The Pine Sol Degreaser Thread

[mattsz]

Thanks, Lornce!

Is this strictly aesthetic? Should I be worried about polishing up the interior parts that interact with fuel and with each other? Any kind of oil or material I could use with the elbow grease to brighten them up a bit, and/or maybe protect them from further oxidation?

[mattsz]

Well, for better or worse, I proceeded on my own. I grabbed my fine steel wool and set to lightly scrubbing the exteriors and aluminum surfaces that slide against or contact other surfaces. Dry-wiped everything down and blew the heck out of everything with compressed air, hopefully to fully remove any stray steel wool fibers. Finally, to protect them from the elements, I rubbed them down with a thin coating of light machine oil and buffed them dry to the touch.

Here's one - it only needs the float jet to be good to go (I hate waiting for parts!):



It cleaned up pretty well - shiny, but not too shiny... don't want it to look brand new!!!

Hoping that it'll work shiny... (shoulder-shrug smiley here)

[Lornce]

I've polished the slides and bores to good effect with a bit or Autosol metal polish. A smooth finish on those surfaces is reasonably critical.

That carb looks really nice.

[Lesharoturbo]

Has anyone tried this on fuel injectors? I know you can use an ultrasonic cleaner for injectors, and a lot of on-line companies sell cleaning, but I was wondering if this would work just as good as it does on the carbs. I might have to give it a try.

[Cdaledude]

Originally Posted by Lesharoturbo

Has anyone tried this on fuel injectors? I know you can use an ultrasonic cleaner for injectors, and a lot of on-line companies sell cleaning, but I was wondering if this would work just as good as it does on the carbs. I might have to give it a try.

Go to Harbor freight and buy an ultrasonic heated tank and use that for small carbs and I would try the injectors in it. I wouldn't try it on an injector that you can't replace.

[BK.RD.RNR]

Originally Posted by Lesharoturbo

Has anyone tried this on fuel injectors? I know you can use an ultrasonic cleaner for injectors, and a lot of on-line companies sell cleaning, but I was wondering if this would work just as good as it does on the carbs. I might have to give it a try.

No, I have not tried it myself...

Fuel injector cleaning video.

[ben2go]

Anyone use this on brake parts?Maily interested in cleaning the steel parts like caliper pistons and banjo bolts.

[Moparmanpete]

Well,
I have an XL600R head that I wanted to gently clean the ports of alot of carbon deposits and liked the Pine Sol idea, so here we go


Took about 6oz of straight Pine sol and mixed it slowly with half a packet of Ball Fruit Pectin for making jelly till it reached this consistency




Then just smeared it where I wanted it and kept it from where I didn't want it.



After a few hours it would dry so I added more, but later found that it really wasn't neccesary.

I also soaked the valves in a 50/50 mix of Pine Sol and water




Here are the before and after shots for a 24hr time period

The head before



After



The Valves before


And after



Not convinced?
Well here you go
Left side coated with the jelly for 24hrs
Right side is the control




There you go




Not bad for not really doing anything!
Brush it on and wait,
Hose it off and oil.

Expeirences may very but I like it.

Pete

[mjydrafter]

Originally Posted by Lesharoturbo

Has anyone tried this on fuel injectors? I know you can use an ultrasonic cleaner for injectors, and a lot of on-line companies sell cleaning, but I was wondering if this would work just as good as it does on the carbs. I might have to give it a try.

The problem with injectors and pinesol is getting the pinesol into the injector where the crud is. It should be fine but it will only clean the outside.

I toss them in the carb dip to clean up the outside, but then use a rig made out of an old injector rail to clean the inside with pressurized solvent. It hooks up to my compressor for the pressure. Just use a small wall wart transformer and a momentary switch spliced into a injector electrical connector, to run the injector.

[crackhead]

I've been running it in my parts washer and it works great. I don't have particularly sensitive hands, but after using for a while, it ate the skin off. Nothing bad mind you, but lost an outer layer. Looked like I dipped my hand in Elmer's and let it dry, then peeled it off. Shit works great when it's warm.

[XS500RUS]

Just did a set of Mikuni VM32s from my T500, they didn't look all too terrible to begin with, the jets weren't even clogged when I took them off. But I was curious to see how clean I could get them :)

Previously I had stuck one of them in an ultrasonic bath of isopropanol, this got some of the grime off on the outside but did nothing to remove the gummed up gasoline in the bottom of the floatbowl. I put the first carb into a small container of uncut Pinesol overnight, along with the jets, slide, etc.

The Pinesol bubbled up, which I now realize was the byproduct of a chemical reaction. The PineSol worked TOO well, stripping off some of the metal, going as far as producing small pits in the bottom of the floatbowl and parts of the carb body Not bad enough to ruin the carbs but I'm glad I didn't let it sit for another day! Jets were pink colored, but cleaned up semi-okay, and look unharmed.

The second carb I'm doing in a 50:50 dilution, with the floatbowl being filled up with a slightly higher concentration. Jets I put in 50:50 for about half and hour and took out, they look good, without the pink crap.

Also, after rinsing all the Pinesol off in soapy water, I dried things off and blew out the jets (with human power lol) then liberally sprayed everything down with WD40, as to prevent a reaction with the air. No before pics but I'll get some 'afters' soon.

[mark1305]

Originally Posted by Moparmanpete

Well,

Took about 6oz of straight Pine sol and mixed it slowly with half a packet of Ball Fruit Pectin for making jelly till it reached this consistency




Then just smeared it where I wanted it and kept it from where I didn't want it.
snip.... Not bad for not really doing anything!
Brush it on and wait,
Hose it off and oil.

Expeirences may very but I like it.

Pete

Brilliant! I like that jelly trick. I've soaked carbs before, but the jelly opens up more possibilities.

[Yokomo]

Has anyone been super lazy and tried hooking pinesol up to the fuel tubing and filling the carb up with it? Just drain the bowl to fill the carb? Flush it through a few times. Rinse and repeat. Then flush gas thru a couple times and see if the old bike fires up?

Or is the key to submerge the carb so it soaks?

Thanks

[bomber60015]

there are many small passages in the carb (unless it is a Lectron, perhaps) . . . . I'm not confindent that all the passages would be well cleaned by simply allowing the fluid to flow through the carb -- I would think (uh oh) that the fluid would follow the path of least resistance, and not really clean everything that needed it . . . . . .

don't bet the ranch on it, though -- ;-}

[BK.RD.RNR]

Originally Posted by Yokomo

Has anyone been super lazy and tried hooking pinesol up to the fuel tubing and filling the carb up with it? Just drain the bowl to fill the carb? Flush it through a few times. Rinse and repeat. Then flush gas thru a couple times and see if the old bike fires up?

Or is the key to submerge the carb so it soaks?

Thanks

If I was going to use that technique, I would do it with carb cleaner. I have done it with carb cleaner. I let them sit, then ran the engine without draining them to get it through the jets. It was an improvement, but not as thorough as the process described here with pine sol.

I guess it depends how bad you think they are...