Looking to sell the heads off my LT1, but wanted to clean them up a bit.. is there a drill attachment i can use to clean off the carbon without compromising the sealing surfaces?

 

I wouldn't use a drill attachment. Carb cleaner, a razor blade, and elbow grease is really all you need. Whatever you do, DO NOT use Scotchbrite. You can get an uneven deck that way.

 

On the heads i've cleaned up I use varsol. its a cleaning solvent that can be reused. its like 30 bux for 5 gallons.

 

Oh.. the carb cleaner wil remove the build up carbon on the combustion chamber? they arent horrible, but i guess i'd like to make them more sellable. What exactly will i be applying the elbow grease to? Do i just use a rag or something?

 

rags work fine. you can also use parts cleaning brushes. they are similar to detailing brushes for interiors.

 

Just hit it with some brake cleaner and it got spanking clean...

 

To clean out the chambers you should use carb-clean, a dental pick or flat blade screwdriver and a wire brush(hand held) to clean the deck you can use a putty knife, razor, chisel...anything with a flat-sharp edge that will scrape up gasket and carbon without scratching the deck. To finish up the deck you can use a green scotch brite pad with WD-40 and lightly swirl it around to get rid of the little stuff - it's when people use the drill attached abrasive disks that the deck get's ruined.

Now that you have cleaned the deck you may see indentations(brinelling) around the chambers where the fire-rings sat, or water etching/corrosion - this would mean the heads need to be surfaced...pretty much any aluminum head should be surfaced after it has been removed after any substantial time on a motor....obviously let your buyer do this, also I don't think you will get any extra money by spending the time to do carbon removal. Personally I would rather have heads sold to me as-is.

 

Eh I used a toothbrush and some citrus cleaner. Maybe it was simply orange? I can't remember. Worked pretty well actually.

 

I use aircraft paint stripper. The heads will be cleaner than they were new from the factory.

 

or you can pay a machine shop 30.00

 

I like this far better! My time is valuable to me and spending a few hours cleaning this stuff sucks. I let the machine shop clean them to like new in the parts cleaner.

 

I worked in a NAPA mqchine shop and i loved the parts cleaner machine....pressurized hot solvent will make damn near anything look new. especially aluminum heads and blocks! I put a rusty antique iron in there for ****s and giggles and it looked brand new!
Napa is usually like $10 to $20 depending on size of parts washed. a set of heads was usually $18. but that was 12 years ago now! lol