How do i clean off all the grease off a rotor and a housing? also the apex seals seem to be pretty stuck....do u think it's cuz of that grease that it's stuck....any suggestions on how to take the apex seals off would be appreciated!

 

shop manuel.
You either use a thinner or a non-abbrasive scrubing pad, not sure though. its all in the shop manuel. Im doing the same thing tomorrow.

 

I do a two step process. The first is to get off most of the grunge and oily crapola. I use a water soluable butyl based cleaner (Simple green, Mean Green, etc.) diluted with water.
I have a fiberglass shop sink that you can get at most hardware store for $30. I has legs on it so it is free standing and pretty deep.
You can easily get 10 gallons into it. They have little drains on the bottom and you use a rubber stopper to fill it.
While we are on the first step I will give you another tip... free of charge
Since I hate being wasteful I have two different sized fabric screens that fit down in the drain. I put the larger mesh in first BEFORE I puut in the stopper.
One I am done soaking my parts and remove them I pull the plug and with my bucket under the drain I catch the somewhat filtered liquid.
I then pull the first screen and clean the sink remains in a "crud" bucket.
I then put in the finer screen and the stopper and dump the liquid back in and drain it through the finer mesh.
You can get alot more miles out of your cleaner that way and just "spike" it with a little more butyl base as needed.
The final step is the engine vat and the more expensive parts cleaner.
I have a steamer that is made for removing wallpaper. I have been meaning to take it apart to get some ideas for building a steamer vat because steam is really good for breaking funky **** out of hard to reach areas.

 

If you use simple green, be sure you thoroughly rinse it off. The Air Force did a test on simple green and they found it to be extremely corrosive. They let a piece of steel sit in simple green for 72hrs and it lost 90% of its structural integrity. We are no longer allowed to wash aircraft components with it, we can only use it to mop floors.

 

Yep it will rust up quick. I rinse my parts with water just to get any funk that may be lodged off and then they get tossed in the engine solvent so I don't have a problem with corrosion. But it's real good you pointed that out for others.
I like to use a mist bottle of alcohol to flash off the moisture depending on if they are going to sit extended periods or they are valuable and "waxxing" them by rubbing canning wax on the machined areas.
I am pretty sure that is old school stuff because I learned that from my Dad.

 

I have a varsol dependency problem.....
I have the old style pump and wet brush parts washer I scavenged from a high school autoshop that was moving the new enviromentally friendly parts washers.. works good....
I use an old sideseal to clean the seal groove as well as the triangle cut end of the apex seal, old apex seals are great for cleaning the rotors and housing grooves...
I just basically soak everything in the washer overnight, the next day it all washes away, then I give it a wash in carb cleaner and blow it dry with compressed air...
The trick to getting the water seals to hold after a rebuild is really in the cleanliness of the 0-ring grooves, thats where its important to spend your time, I go over them 3 times usually, to avoid future problems..Max

 

thanx a lot for the info all....scalliwag i have one of those big shop sinks....and ur idea for reusing that stuff is good.....is mean green/simple green available at home depot? Max you said u soak everything in the washer overnight right.....what do u soak it in?

Max how much do you charg to machne a pair of rotors? would you suggest getting lightened rotors instead? and if rotors are machined or housings are machined....wouldn't the surface area of the rotor decrease? and wouldn't that cause a change in compression?

thanx again,
Mr. Big G

 

another thing....this motor was out for a while in the rain and stuff.....i haven't been able to see the outer surface of the housings or anything yet cuz of the grease and dirt....but does anyone think anything could be wrong with it?

 

I don't have time for Simple Green to work on motors with 100k miles of abuse.

I found this out by accident, but drain cleaner containing sodium hydroxide works really well. Don't let it sit in it too long, and watch your skin!

I know people are going to complain, but you gotta try it to believe it. Else, I would get ChemDip from the big chain auto parts stores.

We happened on the sodium hydroxide fix by accident. I'm cleaning parts off of FC's with very heavy carbon build-up, and none of the typical stuff is readily available. No ChemDip or carb cleaner in the can - I'm not in the US right now, so it's hard to find stuff that'll work. The drain cleaner worked good enough for the price...


-Ted

 

drain cleaner as in drano?....plus another thing i wanted to ask u guys was if the side seals and apex seals are reusable? cuz i found one rotor with all good apex seals and side seals....and does anyone have any tips on taking all these seals out.....i've never done it before

 

I got my ones pretty clean

http://www.can-saf.com/modules.php?s...view_photo.php



http://www.can-saf.com/modules.php?s...view_photo.php

 

damn that is clean

 

OK how the heck did u get em that clean?

 

20B-3 Rotor did my rebuild, streetport, sandblast and painting of my s5 TII Motor and he won't even tell me how they got so clean.

A before and after shot of my Boosted silverrotor's hehe

 

BOOOOOOOOOOO

 

Um...do you care to elaborate on your stupidity? Maybe It's just me. I'm seeing a stupid Icon that has a thumb resembling a flacid ***** with the word boooo beside It.

 

project till the end of this year....get the pair of rotors i have cleaned up that good and better if possible

 

Sorry about that. I was booing at the fact that he didn't tell you how he got them so clean. The rotors are impressive without a doubt. If you ever find out how he got them so clean, let us know!

 

Be careful with sandblasting...
Mazda put on a special coating (oil retention?) on the rotor faces and on the sides from the side seal groove to the rotor face. If you slowly clean the rotor, you'll notice something that looks like adhesive that you can't get out scrubbing by hand - I would not recommend sandblasting this stuff. It's detailed in the Mazda factory service manual.

Also, most sandblasting agents are very abrasive, and you have to be **** to get every bit of it removed before engine assembly. Silicone carbide (very popular) and bearings do not like each other.

Yes, like Drano. We have had very good results with it and with very little soak time. Typically, in under and hour of soaking with a 5:1 water/drain cleaner ratio, most of the carbon will fall off with a light scrubbing. We were worried about the bearings, but they look fine.


-Ted

 

Trani fluid..

 

We didn't sandblast it.

 

If you look close at the cleaned rotor there is the area at the top crease of the combustion chamber with some carbon still there. That is indicative of a wire wheel. The only wirewheels I ever use on engine components are brass wire.
There are some really nice brushes made out of a hightech plastic they sell on the Snap-On trucks. I will try to find a picture of one of those.

 

I could not find them on Snap-On's site. They are 3m Roloc bristle brushes. Anyone that has ever used them will tell you that they are great. They come in a few different levels of abrasiveness.
I am glad I did a search because now I don't have to chase down them damn trucks and pay out the ***
Here is the link to the place I got the pic from http://www.tnttape.com/product.cfm?ProductID=3582

 

Yes your right about the brush. But after that we use something else to do the finshing.

 

COOL!!! I just bought 20 off of Ebay with the "Buy it now" option at $1.55 each for the 3"!!!!
RAHHHH!!!!!
18 left now http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=42905