blast media cleanup... walnuts or glass?

overdraft

Coast to Coast
i'm about to blast my motor prior to painting... any of you have any experience with cleaning the engine up after? clearly having blast media left inside the motor is a Bad Thing Indeed so i was wondering if it was easier to clean up walnut or glass?
thanks!
 
If you're painting over the top, you can always try soda. This works especially well on aluminum.
 
Sonreir said:
If you're painting over the top, you can always try soda. This works especially well on aluminum.
oh, hey... cuz soda would just dissolve in water... i'm not sure the place i use has that option but i'll check!

edit: no, they don't have soda
 
walnut is less destructive if you miss any.
cleaning it out is a chore, whatever you use
 
I will only use soda on engines. It works very well, and cleanup is really easy. I have not had fun cleaning out glass. It likes to hide in every little nook and cranny.

I have a 10lb pressure soda blaster from harbor freight, and its probably the only tool I've bought there that I'd recommend.
 
to clean out glass bead, first, make sure all the grease is off the part, and that you mask any threaded holes or just put screws in them first. to clean out the bead media, blast with compressed air first, then fill a large sink with really really hot water and dish soap or simple green, wash the part really thoroughly, use those pipe brushes to clean passages, then when you're totally sure it's clean, take it out, empty the sink, wash down the sink really well, fill it up and do it again, then when you're sure it's clean, rinse, wait until dry and blow off with compressed air again, that'll get 99.999% of bead out, which means there'll only be about 20 little beads left hiding somewhere ;D
 
Make sure any oil ways are completely stopped up
A technique I've heard of but never tried is to run molten wax into oilways, blast, then boil in detergent so the wax melts out
 
overdraft said:
oh, hey... cuz soda would just dissolve in water... i'm not sure the place i use has that option but i'll check!

edit: no, they don't have soda

You can buy baking soda from the super market. It's not quite as "rough" as the industrial stuff, but it still works. You can also shoot laundry powder for a similar effect, but it tends to cake up a bit more and you sometimes have to "unjam" your gun.
 
50lb bags are only about $38 at Harbor Freight, and it's not some off brand or anything. It's actually Arm and Hammer's industrial product. I think they have it in two grits too. That's probably a lot more economical than buying it at a super market. A 15lb pressure soda blaster is on sale right now for $99.
 
A good article on soda blasting:
.
http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/Soda_blasting

And some people talking on a site about their experiences with Soda

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/once-all-wiki-soda-blasting-162700-4.html#post1160993
 
crazypj said:
Make sure any oil ways are completely stopped up
A technique I've heard of but never tried is to run molten wax into oilways, blast, then boil in detergent so the wax melts out

those cheap foam earplugs work great too
 
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