Rebuilding an Audi 2.0T engine. Have used nylon brush and brillo pad + carb cleaner by hand. Nylon wire wheel has no effect. Ive been told to avoid regular wire wheel. I dont have air tools in my work space but a good variety of battery & electric drivers, drills, etc.
Can someone recommend a tool or driver attachment that will clean this without damaging the block surface or requiring mutliple hours of work?
Are you trying to clean the head gasket surface or the whole block?
Are you trying to get back to shiny? The only way to do that without berkeleying stuff up is to deck it.
The color doesn't really matter. Smooth and clean, without edges rounded over from polishing and a pan full of aluminum oxide is sufficient.
I hear good things about roloc bristle discs, but I have not used them since I was not so worried about hurting my iron block, and tolerances are a “guideline” at this point in its lifecycle.
Looks fine to me. If you can rub your fingers over the surface and not feel any leftover gasket material, you are done. (Fingertips are remarkably sensitive "measuring devices"... an untrained human can feel a difference of something like .0001", or 2.5 microns if you are so inclined!)
Trying to clean up the staining will mostly result in you ruining the deck by making it no longer flat.
Sharpening stone with WD40?
In reply to buzzboy :
Depends on if you want to send it out to be decked!
Nothing that removes metal is a good idea. At all.
jerrysarcastic (Forum Supporter) said:I hear good things about roloc bristle discs, but I have not used them since I was not so worried about hurting my iron block, and tolerances are a “guideline” at this point in its lifecycle.
Lol.
So I bought this very thing, and Im embarassed to say I dont know how or what tool to mount it on:
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Looks fine to me. If you can rub your fingers over the surface and not feel any leftover gasket material, you are done. (Fingertips are remarkably sensitive "measuring devices"... an untrained human can feel a difference of something like .0001", or 2.5 microns if you are so inclined!)
Trying to clean up the staining will mostly result in you ruining the deck by making it no longer flat.
Thanks - none of the discolorations are 'feelable' by finger - I suspected it would be good to go, but since I have the block on a stand, I figured I should check with folks that know more about this than me.
Streetwiseguy said:Are you trying to get back to shiny? The only way to do that without berkeleying stuff up is to deck it.
The color doesn't really matter. Smooth and clean, without edges rounded over from polishing and a pan full of aluminum oxide is sufficient.
Thanks - appreciate it.
Looks like your little yellow tool threads into the base that the normal sanding discs fit into.
FatMongo said:jerrysarcastic (Forum Supporter) said:I hear good things about roloc bristle discs, but I have not used them since I was not so worried about hurting my iron block, and tolerances are a “guideline” at this point in its lifecycle.
Lol.
So I bought this very thing, and Im embarassed to say I dont know how or what tool to mount it on:
That goes on a roloc disc holder and then a drill or pneumatic angle grinder.
https://www.amazon.com/ProTool-5542-Roloc-Holder-Shank/dp/B003VOO92M
Ever since I read about how some of the abrasive pads leave garnet micro-chunks behind, I have been paranoid of the whole disc to clean engine surfaces.
I would bite the bullet and pay the local machine shop to clean it for me. Hard to beat the nasty chemicals and high pressure.
That block looks fine to me. Iron is so porous that it's hard to get discoloration out without decking.
I did see a video where a guy took a big, long flat file and just ran it lightly across the deck for about 3 hours. He didn't get all the discoloration off, but it did reveal all kinds of high spots from where the head bolts "pulled" the iron up.
Skip to 0:30 if you don't want to hear the intro from look-at-me goth pinup girl.
I've built a number of VW and Audi 4 and 6 cylinder engines using roloc discs to clean the surface. Use the lightest grade and all should be fine. But, as has been said if you can't feel it it should be fine. It's a VW 4 cyl essentially.
Watched it from the beginning to see the goth chick (thirty seconds of my life I won't get back) and another minute at the end (looking at the chick's chicks)
And as I understand it, wrong.
I was working under the assumption that when a block was decked the cutter was inclined in the drection of travel, so the trailing edge of the cutter won't drag and recut the the deck. This yields the profile of the deck surface concave in the center.
And who doesn't chamfer the threaded holes in a block (ESPECIALLY the hold bolt/stud)?
All in all, a waste of 9:47 of my rapidly dwindling lifespan
Want to do it right? Go to a machine shop. Get the proper RA for the headgasket and be worry free.
Too cheap? Get a peice of glass and sandpaper. Lots of YouTube videos but I don't personally believe in Homebrew (machining)
OT: soooooo done with goth pinup chixx and fake rockabilly caricatures come to life
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