Cleaning built up Carbon from head.

YES! Pay The Man!
50% of the motorcycles on this forum need a valve job, guides & seals!
By the picture dates, I did this one in June 2018. These were new valves.

Kidkawie wrote: Soda will not remove carbon. Its used more as a finishing medium after cleaning.

The other 2-cents, if it helps. A couple things "i" do to verify if a head is worthy pertaining to cams/caps and possible warpage issues. These things can prevent you from making a run to your favorite shop if it's not viable. If you've managed to remove the valves, lay the cams back in (with the shell bearings in place of course), tighten all the camcap bolts and spin the cam. It should freely rotate. Then move cam back and forth, checking end-play. You can plastiguage the shells if you like at this time. End-play is dictated by number 3 and 1 caps. if seemingly excessive look at the thrust land on the 3 and 1 caps, usually a visual signature of wear. These engines are quite forgiving but you get too out of tolerance and things get noisy. Personally i don't ever swap camcaps, they are linebored as one. But people have had success at it. Just hoping everything is GOOD for you!! Yes Ness, baking soda with the correct, high, pressure soda will remove baked on carbon. But if it's a gooey oily residue, say 2-stroke or oil-burning 4-stroke, soda will just make a nasty paste.

Nessism wrote:

Kidkawie wrote: Soda will not remove carbon. Its used more as a finishing medium after cleaning.

Ok, industrial soda and a sandblaster setup. I can go buy a can of oven cleaner for 5 bucks without any abrasion.

Be very careful about using oven cleaner on aluminum. Ed

Well,,, this was the final result... Not as nice as some I have seen on here but hoping it'll work out.

The guides were barely within spec. The valves seats a bit down on the exhaust but still worked out okay when shimming. Worst was #2 Exhaust,,, required a 2.10 shim and had a clearance of .115 mm

Regards and thanks for the help

Ken

The head looks nice and clean. Good job.

When in use the valves recede into the head with mileage so it's advised to tip the valves so the shims move up the range and allow for future wear. With a 2.10 shim now there are only two more steps before the end of the range.

Don’t discount your work. That head looks great.

650ed wrote: Be very careful about using oven cleaner on aluminum. Ed

Just FYI,
I know this reply is really late, but I have used easy off to remove the anodizing from the aluminum chassis’s of my custome built RC cars and never had any damage to the aluminum. I let the chassis plate soak over night. The anodized color is all gone and then a 1000 grit wet sand and polish. It has never pitted or stained the aluminum.

This chassis was blue before easy off.