Best way to clean the brass on Bosch CIS lines and parts?

The are no brass parts (except later model cars have brass body injectors, but they're mostly hidden from view). The fuel lines, banjo bolts and other fittings are are yellow-zinc chromate plated steel, and as such, are not that easy to clean. You can start with a brass bristle brush to remove dirt and light oxidation, but anything harder will brush away the plating.

For total restoration, the lines need to be removed, disassemled and replated. Such work can been seen at: http://www.rainbolt.com/ferrari/tr60k/MVC-670X.JPG

 

scotchbrite and engine degreaser. USE LIGHT PRESSURE OR DAMAGE TO THE PLATING WILL RESULT. i spray the stuff on the scotchbrite and them apply, i hate spraying that stuff all over all the various electrical connectors. by the way use good latex gloves to protect your skin, were safety glasses. all the macho guys can flame me all they want until they have splashed crap in thier eyes and have to wait to see if they go blind or not. simple green works well in engine compartments but i have not applied it to these particular surfaces as of yet. my friend has a black 911 with CIS and we recently cleaned EVERYTHING to see where all the oil leakes were coming from. hope this helps some. michael

 

The plating on my fuel lines was "toast" so I stripped them, polished them a bit, and carefully sprayed them with a combination of yellow anodizing spray and gold paint. It isn't exactly a perfect match but then my car isn't a concours one either. The results are acceptable in my view for a driver car. It was VERY labor intensive to do, lots of time and sore fingers. I'll post a pic of the engine....I hope you can see the lines.

 

WD-40 and let it sit for a week, then wash. Back in Minnesota, the land of road salt we used to but it by the gallon. Loaded it into a garden sprayer and soaked the engine / trans. to keep it from growing the white scale over the winter.
The daily driver was usually parked in the same garage and the drippings and run off from that car would evaporate and corrode all the plating on the Ferrari. After doing this on a number of cars for a number of years we noticed that all of the engine / trans castings, yellow cad. and zinc plating etc were looking like they were all replated, and all of the aluminum castings looked brand new. We finally got into a routine of getting up very early in the fall and spraying the customers cars outside and letting them drip onto a plastic sheet all day. Pulled them in the garage in the evening when all of the dripping was done.
Dave

 

davehelms...that is fascinating! Over the winter do you let the WD40 sit on the motors and stuff the entire time? Does it do anything to painted surfaces over a long period like that? Have there ever been any negative side effects to things like hoses and wires? This sounds like a terrific preservation technique! Have you used this idea on any suspension parts and similar under-car items?

 

That is why we used a garden sprayer, we sprayed it everywhere. Never tried to spray it on the paint, but it always got on the engine compt. painted surfaces, and never had a problem over the course of a dozen years we did it there.
The carrier evaporates quite quickly and leaves a very thin film of oil, usually within the day that we let the car sit outside. Problems I encountered: Slipery as the dickens on the garage floor if it drips there. Stinks like hell for the first couple of days. I was always concerned about fire on start up, as I always shot a good bit in the tail pipes of the 166 to 365 series cars in an attempt to save the tail pipes from rust out (this with a 1/16" drain hole did make them survive quite a good bit longer). The fire issue never happened, but it does smoke quite a bit until it burns off the manifolds. I simply let the cars idle for 15-20 mins before a spring drive to let it burn off under a controled condition. There were a good many of the cars that were old race cars (GTO, TdF, TR, SWB's), and I always sprayed the drums and discs lightly so we did not end up with the rust spots on the friction surfaces and have to re-cut the drums / rotors in the spring. It burned off the brakes in a block or so with no ill effects.
What first caught my eye was all of the gold cad and zinc hardware on the carbs of the GTO. The wd-40 had cut through all of the stains on the carb bodies and the plating started looking like it was all replated.
Just a fine misting of everything is all it needed. It all started where we were using the better part of a gallon on each car and that evolved to us using less than a qt. per car in the end with the same results. Mag. wheel acid sprayed on a rag or fine scotch brite and scrub the stainless or aluminum exhaust manifold shields then follow up with the wd treatment makes them look like they a factory new.
Dave