<VV> Tear-down III (was Rebuild II)

[Kirby Smith]

Paint thinner will not disolve baked on carbonized residue. 
  I suggest soaking the oil cooler in carburator cold parts 
cleaner (chrysilic [sp] acid) for a while and then washing 
it out with water.  More than one soak may be needed if 
there is significant passage blockage.

kirby


Stephen Upham wrote:
> Last night, I began tear-down III.
> 
>     I finally got the broken rocker cover bolt issue solved.  After 
> carefully drilling out all of the old bolt, I was able to use a standard 
> sized bolt (no re-threading or over sizing was necessary).  I attached a 
> series of six super magnets in the deep oil pan and put another 65 lb. 
> rated shop magnet on the end of the filter.  I put the oil in and used a 
> drill attached to an old distributor shaft and placed hair driers (two) 
> on the oil cooler and a curling iron between the cooler and the oil 
> filter in order to heat the oil as much as possible in order to loosen 
> as much of any hidden debris as possible.  I ran this setup for two 
> hours. The oil cooler adaptor became hot to the touch. I was hoping to 
> find that all was well, but that's not what happened.
>     After I drained the oil, I ran a magnet through the oil.  It came up 
> negative.  I then took off the oil pan and that's when I realized that 
> all was not well.  I found flakes (very few, but then how many would you 
> want?) on the magnets.  It was when I used carb cleaner to clean the oil 
> pan and then ran the magnet through the collected runoff that I really 
> knew I was going to take the engine apart for a third time.  The iron 
> debris were extremely fine, but it clumped around the end of the magnet 
> like a ball. Most likely the debris came from the replacement oil cooler 
> that I bought.  I thought I had throughly cleaned it by having a 
> radiator shop put engine cleaner in it and then blow it out with a 
> pressure hose, and then I put paint thinner in it and immersed it in hot 
> water which caused it to spit the thinner back out.  I did this probably 
> six or seven times alternating putting thinner in the cooler and shaking 
> it back and forth until there were no more debris coming out; about 
> fifteen times.  I also hand cleaned the front case cover and all of the 
> oil passages.  Perhaps it came from the top case cover.     
>     Regardless, I going to tear it down again and leave no stone 
> unturned in removing every last bit of debris.
> 
> On the positive side, I am getting pretty good at a tear down and 
> reassemble.  I've almost got the torque ratings memorized. ggg
> 
> Stephen Upham
> Corvairium II