What's your solution

I just ordered an ultrasonic cleaner (6L) and am seeing a lot of different aluminum cleaning solution online. So far, I'm leaning towards the aluminum safe "Simple Green D." But also seeing some good things about white vinagar.

What's you're solution that's had the best results to cleaning out all those ports without darkening the carbs?

We use Simple Green all purpose, works great for us.

Some claim lemon juice works well.
I have used vinegar to remove the bluing from shotgun barrels.

Rivets said:

We use Simple Green all purpose, works great for us.

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Do you ever notice any darkening of the aluminum?

Goes like this.
Alkaline solutions clean
Acid solutions remove metal
After an alkaine solution has cleaned the metal surface it will start to dissolve the metal forming oxides that are dark
Acid solutions will not do this as the salts are soluiable but they will make all of the holes bigger just the same as leaving a carb in a bucket of carb cleaner for a week.
If you take the carb out and rinse it immediatly it will not discolour.
A slight acid rinse will help.
Then it must be dried quickly as you have a fresh clean metal surface that will oxadise immediately.

bertsmobile1 said:

Goes like this.
Alkaline solutions clean
Acid solutions remove metal
After an alkaine solution has cleaned the metal surface it will start to dissolve the metal forming oxides that are dark
Acid solutions will not do this as the salts are soluiable but they will make all of the holes bigger just the same as leaving a carb in a bucket of carb cleaner for a week.
If you take the carb out and rinse it immediatly it will not discolour.
A slight acid rinse will help.
Then it must be dried quickly as you have a fresh clean metal surface that will oxadise immediately.

Click to expand...

Rinsing with plain water is ok?

YEp.
Hot water is a lot better than cold water.
When I am having a carby day I pop a gallon pot on the BBQ
Soi it is out of the cleaner then into the boiling water for a little while
When there is 1/2 dozen or so items in the boiling water they all come out for a blow dry.
Because they are all at 100C they dry almost instantly and don't stain.
A friend who restores motorcycles uses a similar set up but he puts dishwasher rinse aid in the the rinse pot.
That is of course where I got the idea from.
He uses dishwasher tablets in his cleaner.

Zinc Amal carbs as used on British Motorcycles regularly clog up and the old fix, before ultrasound was to boil them in cloths washing solution, rinse in boiling water rinse in cold water then dry with a hair drier.