Just back from the soda blaster

[ajwans]

Here's my crankcase and cam towers just back from
the soda blaster, I'm pretty happy with them althrough
they still need the final 1% cleaned.



andy

[304065]

Andy,

Looks good, but I would definitely return the parts to the soda blaster and ask him to finish the job. You have oil residue inside the cam towers and some areas of the case that still have oxidation.

I used to run a soda blasting business in the early 90's, there should be no harm done to the aluminum, even with the more agressive grades of bicarbonate. Also, dry strips faster than wet, I wouldn't worry about cranking up the flow and really working the case over. The good news is that bicarbonate is soluble in water, although I would pull the case plugs and clean just to be sure.

That said, I had my case tumble-polished by Ollies in ceramic media. They then pull the plugs and completely clean the interior oil passages. No worries that way and nice, no? I also had them surface and tumble the cam towers to remove any trace of the brown oil stains inside. At the same time they pull the spraybars and will add more holes (a '67 mod) if required and replace with plugs.

[304065]

Another pic of the internals, note case webs.