Cleaning carbs with lemon juice??

I recently read an article about cleaning carbs which recommended putting the carb parts in boiling water, or even better boiling lemon juice. He was cleaning a Hitachi carb and had pictures that looked great. (If I can find the article again I'll post it.) He did it while the carbs were still on the rack, so I'm assuming this doesn't hurt the rubber parts. Has anyone ever heard of this or tried it?

 

NOT a good idea to submerge a still-assembled carb in anything; too much of a chance of damaging the throttle shaft seals.

 

That's a new one on me. plane compressed air works wonders for me. Out of the couple dozen of carbs that i have rebuilt i never used a "CARB CLEANER" Just Dawn dish soap and compressed air.

 

They are disassembled, but still on the rack. Not absolutely sure that he dips the uppers.

If I can find the article, I'll post the link. It's interesting.

 

Would it happen to be this article? http://cycles.evanfell.com/2008/09/how- ... right-way/

I used boiling lemon juice to clean my carbs and it seemed to work pretty well. I did 20 minutes for each carb body, rotating/flipping the bodies around in the pot every few minutes. I later went back and did the same with boiling water just to be extra sure.

Either way, Fitz is right, disassemble the rack completely before trying any kind of cleaning method that involves submerging things.

 

That's the article. Thanks.

 

Be careful and watch for pitting of the aluminum!

 

I did this with fully stripped own carb bodies (that were pretty nasty), made a world of difference. Just don't use too much lemon juice or leave in there for too long

 

just be carefull not to go too long or too strong of mixture the carbs can turn black.

 

I dont know. That article is a bit rough. I'd hate to possibly warp a needle from the heat and citric acic eats brass. The whole rachet strap to pull the carbs out was a bit too "Bull in a china shop" for me.

Ironically, I've never used carb cleaner on carbs either.
Ive always soaked parts in Kerosene and cleaned jets with different gauge copper wires and have had decent results.

 

If they are still on the rack, they ARE NOT fully disassembled.

You cannot get the throttle shafts out of the individual carbs without breaking the rack. And as I said, carbs that still have their throttle shaft seals in them should not be submerged.

One more important point: It's not a good idea to use anything harder than brass or the carb bodies to probe passages with. If whatever you're using can scratch the surface of the carb body, it can gouge the inside of a passage. If it can scratch brass, it can gouge up a jet or emulsion tube.

I use stiff nylon bristles plucked from my big parts-cleaning brush. They're stronger than any gunk, impervious to solvents AND I'm not scratching up the insides of anything in the process.

When it comes to old Japanese carbs, you gotta think like a mechanical Archaeologist, not a shade-tree mechanic.

 

Right fitz. Scratching the brass up was the underlying concern. I should have stated this is why I used copper wire. A tough broom bristle would work equally well.

 

i think this is the article you read

http://cycles.evanfell.com/2008/09/how- ... right-way/