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Engine basics => Engine set up tips => Topic started by: Bootlegger on March 03, 2020, 11:50:00 AM
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How much time should it take to crock pot an engine, and what solution of anti freeze should I use? I am not concernd with stains on an aluminum block.. Thanks
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i just did it with the cheapest green antifreeze i could find.
put the parts in the pot, filled it up, plugged it in, let it sit for 24 hrs. worked great!
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Thanks T J, at what temp should I do this???
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I use the cheapest antifreeze I can find, un-diluted, use straight, and cook it on low. I usually just leave them over night. Check yard and garage sales for older opend and un-opened jugs of antifreeze. If it looks REALLY old, check to make sure it not for use in aluminum blocks. But if purchased from a store, it should be good to go. I have always used Prestone since that is what I have on hand for my cars. It lasts a long, long time and can be reused. Use the LOW setting, my smaller crock pot gets pretty damn hot on HIGH.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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I use the antifreeze that is safe for aluminum. Sometimes just a soak will do but heat helps soften all Jurassic castor oil.
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my $10 cheapo pot didn't have a temp selection on it.... just plug and go.
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Undiluted, NO WATER. Once again - NO WATER!
Understand if left in for more than a few hours, some engines will look like #@&^%)(! - Fox may be the best example, they get just plain UGLY (and I even like them). I get mine pretty hot, it usually cleans a lot in an hour or two.
Probably best to check often, but the stuff works wonders. Good luck!
Dennis
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The key things are....
Completely disassemble the engine....no plastic parts.
Green antifreeze...the old type...still available....not mixed with water.
Be sure all parts are submerged in the antifreeze.
Set the pot on low heat...it still gets pretty hot on low....don't let it boil.
Set the pot inside the garage...not outside where critters that smell it won't try to drink it....and the fumes won't get into your house.
Cook it for 24 hours....checking occasionally to be sure all parts are submerged.
Remove parts one at a time and wash with water....then immediately oil the steel parts or they will rust very quickly.
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I use the cheapest antifreeze undiluted and normally cook on low 10-15 hrs. On really blackened ones it usually takes longer...like a day or two. Pulling the engine out every couple hours and brushing or using a wood skewer to scrape between fins and crannies helps speed it up. I tried soaking in cold antifreeze a couple days and it didn't do anything. I never tried high heat so can't say whether it works better.
* adding that I've crockpotted a lot of engines and never had a discoloration...Fox, McCoy, OS, Kraft, RJL, Cox, Magnum, Torpedo and probably others I don't remember.
* also stopped rinsing them with anything immediately after removal unless ready to run them. I left a junk Fox 40bb on my bench for about a month to see if it rusted or did something weird. Nothing happened, not even rust on the cheaper Fox bearings...
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Green antifreeze, crock pot on low, overnight.
This process works really well. In my experience, no need to fully disassemble. Backplate off and plug out has been adequate in most cases. Head off, if needed.
Brushing does help. I use a toothbrush.
No need to limit time in. You can leave it in for weeks, no problem.
Probably would be quicker than overnight with a different pot. However, crock pots heat slowly, by design.
best,
Peter
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A word about "discoloration" when crock potting engines. You would be surprised at how many older engines had painted crank cases. What you are seeing as discoloration is the natural aluminum and not the silver paint any more. I have never had a bad experience, nor known anyone that had a bad experience cleaning cruddy engines this way. I have even taken some and just flushed them with fuel, bench run them a bit and put them in a model with no effects. Depends on the engine.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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I too use the cheapest crock pot available. Change the anti freeze once in a while. Don't dispose of it where animals can get to it. D>K
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Gil
I use this stuff rather than antifreeze because a twenty or so minute soak will do it, not overnight. The good news is that all the Dollar Stores carry it for, you guessed it, a Buck.
Ara
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The "Pull A Part" on Greenwell Springs has used anti freeze.
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Guy's thanks for all the tips and advice, it came out clean's as a hounds tooth...
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Ara
Do you use LA Awesome full strength or diluted.
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Undiluted, NO WATER. Once again - NO WATER!
Understand if left in for more than a few hours, some engines will look like #@&^%)(! - Fox may be the best example, they get just plain UGLY (and I even like them). I get mine pretty hot, it usually cleans a lot in an hour or two.
Probably best to check often, but the stuff works wonders. Good luck!
Dennis
Yes, water, 50% is what I use with Prestone" anti freeze. Then I rinse my parts in ACETONE!
Oil and put away or run then oil and put away.
Jerry
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The only thing that discolored an engine I had was dishwasher detergent and I'll never use that again. It really tarnished a shiny Veco 35. I've never had a problem with Prestone.
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Ara
Do you use LA Awesome full strength or diluted.
Leo
Full Strength.
If I have an engine with caked on goo but without baked on varnish, the LA will clean them up without prolonged soaking just by using a chip brush. Below are photos I've posted before. Some are medium heat crock potted and some are brushed clean.
Ara
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I wonder why it is printed on the front of the bottle of Awsome,”Dilute before use. There is also a dilution chart on the back of the bottle.
Frank McCune
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ATTENTION!!!
IF the engine to be crocked used castor oil... THEN crock potting w/antifreeze will dissolve the very important varnish seal between the piston and sleeve. You will be rewarded with noticeably reduced compression.
