Water compatible carb cleaners

Does anybody have experience with water-based, or at least water-compatible
carburetor cleaners? The old methylene chloride based materials seem to have
gone away, at least here in California, and the replacements get mixed
reviews at best while still being relatively expensive.

To my great surprise, there are several reports of ordinary Pine-sol cleaner
being useful as a carb cleaner, especially when it's heated. I did a small
experiment cleaning a coffee machine with tarry coffee residues and it worked
much better than detergent when heated. It also lightly etched brass and
didn't harm an old Buna o-ring.. But, coffee tar isn't gasoline tar and
a carb has much finer passages than an espresso group head. I let the test
run a few hours, the etching tendency makes me hesitant to count on longer
cleaning.

Turns out there are also water compatible paint removers, for example a
product called Citristrip. The MSDS seems to indicate a decent composition
(mostly a solvent called NMP) and it's not likely to etch metal. NMP isn't
very aggressive when cold but it's quite good when heated and has a high
boiling point, well over that of water.

Other possibilities that come to mind are brake fluid or antifreeze,
which are mostly ethylene glycol. Both are famous for wrecking paint
slowly, perhaps they'll act faster when hot.

If anybody's got stories to tell, please do.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska


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