Workshop Wednesday-Good Vibrations

  I haven't made a workshop wednesday post in a while so I'll throw this little tip at ya. As many of you know, I fix outdoor power equipment. Most of what I do is 2-cycle stuff like chainsaws and trimmers. Basically, you neglect it and we resurrect it. One of the most common neglects is letting fuel get old in a machine and many times that requires me to clean a carburetor.

 The rust inside the carb pictured above is pretty bad and just using carb cleaner did nothing toward removing it. Recently I have been experimenting with an ultrasonic cleaner to tackle this chore. So far it's been working pretty good but this carb would be a challenge.

 This ultrasonic cleaner is about as cheap as they get. I paid thirty something dollars for it at the local cheap ass tools store. It's big enough for these small carbs and that's about it. The cleaning solution is just some diluted pine sol cleaner. Some soaps work better than others and I'm still experimenting with different ones.
 This particular unit has about a three minute cycle. All it does is vibrate and that loosens up the dirt. I ran this carb through three cycles, rotating it between each cycle.

 You can see that the rust is all gone. There was no mechanical removal of rust, just a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner. Sure that screw head is dark, but there is no loose rust or dirt left anywhere and I can rob a screw from the "big bucket o' carbs". After drying the carb with low air pressure, I used the kit in the background to reassemble it. The reason for the cleaning determines how far I tear the carb down. When I save time, you save money.

"So what did the shop have to do to fix our leaf blower?"
   "They cleaned the carb."
"You mean they just squirted some carb cleaner in it and blew it out?"
   "No, they used some machine called an ultrasonic cleaner."
"Oooooh!" "I feel so good about the money we spent on this repair. Come give me a smooch!"