How to clean a heatercore?

[touser]

Hello everyone, i just bought a heatercore from pep boys but it is very tarnished and has crud all over it, i was wondering what is recommended to clean it up and get it looking good because it is going to be mounted to the outside of my case for the world to see. Thanks in advance!

[repilce]

if this is a new one, they just look like that (i work at autozone).. if you want to make it look good just get you some decent enamel spray paint and plug your holes or even put some tape over about the first 1/2 inch of them also and paint it.. there' s not much you could do to get a shiny copper look off of it.. as the way they are mad and the metals composed of are the reason it looks "dirty" but it's really not. mostly just solder splay..

[Nanidin]

You can soak the thing in warm coca-cola. I put mine in a 5 gallon bucket and loaded it up until it was covered then added some hot water and vinegar. I let it soak overnight and rinsed it off/out in the morning. After all that, I painted it. Before I painted it, I masked off the fin areas.

[repilce]

yeh that's a good ideah about masking off the finned areas. and the cleaning solution for that matter, the flux that they use could cause paint not to stick well.. as for the fins. paint wont really hurt the cooling capacity but if not carful you could clock up the small areas if applied to heavily.

[Diggrr]

You can also put the little wire brush in your dremel and polish it up that way. If you want it really shiny, use some toothpaste or SimiChrome metal polish with the buffer (felt) pads to make it look like gold.
Follow with bladerunner's choice of cellulose based clear polyeurethane, and it'd stay that way.

Not much to do for the grey solder on the fins though. Maybe just a good brushing out. If you have bent fins, a popsicle stick is great for "combing" the fins back straight again.
If you can paint LIGHTLY, use some flat black on them. An airbrush would be ideal using a very thin paint.

You can also dress up the sides of the core with plain sheets of copper or brass just siliconed into place to make them nice and smooth (and polishable).

Have a great one!

[touser]

Thank you everyone for the great info. I will be trying some of it soon!

[William.E]

hey Nanidin, is that diet coke or normal coke? or doesnt it matter?

[UberBlue]

Originally posted by William.E
hey Nanidin, is that diet coke or normal coke? or doesnt it matter?

Doesn't matter as long as it has phosphoric acid listed in the ingredients.

[Nanidin]

Originally posted by UberBlue


Doesn't matter as long as it has phosphoric acid listed in the ingredients.

Carbonic Acid also helps ;) (It may not be listed but be assured- if your coke isn't flat you've got it)

[UberBlue]

It's listed. Carbonated water (the root of all soda) = carbonic acid.

[William.E]

~thanks, im going to give it a go.