How do you clean carbon buildup?

Good luck with your surgery, Duck.

A friend of mine said he used a rag soaked with amonia (SP- the stinky stuff)to remove the carbon from pistons and combustion chambers. Said it worked wonders and it removed all the carbon. I havent tried it yet, though.
Fish

Steve, You should disassemble the cylinder head and clean the stems on the valves. Put some new valve stem oil seals in while it is apart. Use a fine wire brush wheel... you can buy a Black and Decker fine wire brush wheel from Walmart. When you pull it out of the package, use it for a bit on a scrap piece of steel and it takes some of the scratchiness away. It will work fine in your combustion chamber and the valves. When you do the valves, be sure to NOT hit the seating surfaces. When you reinstall the valves, lap them, the clean up the seat. Use the fine wire brush wheel to also clean your gasket mating surface and the piston tops. Don't worry about crud too much as you will have to flip your engine over to split the cases and can clean it out of the pan. It would be good to have compressed air for blowing out the other areas. You will need a full gasket set. Get one from z1enterprises.com and make sure you get one for the KZ1000. These have a bevel case cover. Be careful to remove all 11 (I think) screws/bolts that hold this cover. You might also want to buy a 6mm and 8mm tap and chase the case bolt thread and clean the thread on the bolts themselves. When reassembling, use loctite and put some liquid gasket under the bolt heads. The only thing I can think of to really watch is to not lose the small locating pieces that fit under the crank and under the transmission. These are small c shaped pieces about as fine as a wire that sit in grooves and can easily be lost. Last, clean the thread on the you cylinder studs as this makes the retorque far more accurate. Anneal the outer copper crush washers or they will leak when reinstalled.

Read somewhere on this site, misting water into the running carbs, blasted carbon off the combustion chambers, trick is to spray just enough water thru the carbs without killing the engine, but, eh....whadda I know!





Oh yea, new guy here......

solvent--mineral spirits-- gasoline
wire brush or 3M scour pads

more solvent helps you from having to get too agressive with the abrasives on aluminium (softer) surfaces

For the head and anything else loose you have off ......
Start by just using a parts washer ..and some elbow grease ..
It will work wonders.



Duck
My best and my prayers

the wire wheel workd good on the carbon and I used it to clean the valve seats too. It works good for awhile then you have to flip the drill to reverse.