I have started tearing apart my engine to remove the head, and I just got it off this afternoon. I have an idea of what to do with the head as far as port/polishing/general clean up, but what do I do about this? I am not tearing about the block, but want to clean up the crap:

 

Seafoam.

 

A dickload of Carb Cleaner. Either that or you could pull it apart, hot tank it, and rebuild it.

 

bolt it back together, then run some water through a vac hose or run water intjection. Your **** will be squeaky clean. Seriously, I've seen water injected motors with the head off and they look amazing clean and perfectly smooth.

 

Just make sure that you use the smallest diameter vacuum hose you can find. You don't want to drown the engine and end up with a bent connecting rod.

 

All of these things. That's one of the extra benefits of WI, it'll keep your engine pretty clean as you drive.

As for the risk of hydrolocking from the vacuum hose method, just suck up the water in small amounts, and crack the throttle periodically.

 

Use a air powered orbital sander, with a medium grit disk... your just trying to clean the deck and piston tops... Zizz over it and knock all the crud off. Dont dig in and you wont have problems head gaasket re sealing.

Just like everything on this page, including the striping cleaning kit...

- Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

 

for a faster cleaning use H2O2 instead of H2O

 

I run water/meth, but even still, my piston tops were a bit funky when I pulled the head last year to change the gasket.

Brake cleaner or similar solvent, a rag, and elbow grease. That'll get 'em clean and shiny.

 

+1 I'd shower in the **** if I could.....

 

Aircraft paint stripper.

That should work.

 

Thanks. Motor is still NA so I am just looking for ways to get them clean, this is after 255,000 km of abuse.

 

Insert feminine hygiene comment here:

 

/\ I will Monkey cut your coolant lines......