As I'm rebuilding my 21SP engine, I decided to tidy up the crankcases, heads etc. I had them vapour blasted, the results are great.

Cases on the right came off the bike and were treated, the cases on the left are spares, but look similar condition to the other cases 'as removed'.




Gearbox cover / clutch housing has come up well.....



Head & Barrel both came off the bike, the head was treated - some contrast...



The company can be found at www.bestspoke.co.uk. Rates are very reasonable, they can collect & deliver nationwide.
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Rich
MC21 Track Bike / RS250 NF5 'Spencer', NX5 'Cadalora' & NXA 'Aoyama' / RS500 / Two Brothers Racing RC30


Last edited by RichG on Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:21 am; edited 2 times in total

Looks mint. Beats filling my washing machine with road grime.
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...

Results look pretty similar to your dishwasher Steve... but not as cheap, I bet.

Don't forget robins does vapour blasting too, and offered to do some decent rates for Forum Members.
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Andy.
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lol, its all down to the soap used. I'm still undecided if Arial or Tesco's own brand is best for crank cases!
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...

Get Matt to send over some Fab! That's the stuff! I imagine it would be ilegal here, it's that caustic!

You'd probably have the feds banging the door down on the trail of the "special uncut white powder"!
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Andy.
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I think Matt's Soup might be a little overkill but I hear it works very well.

Do the cases go furry after being vapour blasted?
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...

Andy, I can arrange with you to set Bestspoke up as a supporting vendor.
Just let me know if your interetsed.

Steve, no furring after 2 weeks. I'll pursue some more definitive results on long term stability.
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Rich
MC21 Track Bike / RS250 NF5 'Spencer', NX5 'Cadalora' & NXA 'Aoyama' / RS500 / Two Brothers Racing RC30

Maybe worth thinking about treating the alloy with ACF-50. It's bloody good stuff.

http://www.acf-50.co.uk/

If there's enough interest here to generate them some business, then yes it would be nice to set them up as a Vendor.

In that line of work, they probably have a contact that can strip and re-anodise frames/swingarms. That would be nice!
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Andy.
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looks Awesome Rich
Wish I'd done that when rebuild my engine.

StephenRC45 wrote:

Do the cases go furry after being vapour blasted?

dont ever get them wet rich. after blasting some bits on my bike some bits have gone worse than they did before i had them blasted it lasted about 3 or 4 weeks of road riding and all went fury now looks like a bag of sh*t

Good info Fenton, I'll get some ACF-50 that Andy spoke about.
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Rich
MC21 Track Bike / RS250 NF5 'Spencer', NX5 'Cadalora' & NXA 'Aoyama' / RS500 / Two Brothers Racing RC30

While I'm sure its no where near as good as ACF-50 I've always washed the cases in paraffin after I have cleaned them. It seems to protect them alittle.
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If I have to take the carbs off once more...

...so what's the best way to clean them? I thought that media blasting (glass beads to be precise) was the best possible way...

I can't see much wrong with those vapour blaster components personally. I think the best thing with vapour blasting is it doesn't remove any material. Any form of media blastings is going to have an effect of mating surfaces if you are not extremely careful, plus it's possible to leave remnants of media in oil galleries and other nooks and crannies!

The only thing with vapour blasting is as Fenton says, it leaves the cases very "dry". Steve's solution of washing the parts in parafin is a good idea as it's oil based, so will seap into the "pores" of the alloy and offer a little lasting protection. WD40 is too light, and evaporates and dries out quickly. ACF-50 is designed not to dry out for a much longer period of time.

"TYGA Soup" also dries the alloy out and can lead to ozidisation if the parts aren't treated afterwards.

Well used but clean cases are the best though, as the years of 2T mist swirling around them keeps them nice an moist... and we like nice and moist!
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Andy.
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that ultrasonic thingy might work well too, what do you make of it?



http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMKFhbyQZ8&feature=related