I had to pull my intercooler to access a coolant hose recently and noticed it was quite dirty. Cleaning the exterior fins was quite easy but after looking at the inside of it I realized I might consider also cleaning out the inside too. After a number of miles I have a little oil build up on the inside. Nothing alarming but I'm thinking that if there's oil on the inside surface that's going to cut down on the effectiveness of the intercooler. Quite simply put, the heat exchange won't be nearly as efficient.

So I'm considering ways to SAFELY clean it out. My intercooler is a an all aluminum stock mount Petter Ferell unit. I've seen some people use lacquer thinner or even acetone. What's the best way to do this?

 

I personally use acetone since it will break down oils or at least clean them off.

 

After doing a bit more research it looks like some people thin out Simple Green with a little water and allow that to slosh around in there. Then they use distilled water and or alcohol to finalize the cleaning and blow compressed air backward through it to dry. I might give this a shot later.

 

This is what I did, and it evaporates after a while, so no need to rinse with water.

 

Hot tank is the best bet but you can use something like simple green as well. Make sure you blow out as much water as you can before reinstalling it. It may also be a good idea to run the car with the cold side piping off and rev it a few times to blow out any remaining moisture. A catch can setup will help prevent oil from coating the intercooler in the future.

 

Hot water and dish soap work as well...especially if the IC has some painted surfaces. I use a utility sink once a year. Soap, hot water, set a few minutes, rinse, drain...maybe repeat. Done.

 

We use our ultrasonic parts washer, it does an incredible job cleaning inside the tubes and fins. You might call a local machine shop or a Napa with in house services.

 

^
Nice!


I've cleaned mine twice and simply used non-diluted Castrol SUPERCLEAN; sloshed it about real good and then rinsed with hot water. Sat it out in the sun and let it dry, then ran a can of Berryman's carb cleaner thru it, again sloshing it all around and poured it out and let it air dry for a day.

 

Soap and hot water.
What's the point of letting it dry off?
We do run water injection on these cars...
Unless you leave a bucket of water in there it wont hurt anything to just pop it back on.

 

I'm in process right now. I picked the simple green method and cut it 50% with distilled water. I sloshed it around a bunch making sure to coat every interior surface. I let it sit for about 20 minutes and then sloshed it around some more. After pouring it out I rinsed it twice with distilled water making sure to slosh it around in there a bunch more each time.

After ensuring I got as much of the water out as possible I set a hair drier (perfect pipe diameter size) to blow hot air through it for about 20 minutes. It really got the intercooler quite hot and was blowing a fairly large volume of air through it. I'm pretty sure nearly all (if not all) of the water is out at this point.

Edit: In addition to the hair drier...the shop vac seems quite good at moving a large volume of air through the intercooler too. Again, pipe size is dead on for my parts. Helps cool it off after the hair drier too!

 

Distilled water and hair dryer are overkill.

 

The way I see it, for half an hour extra work it sure beats any minescule chance of a rebuild sooner than later. Happy to go the extra mile. And I always keep distilled water in the garage for coolant purposes.

 

 

Jubo!

 

I clean out my stock intercooler every 6 or 12 months. Remove it out of the car and I simply block one outlet with a rubber glove/rubber band and then fire the entire contents of an aerosol can of parts-store degreaser into the intercooler.

Then cap the other outlet end and SHAKE THE EVERLOVING **** out of the SMIC in my hands for about a minute to slosh the degreaser and exercise my arms/the demons out of me.

Then drain all the dirty degreaser out, flush it with tap water and throw it back in the car. Don't even wait for the tap water to dry out of it- a little water is not going to hurt the engine at all, compared to all the violent steam cleaning posts I see here.

Distilled water and ultrasonic this or that is completely overkill and your time is better spent on other things. I've cleaned my SMIC like this for years and years and not one issue.

 

Here's an option you might not have considered!

Marble mystery oil mixed with diesel fuel... I dunno 1:2.
Go buy an outdoor rated fountain water pump. (Trust me, I've done this before.)

Fill a storage tote with the MMO and diesel fuel to submerge the IC, and have the pump circulate the mixture through the core.

Come back in a day or so, and the part should be clean.

Let the pump do the work.

 

I found an oil film inside the intake elbow, so I swished a few cup fulls of gas
inside my OEM intercooler and let it sit for a month after draining fuel.
Once the smell of fuel was gone, it was safe to use.
Acetone should be OK if you don't have plastic end tanks.
Diesel fuel and Marvel's are light oils, so that might or might not defeat the purpose ?