Need something to put in my sandblaster that isn't sand.

I sand-blast a lot of cylinder heads and turbo parts to get all the burnt on oil and carbon build up off (everything I get has never had an oil change and is completely blown up). Main problem is, getting all the sand out of the parts takes forever, even with a hot tank and air gun. Simply takes too long.

I need to be able to use something like sand, that isn't. I'm thinking of using something that would dissolve in the hot tank (~190 degree water mixed with caustic soda). My first thought was salt, but it's too corrosive. Next thought was plain white sugar. Whatever it is, it needs to be cheap. I'm going to go through lots of it.

What do you guys think?

Baking soda?

EastCoastMojo wrote: Baking soda?

The sand already doesn't do a great job of blasting away the carbon.

Think 1 oil change in 100k miles. I have a jeep engine in the shop. The heads are FULL of carbon, literally full, crowding the cam towers/rockers/etc. You can break off silver dollar sized pieces. The drain back passages are 100% clogged. The bottom end starved for oil while the heads were full of oil. This is my life.

Isn't that what the hot tank is for?

I think they use walnut shells for blasting out intake ports on car.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Isn't that what the hot tank is for? I think they use walnut shells for blasting out intake ports on car.

The hot tank doesn't do a great job of getting into bolt holes, oil passages, coolant passages, spark plug holes. Usually have to go to town with brake clean and the air nozzle.

I blast intake ports with sand, never had an issue.

Get set up for dry ice blasting. There is no cleanup necessary. Look it up its probably exactly what you need.

Ultra sonic head cleaning

or

another link for same type of thing

crushed walnut shells? That's what a shop I know has been using for cleaning late model, direct injected BMW's, which are prone to intake tract coking.

I'd love to get an ultrasonic tank for cleaning TDI intake manifolds, but when they're large enough for that task, they are holy-sh1t-expensive. Could buy a lot of brand-new manifolds for the same money...

In reply to RoughandReady:

Salt takes a long time to actually be corrosive. It's not acid, just a mechanism that lets water conduct electricity, thus letting steel slowly corrode.

A better problem with salt is the cost for the grain you need to blast with. You would need something around table salt and pickling salt.

Dry ice blasting might be what you're looking for. It requires all different equipment though so you're not talking about a small investment.

A lot of aerospace firms use it to remove carbon build up. I've never done it but from what I've seen it works well.