Good Ultrasonic Cleaner?

[lely1103]

oh All of them look so good
thank you guys so much for sharing this
)

[Sandman900ss]

I'm looking for better solution for ultrasonic carb cleaning than water and Simple Green. I tried distilled water vs tap water and didn't see any difference. Some carb specialists claim Simple Green is the wrong ph for the job, but are secretive about what they use instead, won't share.

[Kiwi Canuck]

I use distilled water and this, I usually heat to 50 degrees C and dilute up to 40:1 or stronger if the carbs are really bad.

http://www.prowax.com/cleaners/C-84_Franks_Special_Cleaner.html

The problem with tap or well water it can have minerals that affect the alloy adversely and the simple green will work but I found it would darken the carbs.

The Franks special cleaner did not darken the cards and in fact made them brighter if anything.

David.

[Sandman900ss]

From reading the Frank's product description, it sounds like dozens of available mildly caustic cleaning solutions. What does the ingredients label say? Is it an alkaline solution and detergents? Guess that's what's most effective for carb cleaning...

[Z32650S]

The first ultrasonic cleaner I built was crude, but worked great for small batches. I was basically an electric hand sander solidly strapped to a rugged plastic container with a screw top. Hung the contraption above the basement sink and left it there for a few hours, just in case it decided to foam up. I used demineralised water and Pinesol in it with good results. I used a 50\50 mix but you likely could do it with much less Pinesol. Made my '77 GS VM26 carbs look much brighter. I'd almost say brand new.

I'll be trying out this 43$ 6L ultrasonic cleaner to see how it compares to the hand sander: https://www.ebay.com/itm/6L-Ultrason...r/263266583267

[jabcb]

...and the simple green will work but I found it would darken the carbs.
...

I’ve used spray Lime-A-Way + a toothbrush to lighten the the carbs.

[Nessism]

Doing a set of carbs and not confident in my elcheapo chinese ultrasonic; it makes a high pitched vibration noise sometimes and questioning how well it shakes. Took off the bottom cover and everything seems fine. Think the noise may have been some vibration from the cover itself. Found this nifty aluminum foil test and my unit pierces holes in it very quickly so think it's okay after all. Fingers crossed anyway...

Oh, and using Yamaha carb dip sauce inside. Cut it a little more than normal in order to fill up the tub. Not the ideal stuff I suppose but think it's going to work well.

[Big T]

So, anybody actually going to share their results?
Looking for a smaller one myself, but it's maddening trying to sort it all out.

What did you buy and how do you like it?

[Nessism]

My unit still alternates between loudly humming and shrieking. It works okay but not as well as carb dip for deep cleaning the passages. I use a double cleaning process; dip for the first go round followed by ultrasonic for final cleaning.

[bobgroger]

So, anybody actually going to share their results?
Looking for a smaller one myself, but it's maddening trying to sort it all out.

What did you buy and how do you like it?

I have the Harbor Freight one. It is not a substitute for dipping, and the parts never come out shiny clean. They still look like 40 year old parts but the passages are clean. I got some caustic parts cleaner concentrate from HF as well that seems OK. I think if you want show results you need some sort of vibratory cleaner as a last step. The HF one can only do one carb at a time, but so can my 1 gallon of Berryman's dip. That way it takes 4 days minimum per set of carbs.

[roeme]

So, anybody actually going to share their results?
Looking for a smaller one myself, but it's maddening trying to sort it all out.

What did you buy and how do you like it?

Getting late here, so just my experience summarily

- Don't have current results, some are buried in my rebuild thread
- Have a two or three liter unit, can't remember exactly. Can put one complete carb through in one go.
- Ultrasonic power is 150W (this is important in relation to bath size)
- Some local supplier, unit might've been quite well be manufactured in china...it's german branded though.
- Trick to get good results is to get the surface tension of the water down and heat (found 50°C to work well for me)
- Get surface tension down with dish detergent intended for manual dish washing (english eludes me atm) or simple soap. I just the day-to-day nondescript bog-standard liquid one
- Do use distilled or demineralized water. Tap water, depending on the hardness, will result in lime/chalk deposits. Depending on your location this may be a non-issue
- Haven't found the need to fiddle with pH or use anything aggressive, experimented a bit with a citrus-based cleaner that came with the unit, found none or negligible differences to solution described above
- Also experiment what works best for you
- Very satisfied with it, though I haven't had to clean super caked-up carbs yet, I guess...? Don't have much experience in that regard. Cleaned both of my banks, one of which was gummed up with decades-old (ex-)gasoline, the other one was in regular use by PO, but contanimated and full of various strange residues, possibly some spray-in cleaning products that didn't really clean.

Will update when I have some parts to clean.

Edit: Agreed as others said, they do not make your parts shiny, but clean.
Edit2: Frequency is 45 kHz, that's where industrial applications begin IIRC

[Andrew Vanis]

Doing a set of carbs and not confident in my elcheapo chinese ultrasonic; it makes a high pitched vibration noise sometimes and questioning how well it shakes. Took off the bottom cover and everything seems fine. Think the noise may have been some vibration from the cover itself. Found this nifty aluminum foil test and my unit pierces holes in it very quickly so think it's okay after all. Fingers crossed anyway...

Oh, and using Yamaha carb dip sauce inside. Cut it a little more than normal in order to fill up the tub. Not the ideal stuff I suppose but think it's going to work well.

Interesting to see how 1min eats aluminum. wonder what our repeated cleanings do to the Alum carbs

[roeme]

Interesting to see how 1min eats aluminum. wonder what our repeated cleanings do to the Alum carbs

...the process has not even remotely, absolutely and utterly _nothing_ to do with what kinds of metal you are cleaning. See Process/Operation Principle at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_cleaning

[Nessism]

...the process has not even remotely, absolutely and utterly _nothing_ to do with what kinds of metal you are cleaning. See Process/Operation Principle at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_cleaning

One thing I've noticed about ultrasonic cleaning is that the aluminum carb bodies come out quite bright. I believe the ultrasonic bubble action is removing oxidation along with an infinitesimal amount of metal as well. I know that zinc plating will get damaged by the ultrasonic so it stands to reason that the aluminum will undergo a little erosion as well.

[gsrick]

I'm getting ****ed off because these units are 30% cheaper than I paid just a month or so back. Oh well.

I have no idea why anyone would try to clean a bank of carbs that are assembled. There is no way for the solution to get to where it's needed if you do that. Not to mention the various O-rings are going to be hard and brittle regardless so the carbs need to come apart anyway to change them.

Not all carbs are 30 years old. Some just need to be cleaned and not rebuilt. You can pull most of the parts and prop open the butterfly and enrichiner plungers, but leave the bank connected. I'm actually looking at a 30L unit on ebay, that they are asking $260 or make offer. I want one for when I open my shop. I offered $230 for it, but haven't gotten a response back yet.