What will dissolve carbon deposits welded in ring grooves . I am replacing the rings on a deutz engine . I would replace the pistons but they were pricey. I tried soaking them in kerosene, white spirit, WD40 , petrol and vegatble oil . The last 2 together did the most but there is still a lot of scraping . What should I use ?
Best thing to remove hard-baked carbon would be soda blasting. It would also be the least aggressive in terms of potentially damaging the piston.
Do you have a piston groove cleaning tool? https://www.google.com/search?q=piston+groove+cleaning+tool&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 Some fuel injector cleaner like gm top end cleaner for cars might loosen it or even gun cleaner
You could try some mr muscle or some other brand of oven cleaner used it before for cleaning heads and gasket areas as it's good for getting the baked on crap from the oven I believe it's got a caustic in it which is what you need.
Yair . . . Umm . . . it used to be they were soaked as long as possible in water and then a brass brush and scrape. Cheers.
Ultrasonic parts cleaner works wonders on those, but that may be out of your (and certainly my) budget range....
Try these guys ..... http://www.sodablastireland.ie/ If you could get the pistons to them I'd imagine the cost would be minimal.
I used break an old ring in half and grind the end sharp. Scratch out the big stuff and then soak the piston in carburetor cleaner at least overnight. Wash off the chemical and then wire brush any residue left in the ring groove. To tell the truth though most of the stuff I've worked on the last ten years has run so long, been worn so bad or just plain damaged that it wasn't worth trying to get a second life out of it. New pistons might be expensive but what is your time worth trying to salvage the old ones and how long do you expect to use the engine?
Nige's suggestion works wonders and it is cheap.
Thanks for all the replies . I got domestic stove glass cleaner and it done the job pretty good . Probably similar to oven cleaner.
Cleaner for ceramic hobs is based on sodium hydroxide - the same "soda" as is used in soda blasting. Efectively you've used the same process without too much of the "blast" ........