the carbon flake off.

There is a product called piston kleen. Works very well.

If you need the info I can look it up tonight.

Thanks

Ed Baus
GT4s

I used berrymans in a paint can. Be careful because it produces some gas and the lid can fly off with a POP - it'll scare the crap out of you working on your car in the middle of the night (like I usually do)

...and this is why I stopped drinking all cola products about 2 years ago. I read stuff like this, tried (it works on rust too), and it scared the ***** out of me. :eek:

Dion