Engine block detailing

A lot of engine builders have a machine that operates like a great big dishwasher, sparying hot soapy water (or solvent) from rotating nozzles in a bunch of directions. The heat softens the greases and crud, the hot soapy water from all directions loostens up the random crap. None of this takes of any paint overspray that got to the pristein block.

 

The paint applied to the inside is somewhat "old school" to promote oil flow. It can have the rather nasty tendency to flake off and cause it's own problems. Forget it.

It is not uncommon to paint the outside of an engine during a rebuild. There are numerous products that mimic the appearance of the original surface.

 

Alumablast gives a very natural finish/sheen to aluminum castings.

 

Lamborghini castings tend to have a rather reddish mottled appearance. You can improve the look a lot with some paint. It will likely need a re-do in a few years but generally it will probably still look pretty good.

 

The 'great big dishwasher' is called a 'Jet Wash' and will get most of the dirt, grease & oil off
aluminum parts (you can't 'Hot Tank' aluminum) and which mist machine shops have. To get the aluminum back to looking new you have to 'Soda Blast' them after the Jet Wash cleaning. A soda blaster is like a sand blaster or class beader but uses SODA so removes a very thin surface oxidization build up without removing the aluminum itself. DON'T......DON'T sand blast or glass bead your block or heads.
Soda is water soluble so will not do any harm to the internal parts of your engine, head or oil passages.
Check with some of the better known Ferrari or performance engine machine shops in your area....it is well worth the small cost (about $125 hour) in relation to the time & effort you put into a restoration or rebuild.

'Sand' or 'glass bead' around or in an engine is a Death Wish....don't use it.

 

'Sand' or 'glass bead' around or in an engine is a Death Wish....don't use it


+1000

 

lets see some pics?

 

Alumablast gives a very natural finish/sheen to aluminum castings.

 

I bought a wetblaster in pieces and repaired it so I could do my engine bits ???
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Absolutely beautiful.

 

added content of silicon in the alluminum alloy used at the foundry(there are additional matallic compounds which exceeed the scope of tbhis thread....)....

I have a machine shop...there ids a limit to how "pretty" a used casting can be made to look as far as appearances go....especially one subjected to normal environmental factors associated with...normal operatiung temps and environmnjets...

alluminum is a salt...as such, iron/ferrite deposits will "leech" into the slat like cystalline lattice structore of ther saalt....and as such, cannot ever be removed from view via a physical surface "scrubbing" whether by a mexchanical scrubbing, or a surface etcing via a chem ical one...only a sealed surface and paint-as was used when originally manufactured-will provide you with the desired effect...

the internbal paint has nothing , zero, bupkus, to do with oil dripping/wicking issues...it is solely an issue of internal sealing to prevent oil from wicking through insanely porous castings...
ciao

 

Not sure I quite follow you ?
Here's a before and after . The block you see in the first pic is the same one in the second ???
Last pic is the one I was looking for earlier , believe me it did not look like that before I started ??
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My friend works on motorbikes. He is very good at fixing them.

We talked about HOW THE **** do you clean alloy to make it look nice and new. We were working on another mates 911 at the time.

He told me of this product, Chemtech Blitz aluminium cleaner. He had some at home and went and got the bottle to show us.

Man o man that stuff is GREAT!

He put a drop of it onto a screw driver and dabbed it onto my friends plenum. I circled it in the the pic. That is a crap camera phone pic, but you can see the difference. The clean section looks like new in person. My friend cant wait to do the job properly.

You spray on, leave for 5-10 mins then hose off. It doesnt damage paint, rubber, wiring etc..etc. Works like magic.

He just dabbed that on and wiped it off with a moist rag. To do it properly, you spray on and brush in lightly. Leave for 5-10 mins then hose off with water.

All alloy/plated and stainless parts will look like new he said.

You can see how well it works in the pic. He also dabbed some on a REALLY REALLY dirty aluminium ladder there and it came up like new. Unbelievable!! I was very very impressed. I didnt take pics of the ladder, but wow!

When I pull my engine, I will spray this stuff on and clean my plenum. I was going to remove and repaint, but my mate said dont be silly. Chemtech will make it look like new. He said to get best results, maybe do it twice. Spray on, lightly brush it on and hose off. So simple.

You can even water it down with water to dilute the mix he said. Whatever etc.etc.

http://www.chemtech.net.au/BLITZ%20JUNE%202010%20Features%20&%20Benefits.pdf
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So where does one get this stuff in the US? Couldn't find any sale outlets for it.

 

I dont know mate, hopefully someone knows of a distributor in the US.

If not, I will investigate if it's possible to send you a bottle from here myself.

All of Chemtech's products are quality products. We use a lot of their stuff.

 

Dave, what abrasive material are you using with your wetblaster?

Does your wetblaster combine a suction hose for the abrasive plus a carbide head with a high pressure washer setup? Or is it a more specialised setup?

 

It's effectively a sandblaster with water in it ??? What the water does is cushion the blast of abrasive against the surface , in so doing insead of abrading the the surface it's more like peening it ???
I use the finest glass I can find . The wetblaster allows you to controle the amount of abrasive and obviously the air pressure ?
There was a guy " Gleggy " I think , from Australia who had had some awesome wetblasting done by someone there . I think I still have some of his pic's
Not the pic I was looking for , but it gives you an idea of how good you can get it
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Gleggy is the man and still posts in the Aussie section.

 

I think you guys are talking about vapor blasting. In the US there are these guys:

http://www.vaporblasting.biz/ and http://www.modsrockers.com/index.html

No affiliation, and have never used them.

 

My machine is called an Aquablast

 

Here's an example of before and after that's too hard to believe without pics. soda blasting and lots of soaking in solvent. glass would clean it further but then the job of cleaning out the glass isn't worth the effort.

an earlier post highlighted the issue of cast aluminum, it porous by nature due to its molecular structure and lattice bonds, addition or amalgamation of other metals for specific properties also has an effect where the free electron attracts other elements that come into contact with it, hence staining through the casting. no amount of chemical or mechanical cleaning will ever get it back to it's virgin cast state, not possible. the oxide layer formed by aluminum when exposed after cleaning helps to some degree but when it occurs in the presence of other elements like in a hot tank that's where you can get more staining.

acid etching isn't a good idea as dangerous deadly gasses are released in the process that can get out of control quickly.

If the porosity is high enough the oil will seep right through and that's why you'll find older castings painted on the inside, it's not std paint.
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one more pic...
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