Cleaning Aluminum Engine Components

[Rick]

I am wanting to clean slight oxide and hard to reach grime etc.. from aluminium cam covers, water pump housings and so on.. without using abrasives and I dont want to have the parts polished..

I have heard of shell blasting with ground up walnut shells but there must some sort of spray on product or recommended places where to go to get this type of stuff done, preferably west auckland..

cheers

[AE82 FXGT]

What's wrong with a parts washer?

[d1 mule]

id be using a wire wheel on a drill or angle grinder.....

[Truenotch]

Alloy brightener usually works pretty well, basically the same stuff as mag wheel cleaner. It's a chemical cleaner.

[matt dunn]

or ultrasonic cleaning.

I dropped a couple of s/h 20V pistons into the injector cleaner at work once just before we were due to change the fluid and they came out looking brand new.

May be hard to find one large enough for some parts though.

[barryogen]

a brush with Methanol ought to do it.

you'll want to clean it off afterwards and then seal it so it doesn't oxidise again though.