CO2 - dry ice blasting , anyone use it and can you do it yourself ?

[Southbay356]

Just wondering if anyone has used CO2 - dry ice "sand" blasting to clean motor parts and other things ?

I have only seen some stuff on YouTube but it is nice because it does not leave any sand or beads when you are done,

but does it work on things like engine/ heads and transmission cases, chassis parts etc

and is it something you can do at your own shop or does everything need to be sent out ?

thanks for your thoughts

[ROW911SC]

No first hand experience, but I did see several Ferrari engine bays detailed with CO2 at Cavallino Classic back in 2010—the results were incredible!

[911Maverick]

I am not sure it is something that you can do at home but I have seen the results on all sorts of automotive parts including heads, cases, blocks, etc and the results are almost always awesome.

We do dry ice blasting on all the tools in my plant and it will remove anything you can think of and leave a very nice smooth finish without damaging any of the finer details like grain pattern for molded parts and things like that.

[afterburn 549]

Like anything - I am going to say practice will pay off, But i would not try it on the real thing till I had some confidence what is going on and how to make it happen.

[Algernon]

My car body was CO2 blasted all over in prep for respray. "They" were able to take each paint layer off at a time, stopping before bare metal (original protective primer still in place) My guess is, in the right (skilled) hands, CO2 is about as good as it gets, but don't practice on your own car!

[WYDBODY1986]

TuneRS Motorsports in Coral Springs Florida has a dry Ice rig they use, They call it CryoDetail, They are a Porsche shop so they have lots of pictures and videos on their website of Porsches they have done. TuneRS Motorsports | PORSCHE PERFORMANCE, PARTS, REPAIR, RESTORATION AND MOTORSPORTS FACILITY.

[Algernon]

Originally Posted by WYDBODY1986

TuneRS Motorsports in Coral Springs Florida has a dry Ice rig they use, They call it CryoDetail, They are a Porsche shop so they have lots of pictures and videos on their website of Porsches they have done. TuneRS Motorsports | PORSCHE PERFORMANCE, PARTS, REPAIR, RESTORATION AND MOTORSPORTS FACILITY.

Those were the folk that did mine,
small world.

[donporfi]

The CO2 blasters are very expensive. Also the CO2 pellets are expensive, you buy those from a supplier like Praxair. The machine to make the pellets is very very expensive.
I have seen those used to clean molds, they do not leave a big mess like the power washers or sandblasters.

[Tidybuoy]

I've not used this personally but we use dry ice blasting in our plant for cleaning. We are a food processor and we used dry ice blasting to eliminate germs - it kills everything it touches.

[Southbay356]

Originally Posted by donporfi

The CO2 blasters are very expensive. Also the CO2 pellets are expensive, you buy those from a supplier like Praxair. The machine to make the pellets is very very expensive.
I have seen those used to clean molds, they do not leave a big mess like the power washers or sandblasters.

I like the idea of no mess and no extra junk being forced into the nooks and crannies of the engine block ,

does it take off caked on grease like an engine would have ? or the carbon on top of pistons ?

[porwolf]

Not CO2 blasting but Dry Ice Blasting:

[Darkmoon]

There are 2 types of dry ice blast machines that I know of. Option 1 uses a block of dry ice and grinds the block into small chunks like a snow cone machine. Option 2 uses dry rice which is dry ice in the form of loose rice. Both methods use Venturi valves to suck the chunks of ice and accelerate them at high speed through the nozzle. The ice impacts the surface and penetrates the soft medium,(dirt, goo, grime, paint, etc.), the velocity of the ice particles determine what gets stripped away. So... As the dry ice particles penetrate the softer medium, the ice sublimes from a solid to a gas instantly. The result is the softer medium is "exploded" away from the harder medium and falls to the floor. The settings of air pressure, ice feed, and distance from impact are determined by the mediums your are working on. I've gone from cleaning leather shoes to aluminum molds with no issue. For cleaning a engine block and other engine parts I'd recommend at least 120 psi with unlimited flow. More flow is better. Your average garage compressor used to paint and run tools will run a dry ice machine in short bursts. The trick is to penetrate the goo. To damage aluminum you'd have to be well above 120 psi. Probably 300 psi or more. The machines are expensive, $10,000+ for one with good flow controls and ice handling capacity. For a engine clean you'd need a lot of dry ice. A couple blocks at least, or 40-50 pounds dry rice. You might be able to build a homemade unit with a standard sand blast set up and a modified Venturi nozzle, but I've never tried it. The blast hose needs to be around 3x diameter of the medium you are shooting. Remember - you are trying to penetrate the soft stuff (grime) and explode it off the hard stuff (engine parts) I'm sure you could use the system to clean everything from blocks to piston rings, gears, valves, suspension, you name it. There are limitations though. The soft stuff has to be able to be exploded away from the hard stuff. If the soft stuff is "chewy" it takes forever to get off while stiffer stuff blows right off. Paint comes right off while grease may just move around for a while. You can get theory ice from fire extinguisher refill companies. Good luck. Let me know how you fare.

[Southbay356]

Originally Posted by Darkmoon

There are 2 types of dry ice blast machines that I know of. ..........

GREAT info , thank you for taking the time to post

if if tries to get off mushy grease does it freeze the grease so it falls off or ???

and if it does freeze the grease , when it becomes room temp again is it just at another place and not really removed ?

most of the time I think you would pre wash whatever you were blasting , but there still might be places that did not get degreased

thanks again for your time

[r-mm]

I looked into this in earnest for my alfa gtv. What became apparent (at least in New England) is that there were few operators who did many cars. It seems like the machines are sold from one guy to another, and they'll take any job they can get. I never did succeed in getting a real quote - I guess the job was out of the size/complexity/budget range of the operators. But it was not for lack of trying. Ended up getting the car media blasted by a guy who owns a fantastic TR4 and is very very tuned into the particular challenges of getting an old fragile car to bare metal w/o warping panels but still removing ALL the surface rust visible. Since getting the car back in epoxy primer I have been cutting holes, replacing metal, banging on the thing and have barely found a trace of blasting media. I summary; I now firmly believe that it is the care and experience of the operator more than the technology that matters. I think I paid on the order of $1200, which included the shop picking up the car in an enclosed trailer, taking it to their shop, taking it then to the paint shop for epox primer, then taking it back to me. Total of about 30 miles towing. Prep & shooting the epoxy primer was in the $800 range if memory serves.

[Quickstep192]

If anyone knows a co2 blaster in the Maryland/DC area, I'd love to know about them.