Best solvent for breaking down carbon

[Vezza]

As the title says. Anyone know of a really good solvent for soaking valves (out of engine) in to remove the baked on carbon?

[Cerby86]

BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!!

No I really don't know. You would have to be careful it doesn't effect the material if your soaking it for a long time. Maybe fuel??

[70XIN]

Caustic soda. You can buy the stuff from your local woolies etc (comes in a little plastic jar/bucket). Mix with water, put valves in, pull them out every so often and give a wash/scrub just to agitate the carbon to help it come off.

If you heat the solution it works even better.

WARNING: Wear eye protection, gloves, long sleeves, shoes, etc etc... Its' use (amongst other things) is dissolving bodies. You will know super quickly if you spill it on yourself (terrible itching, which if you don't wash off will result in terrible burning). Also, don't breath the shit in! Same deal as the above, but with your lungs..

[Vezza]

Oh yeah, I've split the shit on my skin before. Burnt like hell!. Never knew you could use it for carbon though, i"ll give it a crack

[af300e]

Wire brush on a bench grinder, and go easy on them. If you are getting sparks then you're probably removing valve.

[biggo]

carby cleaner?

[Vezza]

Tried that, wasn't much chop. It got the looser stuff off but not the hard baked on carbon which is hard as a rock or essentially coal lol.

[70XIN]

Carby cleaner is just a low strength caustic solution

But yeah, if you have a drill-press and a wire brush that'd also be good.

[Jdm070]

use an oven cleaner (foam) spray. I've rebuilt a few 2stroke motors and its the best stuff for cleaning the carbon off the power valves.

[DX20VT]

Subaru upper engine cleaner?

If it's available in Aust. Get it from the Subaru Dealership.


In Nz we use it in all the Mitsi GDI crap to remove the caked on carbon from the intakes.

[Jip86]

you can get some stuff in a can called gasket stripper, took two applications+wire brush on my pistons but they came up pretty clean.