DAMN Riders - No rules, Just ride!

Had to clean the carb recently and tried out the “lemon juice” method, thought I’d pass it on. I’m sure many of you guys have tried and true methods, I guess the theory on this one is that lemon juice is very acidic and can clean as well or better than carb cleaner and other chemical solutions. You can read about it many places on the net, so it must be true

My experiment was just with the bowl for starters. Here’s a few before pictures:

Not a nightmare, but a good deal of varnish and gritty stuff. Hit it with carb cleaner and did some lite scrubbing, still had this. On the right I really scraped at it.




So I broke it down as far as it would go, left the gasket where it was, put all the pieces into a tin can, and filled with this stuff, which is quite inexpensive:

Put it on the stove and brought to a very low boil. This was a bit of a mistake as it ends up STINKING pretty bad! When I went back and did the jets, I used a camp stove outside. I’ve read you can let it just soak for a couple days, but I wanted the quick results.

Let it heat for 20 minutes, cool down, wash thoroughly with warm water, dry, air out the house, and voila!




The pictures show it pretty well, I think it did a really good job, just a little mess there in the upper middle, but it came off easier with a little scrub.

Heres a shot while getting it back on, makes the top look like junk.

Thats great news! all I need is a few gallons to put in my sandrail fuel tank, down in Fl. & put over camp fire!!! No really, it sat for almost 8 years, got all lines & carb done but the custom alum tank has a tight baffle & the guy that normally boils them out said, cant get in where baffle is hiding other 1/2. I've tried many cocktails but this. I even looked at net(year ago) . Big thank You!!!! Maybe vinegar would work, must research.

wow - that is impressive!

Looks good. Here is one I did using the ultrasonic cleaner for 30 minutes.

Before


After

One I did this week. KTM300

Before


After

Interesting results, I wouldn't have thought of using lemon juice like that.

One of these days I'll get around to building a soda blaster for similar purposes. It could be a solution if you want the rest of your carb to look as good as the bowl without taking it apart.

http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-on-t ... a_blaster/

Let me toss this out - - if you put hot lemon juice into an ultrasonic cleaner - - that might kickass for cleaning!

I wish I had an ultra sonic cleaner, I see on the net, DIY videos. Problem is, I would like a huge one, bathtub size! Wander how clean & fast it would work on me?

I soaked a cruddy brake caliper in lemon juice last night and today I pulled it out and all of the crud simply wiped off with a rag as easily as dry erase marker. The container was also sitting on the bench right next to my brass vibratory cleaner that was running with another motorcycle part in it. Sort of worked like an ultrasonic cleaner I guess...

I've heard and seen people use Pine-Sol in ultrasonic cleaners with amazing results. I should try that one out.

Bork wrote:Thats great news! all I need is a few gallons to put in my sandrail fuel tank, down in Fl. & put over camp fire!!! No really, it sat for almost 8 years, got all lines & carb done but the custom alum tank has a tight baffle & the guy that normally boils them out said, cant get in where baffle is hiding other 1/2. I've tried many cocktails but this. I even looked at net(year ago) . Big thank You!!!! Maybe vinegar would work, must research.

Awesome, this I would like to see! Get pics

REDLEVEL wrote: Here is one I did using the ultrasonic cleaner for 30 minutes.

Wow that is REAL nice!!!

Longboardr wrote:One of these days I'll get around to building a soda blaster for similar purposes.

That thing looks pretty cool, may have to borrow, or better yet drop off some "test" items

Bork wrote: Maybe vinegar would work, must research.

Yeah, I heard about vinegar too, its also very acidic. Definitely research it, I think the acidity varies greatly depending on the type....