MEP-803A - New to me, excited to get it going.

For really stubborn carbon deposits, try CLR. You know, the stuff for cleaning shower heads of lime scale. Many professional shooters are using it to remove carbon from their barrels and swear it works better than anything else.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I am cancelling the order on the parts and gaskets. Company was deceptive in their advertisement, raised the price on me after I ordered (PayPal notified me thankfully). Now trying to get a refund from them so I can order from somewhere else. The push rods are coming from forum member so those will be okay. I think the one bent valve isn't actually bent, just has a mass of carbon stuck to it that prohibited it from pulling out properly. Looking into ultrasonic cleaners right now too. But CLR is a lot cheaper so going to give it a try too.

@KD7CAO Just a heads up; gun barrels usually have a surface treatment that makes them more corrosion resistant, e.g. bluing, or nitriding. Plain steel, like a valve, will corrode in acids, e.g. CLR, so keep a close eye on the parts if you do use it. Remember the old experiments with Coca-cola (pH 2.4+/-) and a nail? Per the MSDS for CLR, it is about a pH of 2.2, so even more acidic.

I'm not saying CLR won't work, but I personally wouldn't use it on engine parts, for this and other reasons (hydrogen embrittlement).

All the best,

2PbFeet

When I cleaned the carbon out of my 1.9l turbo diesel car project I found what worked best for me was oven cleaner, after 30 mins of that most of it just washed off perfectly clean with pressure washer, the remainder i heated up with map gas (not a torch) and once hot used a metal coat hanger i stretched out (like grab the hook and center of straight bottom and pull away from each other to make a skinny diamond shape) and cut the hook off to where it is twisted and put that in a drill and other end in the manifold and that got everything I couldnt reach by other means extremely well.

Good Day: Last entry was 2 June. Did you have any luck in starting?