found an old offenhauser three deuce setup over the weekend and was dissasembeling it for clean up ! took it to the local machine shop to have it hot tanked , intake looks to have been polished at one time , mostly grime and overspray on it i was gonna have em gl*** bead it but wondered if anyone has soda blasted one ? its not really a cast looking manifold so i'm trying to stay away from the etched look gl*** beads give ! pretty smooth surface and wondered if soda blasting would do the trick ? i'm not going for a polished look when done just smooth aluminum
Yup , soda blast is the ticket .DONT .have it hot tanked ! The caustic in the brew will attack looneymum .
Hot tank aluminum and all will be left are the bolt holes. My buddies vo-tec teacher was always saying that.
guess i should have used the word hot tanked loosely ! not sure what they use but i have had them do aluminum before no problem !
Be sure to give it a good cleaning after the blasting. We gl*** beaded an intake years ago and after the motor was run for a little while the bearing went south. Now I cover all openings before any kind of blasting. Then lots of water. Two scents
soda blasting is actually a darn good degreaser. i did an inline 6 that had valve cover issues for probably 20 years, never washed, just pulled it and blasted it whole. made tear down clean and easy. a word of caution; if you have to really "dig" at grime with a big blaster you will break through the polish and leave it a little hazy but as said before a little mothers and you'll be back in business. the other plus is soda breaks down with water so no abrasive issues come back to haunt you.
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