Slant Six Forum :: How not to clean a slant six head

I know its tough to believe but it is absolutely not head gasket or any other material other than cast iron that has been softened.

I had/have a thread over on the A-body forum with some more pictures, I started it over there cause pictures are a snap with no hosting required.

Id rather have the topic in both places but I am assuming that most of you / guys are on both forums.

Anyway got another head stripped down and I may still go ahead and dip it but may just leave it in a day at a time and continue checking it.

Just trying to get the rust scale out of the water passages and am trying to come up with the best/cheapest way to do it at home since this sort of thing comes up for me fairly frequently.

I would just mill it now for a good clean up and have it sonically tested.

Just curious. Did you dilute the vinegar? (with water) What ratio? White or Distilled vinegar? A week is Extreme anyway you look at it!

Vinegar is Acetic Acid, not the strongest Acid on the block but it will do a number on clean metal surfaces...Swimming pool acid (aka Muriatic Acid) is much stronger and is great for cleaning rust out of block coolant passages, but would not submerge any machined surface in it. If just doing that, I would get some rubber plugs and plug all the coolant holes tightly then pour in the muriatic using a funnel a little bit at a time...keep the area ventilated.

The quick cheap and easy is to hot pressure wash it...typically my local machine shop will do a head and a 5 gallon bucket full of misc parts (I typically pick a handful of brackets and 3 heads full of rocker arms on a wire, and a few other items), they will run it through their hot water pressure wash system for $20 (works out great since I don't have to get dirty...and it gets rid of all the greasy dirt)....a hot tank is a little more.

2 cents,

-D.Idiot

Acid dipping is usually done with sulfuric acid, but it looks like you found the Mother of all vinegars and accomplished the same thing. Caustic is the way to go for cleaning ferrous metals not acidic. Acids etch and destroy steel. Home Depot has Zep Industrial Purple cleaner. While not as cheap as vinegar it's caustic and won't hurt iron or steel. I've used it to clean my own heads. I even bought a 110V water heater element to turn the bucket into a hot tank. Sorry about your cylinder head.

Author:	1930 [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:47 pm ]
Post subject:	How not to clean a slant six head
I have been re-searching ways to clean heads, engine blocks ect at home. Vinegar. Molasses and electrolysis seem to be the best choices. I tried vinegar, let a cylinder head sit in it for 1 week, pulled it out to see that the vinegar had destroyed the cast iron machined ( only ) surfaces. It had liquified the cast iron almost, anyone that has ever worked with all metal would understand the texture and appearance of the material if scraped off the cylinder head and rubbed between the fingers. Dont understand what happened, I have read post after post on the internet about it being the way to go, I have read just tonight of a guy that let his 440 head sit in the same solution for 2 weeks and he posted pictures of his great results. Id like to know why I had such a bad experience and of course warn others. Must have something to do with the time it spent in there, I have cleaned other metal objects with good results. I have one of my Super six intakes soaking now but I will remove it tomorrow night and see what is going on with it. Here are some pictures of what I have dealt with today. Head is scrap now, Im not gonna chance dickin with it. That is the thin layer of cast iron that can be scraped off, everything under it is just normal as cast iron should be.

Author:	sandy in BC [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:33 pm ]
Post subject:
Home Head Shave

Author:	Reed [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:43 pm ]
Post subject:
Wow. Sure it isn't built up carbon and old head gasket residue?

Author:	Kidd [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:17 pm ]
Post subject:
Have you taken a razor blade to it? Man.....sure looks like old gasket material to me.Crazy if it is not.

Author:	SlantSteve [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:27 pm ]
Post subject:
I haven't done the vinegar or swimming pool acid clean, but I have sent quite a few cast iron blocks to a company here in Australia called "Redistrip" . I imagine they use a similar acidic type of treatment, strangely enough some cast iron blocks come back in perfect condition, while others have an etched,almost sand blasted type finish on all machined surfaces...the slant six block I sent to them came back with this finish after cleaning. Perhaps the type of iron used in the casting process,together with the pretty average quality control back in the day created a lot of variables in the actual iron content. Interestingly,any higher performance type block comes back perfect,I had an older Ford Motorsport block done,also the Australian Hemi six seems OK....I'm sure the vinegar or swimming pool acid does the job,perhaps just keep an eye on the process instead of leaving in for long periods next time? Its a bit hard to tell in the pics,but it does look like an old gasket....I would imagine the whole head would need to be thoroughly degreased and hot tanked prior to the vinegar treatment for it to really do its job?

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Author:	1930 [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:31 pm ]
Post subject:
I know its tough to believe but it is absolutely not head gasket or any other material other than cast iron that has been softened. I had/have a thread over on the A-body forum with some more pictures, I started it over there cause pictures are a snap with no hosting required. Id rather have the topic in both places but I am assuming that most of you / guys are on both forums. Anyway got another head stripped down and I may still go ahead and dip it but may just leave it in a day at a time and continue checking it. Just trying to get the rust scale out of the water passages and am trying to come up with the best/cheapest way to do it at home since this sort of thing comes up for me fairly frequently.

