Oven Cleaner for the intake??

Anyone heard of using oven cleaner to clean the intake? That's what a VW tech recommended to the shop who's cleaning mine this week.

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Hamsterdiesel:
Anyone heard of using oven cleaner

to clean the intake? That's what a VW tech recommended to the shop who's cleaning mine this week.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As long as the stuff gets completely cleaned out... It is baked on goo if you think about it

NO!!!!! Most cold oven cleaners contain sodium and/or potassium hydroxide, both of which are extrememly corrosive to aluminum. As long as they remain wet, they dissolve the aluminum and make hydrogen gas.

Actually, they only allow the aluminum oxide to dissolve, its the water that attacks the aluminum. Use this only if you need to destroy aluminum and make some hydrogen.

Just take the intake to carwash and use the wand on soap cycle then rinse. Be careful of back spray. I haven't done this, but several on here have and they say it works and is easy.

I have found that WD40 turns the goo into a runny liquid. It wont harm your intake and it will exaporate from the surfaces. An old toothbrush works well on the stubborn areas. Another plus is it makes the EGR operate smoothly.

Has anyone tried mineral spirits for this? It's my favorite solvent for auto use and I've found little that it won't dissolve. I usually just buy generic "paint thinner" from Home Depot. If you don't like the slight kerosene odor, buy the "odorless mineral spirits"(same as Varsol, which is a trademarked brand name). It evaporates quickly, but not too quickly and leaves no residue of its own.

I'm planning to do my intake and IC for the first time in the next week or two and plan on trying it.

Patrick

Non-polar solvents like paint thinner, WD40, Varsol etc. might not work on really hard stuff that has been oxidized, especially if non-synthetic oil and/or Biodiesel has been used. In these cases, a polar organic solvent like industrial citrus cleaners (D-limonene or other citrus-derived terpenes) will do a much better job. In the old days, chlorinated solvents like methylene chloride were best. Keep them away from plastics though.

A cheap cleaner is the spray engine degreasers. It has a detergent in the non-polar organic solvent and will cut a little better than straight solvent.

Back in my old days, I used to make a cleaning jelly out of certain cheap (pennies per gallon) AHEM..."solvent" and dehydrated soap (sun dried leftover slivers) I had pulverized in a blender. Sprinkle the soap powder over the "solvent" and stir. Wait a few minutes, stir again adding more powder and stirring until you get a jelly. It REALLY cleaned well and would wash off with water due to the soap. It was highly flammable due to the cheap solvent I used (anyone can buy this "solvent" nearly anywhere). I think there are enough hints here to the other application of this cleaning jelly. No, I only used it for cleaning engine blocks as it clung to vertical surfaces and didn't evaporate too rapidly. Even if it totally evaporated, the soap would allow water wasshup.

since its so hard to clean the entire intake, one forum member told me he blocked off the cylinder ports, put a couple large bolts and nuts inside, along with gasoline, and shook like crazy.

This is probably the best way to clean out the interior of the intake, and get the ports by hand with a steel brush. I have a very stiff test tube cleaning brush that works great.

Originally posted by Weisse Bora:
NO!!!!! Most cold oven cleaners contain sodium and/or potassium hydroxide, both of which are extrememly corrosive to aluminum. As long as they remain wet, they dissolve the aluminum and make hydrogen gas.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Always good to have a chemist around. I stand corrected...

I agree that oven cleaner will attack aluminum, however, if the outside layer is really crusted on it might just soften it up enough to make another cleaner do its job more effectively. A brush on type would allow you to apply directly on the build up without coating adjacent (clean) aluminum surfaces (as a spray would). At 30K I cleaned my manifold, which was coated with a thick soft layer of gum. What worked really well was straight liquid dish washing detergent and a bottle brush. It cut it like butter and the bottle brush was able to reach all areas of the manifold. The only down side is the amount of dissolved muck which was flung around by the brush bristles on withdraw from ports. But I guess people using a high pressure car wash wand experience the same or worst. For what it worth, another TDI’ers experience.

The best I've seen so far is paint remover, let it soak for 15 minutes, then drain out and blast it with a high pressure washer. Don't do this near anything painted, though

WB,

Did you love the smell of it in the morning? Did it smell like... victory?

Hey guys,

my engine light went on and i took it to the dealer in chicago and it read a egr deviation. I don't want to spend the money to have them do it so does anyone have info on how to clean it on a 99' beetle.

A general guideline is in the TDIFAQ. If you're not mechanically inclined enough to be able to figure it out from there, perhaps it's best to get someone else to do it.

EGR control deviation can come from other things besides a dirty manifold: disconnected or leaking vacuum line, faulty MAF sensor, faulty or unplugged EGR solenoid valve, etc.

Try using the "adapted" setting (see TDIFAQ) - I've seen this make EGR deviation codes go away.

I just paid the dealer $490 to replace the mass air flow sensor. After that the beetle was runing great the turbo wouldn't shut down after 3,000 rpm anymore. Then a week later I still feel the pull however it's not as strong. I'll take a look at the vacum lines and then take it from there. However the dealer said that the egr valve was pretty dirty.

Gasoline and soap flakes makes a flammable jelly! Well that is almost napalm, but that was not a cleaning agent. The early napalm was a 'jelly' make from a sodium grease, the combination of Na and soap, from pamolive soap. It was after WWII, with the 'plastics revolution, that it was made from a suspension of styrene plastic in gasoline. A relative of sterno fuel.

I think that styrene was desolved in acetone, then when blended with gasoline it came out of suspension. But that may have been replaced with a new method.