Whats is the best way to clean a carb covered in oil? would gasoline work?

 

Tear it down and soak it in carb cleaner. Otherwise you'll just end up flushing dirt into all the little passages, and then you'll have worse problems than before.

 

ya ok but wouldnt gasoline eat away everything?

 

"Tear it down and soak it in carb cleaner" means you take it apart and remove anything that would be desolved by the cleaner.

Cleaning with gasoline is a very, very bad idea.

 

why would gasoline be a bad thing? it would eat away all the dirt and crap inside. Since the carb is made of metal then it would resist the gasoline effects. besides smelling like gas.

 

Gasoline is a fuel, not a solvent. If you want to use it that bad why bother asking?

 

If you use gas to clean a carb, you risk starting it on fire. Gasoline has a low flashpoint, and should never be used to clean engine parts. Carb cleaner is the way to go, it removes dirt and oil very well. I rebuilt my carb 4 days ago, and carb cleaner made it look a lot better than before.

 

I would like to thank 1986ROC for his review and would like to bring to Apeiron attention that this is the way you help out fellow thirdgen's.

 

Since it's a little hard to read body language on the net, we're left with nothing but written language. From what you wrote, one would reasonably conclude that you wanted to use gasoline, and any suggestion to the contrary would be met with resistance.

Now that we got that out of the way...

You can get a can of spray carb cleaner and squirt it down from the outside. That may help the external choke mechanism, if it's gummed up from dirt & grime, but you risk what RB said in his first response.

The carb isn't all metal, it has rubber seals & paper gaskets amoung other things that can be weakened by carb cleaner. But, the spray kind typically isn't as harsh, and isn't kept on that long. That also means it isn't as effective.

What may appear to be oil on the outside of the carb could actually be varnish residue from the gasoline. If that's the case, gasoline won't desolve it. Carb cleaners will, however.

Again, the best way to clean a carb is to take it apart and soak it in real carb cleaner, not the spray kind. When you do this, it's best to have a carb rebuild kit to replace the things that are bound to be damaged in the process, and the really good news is the kit has step-by-step instructions in how to take it apart and put it back together.

 

the man only wanted you to explain why it was a bad idea, rather than just saying "it's a bad idea". that's how learning works .

 

I was talking about Apeiron, not five7kid. Although I can see how I was a little over drastic so I would like to appoligize to Apeiron.

 

I would also like to apologize. There has been a spate of people recently asking for help and arguing with the responses lately, but it was wrong of me to assume you were doing the same.

 

Good, so we can all just get along...

And my apologies for my own terseness.

 

Cool, glad we are all friends once again. hahaha. Well thanks for the input guys, I just put the carb back together and it looks great. Thanks again guys.