I learned this the hard way.
Andre
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While each person has their own experiences, one engine I had got so tight from castor varnish it squeaked. Was hard to even flip over and start. After the crock pot treatment, ran great with no loss of compression.
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I wonder why it is printed on the front of the bottle of Awsome,”Dilute before use. There is also a dilution chart on the back of the bottle.
Frank McCune
I'd guess because of this stuff.
Ara
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DO NOT use old anti freeze, used anti freeze is the biggest cause of turning engine parts dark n ugly, sometimes the corrosion will do it, but using anti freeze over and over again is not good, it will be full of dissolved oil and carbon gunk, fresk antifreeze will normally just clean and brighten up your engines
Randy
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Antifreeze is formulated with anti-corrosion additives. These are consumed (reacted) during normal use. Using old antifreeze in which these additives are exhausted means that you are prone to corrosion during cleaning. More so due to the heat which accelerates corrosion. Even more so due to dilution with water. If you choose to use old, used up, diluted antifreeze, be sure you are cleaning your old, used up, dilapidated engines.
In industry, antifreeze may be recycled by filtering out all the crud and impurities and then putting in a new charge of anti-corrosion additives. Hopefully, that is where your used antifreeze is going when you turn it in to be recycled.
Using clean antifreeze along with heat is the most effective, safe cleaning method out there. Antifreeze with a lot of dissolved carbon and junk in it will clean slowly. If you are having poor results, it may be due to methods and materials. There are many other ideas for cleaning engines, and guys will use what they will use.
If your engine has a worn out piston liner fit after you clean it, it had a worn out piston liner fit before you dropped it into the pot. (Unless you took some kind of abrasive or polish to the pieces.) If the engine still runs without slowing down during the flight due to varnish, then keep running it. I don't quite understand the panic over cleaning a tired engine though. If you can get a wheezing Fox started, it will varnish up again. Just make sure you using all castor and run it hard.
Dave
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Read the label when you go to buy antifreeze. They now promote and sell antifreeze that's pre-mixed with equal parts water, so you can just dump it into your radiator overflow tank.
Antifreeze (at least the old style green type) freezes at a lower temperature when diluted per the directions, than it does when pure. I have no idea why that would be, or attempted to prove it, but that's what they say. I always just run straight green stuff in my cars & trucks, so that I know what temp it's good for. If you just put in a wee bit of water when it's low, you don't really know unless you test it, and my hydrometer was always brittle and crusty by the time I was concerned enough to test it. My mechanic friend & CL/FF modeler says to 86 that red antifreeze and put in the old green stuff, OBTW. y1 Steve
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A few more comments--
There are two common types of coolants in this family: propylene glycol and ethylene glycol. Propylene is even less toxic, but also not quite as good at the job. There are lots of different "color" coolants, but it does not seem that they correspond exactly to one of the two chemical types. They are actually dyed to get what you see.
We ran tests on various coolants for a Navy aerospace project. In the case of ethylene glycol, it does not have an easily identifiable freezing point when mixed in usual proportions. It kind of turns into a sludge that resembles a slurpy except it has a gooey aspect. It appears that perhaps some of the water comes out of solution and begins to freeze. The literature from the manufacturers mostly gives the temperature at which this sludge begins to form at around -60C. To get there, you need at least a 63-64% EGW mix. And yes, the freezing point seems to go back up as you increase the EG above ~63% by volume.
About 5% of the volume constitutes the inhibitors. These begin to lose effectiveness at really high temps (>250 deg F), and the stuff degrades much more rapidly when vented to the open air (ie. in a crockpot) at temps above 150 deg F, so set your crockpot on low. It will be plenty hot enough to clean engines.
It is better not to cook brass parts along with your aluminum parts. Especially at higher temps as the corrosion inhibitors don't like it.
If you don't leave the parts in the bucket for a week, you have very little risk of corrosion--unless you use old, dirty, diluted antifreeze.
As a bit of tragic info regarding EGW, the Apollo capsule fire was caused by an EGW leak. It is a very odd quirk of EG that in D.C. voltage above something like 20V, a splashing or partially wetted conductor will ignite. Cars don't have this problem because the voltage isn't there. After the fact, further studies were done and the Air Force began to find cases of burned connector pins where de-icing fluid (EG) leaked into unsealed connectors.
The Divot
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Read the label when you go to buy antifreeze. They now promote and sell antifreeze that's pre-mixed with equal parts water, so you can just dump it into your radiator overflow tank.
Antifreeze (at least the old style green type) freezes at a lower temperature when diluted per the directions, than it does when pure. I have no idea why that would be, or attempted to prove it, but that's what they say. I always just run straight green stuff in my cars & trucks, so that I know what temp it's good for. If you just put in a wee bit of water when it's low, you don't really know unless you test it, and my hydrometer was always brittle and crusty by the time I was concerned enough to test it. My mechanic friend & CL/FF modeler says to 86 that red antifreeze and put in the old green stuff, OBTW. y1 Steve
We were taught in engineering school that both pure water and pure ethylene glycol will freeze at a warmer (actually less cold) temperature than the proper mixture of the two. The instructor claimed that this was proven by the failure of people who guessed that pure anti-freeze was better than the proper blend.