How To Remove Aluminum Transfer Without Acid

[cmarti]

Being the laziest guy in the room usually leads me to quick and easy and maybe sloppy solutions to get stuff done. This seems so obvious, I can't believe the hours I spent playing with oven cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner
and wet sanding my finger tips off. Why did you hold out on us so long Monkey?.....Did you have to wait for WigsW patent to run?

Seriously, thanks for sharing.

 

[PogoInTheWoods]

As long as the transfer is gone, and the plating is not worn thru......the jug is serviceable.

Another important aspect to consider is whether there is damage below the ports that may scare folks away from salvaging and restoring a cylinder that would otherwise be perfectly serviceable. If the damaged area can be smoothed out and not present a condition that would damage the piston skirts....(like a circlip gouge or something along those lines), go for it. The rings and all the important action are above the ports, so even a gouge or minor pitting below the ports shouldn't automatically be a reason to toss a cylinder if aluminum transfer can be cleaned up. Common sense obviously needs to be the guide there.

 

[Mastermind]

True.....

I have a 346 jug in my hand right now with damage from a circlip. It's going back into service.

 

[cedarshark]

Pogo & Randy, thanks for the clarification. Obviously, I (and many others I bet) have ditched cylinders that could have been salvaged. It would sure be great if someone with tons of experience and access to a lot of damaged cylinders could post a collage of salvagable cylinders. My rule of thumb(up til now) was toss everything that had damage below the plating...boy, was I wrong !

 

[PogoInTheWoods]

Here is one example of what looks like a really, really bad situation that is now a very strong running 036. I helped a buddy do his first saw tear down and rebuild last winter...., from splitting the cases on up. We worked on it a little at a time every Friday night for a few weeks with me looking over his shoulder (most of the time) until it was time to fire it up. Fueled her up and after a few pulls she popped on choke and then fired right up as she should have. The look on the guy's face was priceless as he'd never done anything like this before....grinnin' ear to ear. Then she stopped dead. Wouldn't pull over. Locked up tight. Dead. My heart sank and I had a pretty strong feeling about what just happened since I installed the first circlip (which was fine), but failed to inspect his installation of the other one before we buttoned up the top end. My bad and a lesson learned there for sure. (Even bigger lesson was the guy refused to let me pay for a replacement piston and insisted on "doing it right" the next time.)

Anyway, here is the carnage. And we were very, VERY lucky the damage occurred where it did. It was a toasted top end to start and the guy went the acid route to clean it up and had quite a bit of time into it before we installed the first piston....then went with emery cloth and quite a bit more time smoothing out the damaged area from the circlip failure before installing the current piston. Prolly wishes now we'd have seen this thread before hand. I sure as hell do!!!

But pics are worth a thousand words...



And to illustrate how incredibly hard NiSi plating really is by comparison, here's what happened to the piston itself...



Yeah, we were very lucky. The circlip was still wedged between the piston and the cylinder and the damage on the piston up toward the rings was from me freeing it up. Weird how it ended up where it did and I'm not even gonna try to explain that, but figure it popped out, got loose in the window, and just naturally got sucked toward the intake.





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[Philbert]

Thanks for those photos (don't want to 'like' someone's bad luck) - very informative.

Philbert

 

[cedarshark]

Thanks Pogo. So, because the scarring is below the intake, and sees no contact with the rings, the cylinder is ok to reuse. Just trying to get this straight in my pea brain.

 

[Mastermind]

Here's a 346XP jug that is usable.

Far from perfect in several ways, but very usable, especially if the transfers will be raised.

 

[cedarshark]

Thanks Randy. So the piston travel will not catch the rings on the gouge?

 

[Mastermind]

If the rings can travel over this.......

 

[DexterDay]

If the rings can travel over this.......

Super LIKE! Hardcore REPPED!!

 

[tbone75]

If the rings can travel over this.......

I would bet that thing runs good ! LOL

 

[cedarshark]

Here's a 346XP jug that is usable.

Far from perfect in several ways, but very usable, especially if the transfers will be raised.

Randy, your port job makes this gouge seem rather insignificant...

 

[Mastermind]

How about this one?

 

[tbone75]

How much more do them extra fingers help ? Looks wicked ! LOL

 

[Mastermind]

A lot.

 

[cedarshark]

That cylinder looks like it had been badly scored before you got it. Was that the case ?

 

[Mastermind]

The last one?

If that is the one you are referring to then, no.

It suffered a crankshaft failure. That marred the bore, but it is sill very usable.

Dennis Cahoon ported that jug years ago.

He sent it to me in hopes that I could learn something from it.....and I did.

It's good to have friends that build world record breaking chainsaws.

 

[cedarshark]

Yes, that was the jug I was referring to. Very cool to have an example handy that can be studied. I apologize as this thread has become somewhat derailed from its original intent of removing transfer but it has been very helpful to determine what jugs should be considered for rebuilds.

 

[Mastermind]

This thread is right on track.

Seeing what will run is an important part of what this thread is about. I know what it is like to be short on cash.....and still needed to get something running.