White calcium looking stuff in float bowls

I just bought a barn find 82 KZ550 that had been sitting for years. Opened the carbs up and the bowls were almost filled with a white crusty almost looks like calcium deposits. Blew out what I could and now looking for what to use to clean the carb parts. I remember seeing this one time before and just scraped it out and normal carb dip in Berrymans. This is too much to scrape, it's everywhere and brake cleaner does nothing. Any ideas what I can use to clean them?
thanks in advance.

A sonic machine with a commercial cleaner like Berryman's is the best bet. Even so, there may be terminal damage under those deposits.

Those deposits are aluminium oxide - essentially rust for aluminium. I've heard it can also be zinc since a lot of cast aluminium parts have a high zinc content. Most cleaners won' get rid of it as it's very stable and slow to remove chemically, but you can very easily scrape/brush it off manually.

Strip all the parts down as much as you can, scrape away as much of it as you can ,and then soak in a mild acid. A phosphoric acid (rust remover) will work. But if it's just the bowls that are the problem, it doesn't need to be perfect. If you can't remove it with cleaning and elbow grease, it's not going anywhere and it's safe to stay there.

The oxidization is caused by moisture. Can be from water ingress, or from ethanol in fuel (ethanol will bind with water, separate from the rest of the fuel, and sink).

How about white vinegar?
Steve

I've heard white vinegar works. I've also heard of people using lemon juice. It's all the same - a mild acid (phosphoric, acetic or citric). Just keep in mind that any acid will eat away at all surfaces, so keep an eye on any surfaces machined to specific tolerances. For float bowls it should be fine though.

Thanks! I knew you guys would know what it is. No the float pivot towers are also corroded up and I can't easily remove the float pivot pins. I'll try White Vinegar because I have lots and use it with aluminum foil bunched up to remove rust and grime.

Some pivot pins are a semi press fit. You can use a thin punch or a nail with a flattened tip to tap it out. DON"T HAMMER ON IT, tap on it.
Steve

SWest wrote: Some pivot pins are a semi press fit. You can use a thin punch or a nail with a flattened tip to tap it out. DON"T HAMMER ON IT, tap on it.
Steve

Steve's warning is critical. Also, support both standoffs when you press out the pin or one will break.

The pins, from the factory are not pressed. Normally they should just fall out , but corrosion can definitely bind them tight.

Here's a website for those carbs...
s3.amazonaws.com/gpzweb/TK22mainPage/TK22mainPage.html

Too bad those carbs are so scuzzed up. They are usually very good, robust carbs... very simple and easy to work with and very easy to do jetting on.

Looks like water damage to me. Soaking in vinegar should help. Soda blasting is also an option. Lemon juice caused the carb body to turn a dark color so watch out for that with vinegar as well (if appearance is important to you).

First thing I'd do is fully ungang those carbs. A lot of people are afraid of doing this but it's not overly difficult. Short cuts are long cuts when it comes to cleaning carbs so know this going in.

For sure, disassembling the carbs completely is preferable & pretty easy. The same thing is done 4 times on a lot of stuff & most parts only go back together one way, so it's kind of hard to mess up. I'd never done it before & thought it was easy. Use good fitting tools & your noggin.

Acidic cleaners. Do not leave the carburetors soaking in any acidic solution for too long. Someone here on KZR reported that he ruined his brass parts after leaving them in a lemon juice solution overnight. Pine oil cleaners that actually contain pine oil (not Pine-Sol) are good for cleaning the carburetors, but I don't know how good those products would clean that white oxidation. Pine-O-Pine has a high pine oil content. pine-sol no longer contains pine oil, but there are off-brand pine cleaners that still do. Pine oil cleaners are typically pH-neutral & are a good petroleum solvent.
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I know Ed wants those carbs unganged, but in my experience, those carbs don't often need it and unganging them often results in damage to the throttle shaft areas. It's not impossible for the fuel pipes to leak, but they are double o-ringd and after 30 years I have yet to see a set that leak.

Those in this thread are exceptionally bad, though, so if you can do it, ungang very caerfully. You will have to polish any rust off of the throttle shaft to extract it and the same for the choke shaft otherwise you run the risk of deforming the throttle shaft holders. Also the bell-crank screws will be very very tight. They often require an impact driver. But that is very risky on a pot metal holder and the shaft can bend because it is not supported in the area you need to impact. So you will need to rig up a shaft support in a vice but one that does not scratch or deform the shaft. When I do it, I use a block of wood in a vise as a back support for the shaft. Make sure to use a JIS screwdriver tip or the bell crank screws will deform easily. Unless you can rig up a support, it may take an extra set of hands to hold the carbs while you use the impact driver and hammer.

Those carbs look as nasty as any I've ever rescued, and I have rescued some f-ed up bikes. I would never assume I was getting them clean and all of the passages clear without complete disassembly. Do not remove the butterfiles or throttle shafts, although some may go this far and have good results. I have found out otherwise. IMO

Also the set is too large to fit into a can of Berryman's carb cleaner. Forget the pine sol, or any of the other crap. it will turn the carbs black and eat the factory sealers that seal the porosity in the cast bodies. Don't soak anything half submerged, it will make permanent marks or lines in the castings, and will be a most certainly a regrettable mistake. Soda blasting works well, and is water soluble. Expect a dust cloud your neighbors will enjoy.

I polished what brass I could access. Just a little touch while it's in pieces. ( what the heck, it was 19 * F when I did this) I polished the needle / seat bores and the fuel interconnect bores with my dremmel tool and a polishing attachment. Some lube is necessary on the o-rings to get them to slide into the bores nicely.