carb cleaning soaking solution

I have a couple questions regarding carb cleaning soaking solutions:

1) What do you all recommend as a good liquid solution (off the shelf or home mixture) for soaking carbs in overnight to loosen up varnish and other grime?

2) I have heard Pine-Sol, and Simple Green recommended. Would I need to worry about either of these products harming the plastic parts?

Thanks in advance

 

GM sells a carb dip, or at least they did as of 5 years ago. works awesome!

i have some carb-dip from 1980, i dont know what it is or who makes it, but it works really well.

i havent had good luck with the home brew stuff, although people here say lemon juice works.

 

Has anyone found anything yet?

(He asks eagerly)

 

AdvanceAuto, Autozone sells 1 gallon carb cleaner with a lift out basket.

Before you put anything in it you must be sure there are no rubber parts as it will deform them. Remember, there are throttle shaft seals that you cant see, so don't go tossing in the whole carb or rack for that matter.

This stuff works well for the float bowls, jets, emulsion tubes, needles.

 

I start with the stuff the varnish is made from to begin with, gasoline. For years the first step to rebuilding a carb on a British bike has been to drop it in a coffee can full of gas and leave it for a day or two. (Outdoors recommended...) Granted, those aren't CVs with diaphragms and stuff, but soaking individual parts can START there. Then you can use harsher solvents if necessary, but Richard is right, there are throttle butterfly shaft seals you cannot see, so be careful. The PineSol or lemon juice trick is to get them sparkly clean, not so much to dissolve varnish.

 

So let me get this straight Fitz-

I can drop them into a PineSol bath and it won't destroy the butterfly shaft seals and any other sofy bits. This is a nice safe way to get them looking sparkly clean?

Chris

 

I can't guarantee that. Others may have done it successfully, I have only used lemon (and lime) juice and CLR on strictly metal parts, like the float bowls or valve covers. I'm personally a big fan of SimpleGreen and an old toothbrush, never submerged anything in it. More discussion here: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=13761.html and here: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=5785.html plus take a look at Ricks "Old School Carb Cleaning" http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=1961.html.

 

I use lemon juice in a crock pot that is close to boiling.
I use it to get rust off of screws/nuts/bolts/carb hats, every thing metal.
It does discolor aluminum. You can polish it back to shiny after.

For the carb bowls, I pull them out one-at-a-time. While the bowl is still hot I stick the carb cleaner straw in the inside of the bowl enrichment hole and spray. Anything inside is still hot and molten and the gunk sprays right out.

The hot lemon juice for a couple of hours makes rusty bolts look like new again. Its amazing.

I used the hot lemon juice to de-rust a set of float bowl drain screws. The heads are still crappy but with some anti-seize on the threads they go in and out beautifully.

I have one parts bike and between the daily rider and parts bike I have purchased zero new fasteners. As I take stuff off either bike I cook it for an hour or two in the lemon juice and ALL of the rust is gone.

All of the road grime and oil and other crud comes off as well.

 

awesome. since i have gotten my XJ looking and running good my dad has taken notice and got the urge to get a bike. we picked up a 1980 Honda CB900 yesterday off ebay and it desperately needs some carb work. I just might try the lemon juice crock pot method. Thanks

 

I just soaked my carbs in Pinesol for 6.5 hours and they came out much cleaner and so much dirt and black stuff remained in the solution after the bath. If i do it again i will let em soak even longer.

Another note: my wife actually likes the smell of the garage now! She hated the carb cleaner and gas smell coming into the house.

 

I hear that boiling lemon juice works wonders also.

I also hear that letting carbs sitting in anything like that (lemon at least, maybe pinesol) for too long can turn them black.

 

I bought a one gallon bucket of Chemtool with strainer from Autozone here in Southren California. I followed the directions on it thoroughly two times, and each time it left a sticky residue on my carbs causing some of the parts to stick and not slide freely. I ended up bringing the carbs to a motorcycle shop and they cleaned them with a brand called Safety Clean, which I thought cleaned them well. Parts did not stick after this cleaning.

I have used the Chemtool spray can cleaner for years and have great results but the one gallon bucket did not work well at all.

 

mr Carb....Not to compromise your skill or intelligence but did you rinse everything with hot water after the soaking...this usually gets the sticky off...I have watched seasoned techs try to rinse these carb parts after soaking with another solvent / gum cutter / etc...and it just gels and gooes up! Dub