Author:	1930 [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 6:33 pm ]
Post subject:
Quote: I know its tough to believe but it is absolutely not head gasket or any other material other than cast iron that has been softened. I had/have a thread over on the A-body forum with some more pictures, I started it over there cause pictures are a snap with no hosting required. Id rather have the topic in both places but I am assuming that most of you / guys are on both forums. Anyway got another head stripped down and I may still go ahead and dip it but may just leave it in a day at a time and continue checking it. Just trying to get the rust scale out of the water passages and am trying to come up with the best/cheapest way to do it at home since this sort of thing comes up for me fairly frequently. Heres that thread if anyones interested. http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/sho ... p?t=265445

Author:	Aggressive Ted [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:
I would just mill it now for a good clean up and have it sonically tested.

Author:	Danarchy [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:20 pm ]
Post subject:
Just curious. Did you dilute the vinegar? (with water) What ratio? White or Distilled vinegar? A week is Extreme anyway you look at it!

Author:	DusterIdiot [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:41 pm ]
Post subject:	Yikes!
Vinegar is Acetic Acid, not the strongest Acid on the block but it will do a number on clean metal surfaces...Swimming pool acid (aka Muriatic Acid) is much stronger and is great for cleaning rust out of block coolant passages, but would not submerge any machined surface in it. If just doing that, I would get some rubber plugs and plug all the coolant holes tightly then pour in the muriatic using a funnel a little bit at a time...keep the area ventilated. The quick cheap and easy is to hot pressure wash it...typically my local machine shop will do a head and a 5 gallon bucket full of misc parts (I typically pick a handful of brackets and 3 heads full of rocker arms on a wire, and a few other items), they will run it through their hot water pressure wash system for $20 (works out great since I don't have to get dirty...and it gets rid of all the greasy dirt)....a hot tank is a little more. 2 cents, -D.Idiot

Author:	Joshie225 [ Sun Mar 16, 2014 7:42 pm ]
Post subject:
Acid dipping is usually done with sulfuric acid, but it looks like you found the Mother of all vinegars and accomplished the same thing. Caustic is the way to go for cleaning ferrous metals not acidic. Acids etch and destroy steel. Home Depot has Zep Industrial Purple cleaner. While not as cheap as vinegar it's caustic and won't hurt iron or steel. I've used it to clean my own heads. I even bought a 110V water heater element to turn the bucket into a hot tank. Sorry about your cylinder head.

Author:	1930 [ Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:17 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: I would just mill it now for a good clean up and have it sonically tested. I went to the local yard yesterday and was lucky to find another head, Im just going to start all over again with a different one. No big deal and a learning experience.

Author:	1930 [ Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:20 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: Just curious. Did you dilute the vinegar? (with water) What ratio? White or Distilled vinegar? A week is Extreme anyway you look at it! No dilution of the vinegar, regular white vinegar I bought at Wal-Mart. The guy that soaked his 440 head used the same according to his posts over on the hamb forum and had no problems evidently after 2 weeks. I am not a registered user over there, if I was I would throw out my experiences to those guys whom swear by it.

Author:	1930 [ Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:24 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Yikes!
Quote: Vinegar is Acetic Acid, not the strongest Acid on the block but it will do a number on clean metal surfaces...Swimming pool acid (aka Muriatic Acid) is much stronger and is great for cleaning rust out of block coolant passages, but would not submerge any machined surface in it. If just doing that, I would get some rubber plugs and plug all the coolant holes tightly then pour in the muriatic using a funnel a little bit at a time...keep the area ventilated. The quick cheap and easy is to hot pressure wash it...typically my local machine shop will do a head and a 5 gallon bucket full of misc parts (I typically pick a handful of brackets and 3 heads full of rocker arms on a wire, and a few other items), they will run it through their hot water pressure wash system for $20 (works out great since I don't have to get dirty...and it gets rid of all the greasy dirt)....a hot tank is a little more. 2 cents, -D.Idiot I would like to use muratic acid, I have used the stuff in the past but doing re-search on-line recently I have read that it will cause some very serious negative issues. Local machine shop wanted 50 dollars to hot tank my head. At this point I understand that if looking at it from a financial standpoint I would have been better to have paid them but this is a hobby for me.

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Author:	1930 [ Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:27 am ]
Post subject:
Quote: Acid dipping is usually done with sulfuric acid, but it looks like you found the Mother of all vinegars and accomplished the same thing. Caustic is the way to go for cleaning ferrous metals not acidic. Acids etch and destroy steel. Home Depot has Zep Industrial Purple cleaner. While not as cheap as vinegar it's caustic and won't hurt iron or steel. I've used it to clean my own heads. I even bought a 110V water heater element to turn the bucket into a hot tank. Sorry about your cylinder head. I have read about this, I may give it a shot. Im going to pull out my intake tonight from the Vinegar and see where I stand with it. No problem on the cylinder head but thanks, its already been replaced.