crank cleaning

[88911coupe]

OK....I did a search and no luck. I'm trying to determine how to properly and thoroughly clean the crank prior to assembly. I've sprayed enough brake cleaner in all the holes to turn my brain to jelly, but is there any way to tell if anything's clogged? I can't really tell where all the passages go. Any tips? FWIW, tear down started as a top end only for valve guides, but I caught a bad case of "whileyerinthuritis" so no mechanical over revs or anthing like that.
TIA

[David]

I'll go out on a limb here and say brake cleaner and compressed air is sufficient.

[MBruns]

The problem with doing that is if it has some miles on there is sludge in the galleys, and you wont get it all, in fact you may have loosened it where it will come out into your new bearings as you put the first few miles on it. I have found that even soaking them is no guarantee, if you look at the way all the passage ways are drilled in the crank and plugged with tapered alum plugs you will see alot of inaccessible areas, even behind your pulley bolt down in the bottom of that hole, depending what engine it is it will have one or two between the flywheel bolts. There maybe someone who can ultrasonically clean it but we always remove all the plugs and go at it with gun barrel type brushes to be sure.

Mike Bruns JBRacing.com

[aws]

Mike Bruns is right, the crank acts like a centrifuge and if you want what Henry calls "peace of mind" when building a 911 engine you need to remove the plugs to clean the crank correctly. Years ago after seeing a tapered aluminum plug come out of a crank with disastrous results I always used a carbide tap and tapped the oil holes for a threaded Allen plug after I removed the aluminum plugs for cleaning. I currently only remove the plugs on certain race applications and have had good luck with pipe cleaners and carb cleaner and compressed air without removing the plugs on others. When refreshing these engines I have found the bearings showing no signs of contamination.

aws