The soda blaster arrived yesterday and I took it for a spin on a few parts. No doubt this is a high-speed-low-drag way to clean parts; totally worth the investment.
I looked at the units Harbor Freight sells and also online. I noticed that
this unit on Amazon is identical to the HF unit except it has wheels. With a 40lb capacity I guessed having wheels would be important (I was right).
Nothing too surprising in the parts and other than the regulator/moisture trap the quality is solid (for the price). The regulator is serviceable, just nowhere near as nice as the others I have in my air system.
I decided to just do it outside versus in my blast cabinet; I have not yet had a chance to seal the seams in the cabinet and don't have a hose long enough for the soda blaster to reach.
I bought a bag of HF's medium grit soda and XL grit soda. For this test run I just used the medium grit seen here.
My first test subject, the upper timing chain cover.
Wow. 5 minutes later:
The plastic on the donor car, such as this distributor cover and the air filter assembly are covered in cosmoline. I was curious how good a job the soda would do at getting that damn cosmoline off (every other method I've tried is just hugely labor intensive).
Before:
After:
Not bad. Not bad at all! I would not do this on plastic parts where I needed to retain a shiny luster though as you end up with matte surface.
My next test was on the AC compressor which I had not cleaned at all. The test was to see if you could get away with just using the soda blaster to get deep grime off.
As you can see, the answer is no. I used quite a bit of soda and time/effort to just make this much progress. So using a combination of degreaser, steam cleaning, scrub brushes, and elbow grease to get most grime off is needed first. Then I'll use the soda blaster to make it purdy.
Finally, I wanted to see how a fairly corroded piece of aluminum would come out. I purchased a AFM from a member here since I only have one for two engines and I'm concerned the one on the car may be having issues. I should have asked the seller to send me more pics before I bought because he failed to show me pics of the top. I was pretty disappointed when it came to discover how crappy the top was.
Before:
After:
I'm no longer disappointed with my purchase
. The soda blaster made it look way more than good enough.
Next I'll try the XL grit soda on a few pieces. I'm really curious how good I can make the intake manifold look...and whether I can get away without having to powder coat it to meet my standards.
