Carbon cleaner - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

09-17-2003, 02:10

I've finally got around to doing a headgasket and timing chain change on my parents car. I wanna clean the motor up as much as I can, and was wondering what can I use to clean the carbon off the tops of the pistons? I've tried using petrol in the past and this didn't do sh!t. Is there any good products out there just for this purpose?

Cheers

jamesk · 09-17-2003, 02:15

ive used carby cleaner and that took the carbon straight off.

Aussiblue · 09-17-2003, 05:23

Soft wire brush (copper/brass) in rotary drill.

EDXR8 · 09-17-2003, 06:09

Carby Cleaner is top stuff for removing the carbon. Use it with some steel wool if you need to.

redGhia · 09-17-2003, 06:29

here is what i have previously used: the end of a steel ruler (flat tops. pistons in) worked ok, and a diffrent time an angle grinder with coarse wire brush attachment (pistons out of coarse

Im quite lucky that i didnt ruin anything doing it but then again it was only a magna

USE THE CARBY CLEANER !!!!!

PS: i opened up an nissan FJ 20 DET 6 months ago and it had absouloutley no carbon build up AT ALL. but i put this down th the fact it was running on avgas. but thats no help to you

Have fun

XR8 Lamah · 09-17-2003, 17:18

I found that after a day or two after the heads came off, the small amount of carbon was fairly loose, so after a light wire brushing, just vacuumed out everything . . .

If you are using a wire brush tho - make sure you use a decent one and don't lose wires into the cylinders ! Metallic crap in cylinders = bad :)

09-18-2003, 07:04

Yeah I think i'll use some of this carby cleaner stuff, sounds like the way to go as there isn't much room for scrubbing with anything with the pistons still in the bores.

Oh and on the same topic, does anyone know what causes large amounts of carbon buildup in a motor? The pistons had a fair amount of carbon on them, but what surprised me was that the rocker gear has turned black, and the oil has turned black as well and it was only replaced about 6 months ago.
I think my parents have got the oil changed at least once a year, so it's not from real old oil.

Whats the deal? All the other EA heads I have seen were no where near as bad as this one, though I must admit it's driven quite often and would have close to 300 clicks on it by now. Would this be from anything such as running too rich, running too lean or anything like that?

Oh yeah and I'm gonna be putting some Penrite 30 in which is 20W/60 natural oil as the rings and bottom end is probably a bit sad now, and I'm too lazy to fix all that. Is this a good oil to run for a fairly unhappy motor(gonna have rebuilt head tho)?

Cheers

EDXR8 · 09-18-2003, 07:47

Old motors will develop more carbon build up, due to burning oil and fuel mixtures not being ideal. Also oil should be changed every 6 months anyway. Oil will get quite black in older motors in much less than 6 months.

TopGhia · 09-18-2003, 12:34

I'd run a high detergent diesel engine oil (one that's also rated for petrol engines) for 3 months or 3,000k's to clean some of the crap out of it. Then go to the Penrite 20W/60.

Try some Caltex Delo 400, that's a real soot buster.

http://www.caltex.com.au/products_oil_detail.asp?id=56

cheers

09-18-2003, 17:12

Nah, I'm getting the head acid dipped so that will clean the engine up a lot, have rotated the engine with the oil filter off, so all the shitty oil is out of the pump system and will be pouring some diesel down the oil wells into the sump to try and soak to clean it up a little. I just wanna know what causes Carbon buildup to stop it from happening to this engine again.

Oh yeah, should i put in enough diesel in the sump so it covers the crankshaft and stuff? Something makes me think it's a bad idea getting all the oil off the crankshaft bearing things.