Re: Aluminum block cleaning Question

Posted by BigKev On 2016/2/4 11:17:50

I degreased my entire front end and engine with it still in the car. The steering knuckles had so much accumulation that they looked like an elephant's leg. I used a putty knife and a large screwdriver to break up and remove the thicker accumulations, before I started with the solvents. Otherwise, you are going to waste a lot of solvent to break up those thicker areas. You could use a plastic scraper as well to avoid gouging the AL.

Once I got down pretty close to the metal and got to the "burned" on stuff. I used oven cleaner. Not sure if that stuff is safe for AL. And finally, a wire cup and wheel mounted on a die grinder to take the area down to bare metal. I used a steel wire cup and wheel, but I am sure you could use a stiff brass one as get similar results.

As Dave said, brake cleaner is awesome stuff for degreasing.

You can see a lot of this in my project blog.