dirty aluminum intake question

does anyone have a way of cleaning up a dirty aluminum intake ? sand blasting seem to aggresssive
thanks Gene

Back in high school, I sand blasted an edelbrock intake to put on a 318 for my Satellite. It was pretty dirty to begin with so we soaked it in the parts cleaner over night. Blasted the whole thing and I thought it looked great. If you're concerned about being too abrasive maybe find somebody who has glass beads or other blasting media.

Turn down the air pressure ? Mothers alum mag cleaner ?

carb cleaner works real good. there is a mild acid sold in auto paint speciality shops that works like magic but i can't think of the name of it. it's great on raw aluminum.

Laq thinner works great on alum.

Some guys have recommended to use Oven cleaner, but every time I used it on aluminum, the part turned a dark gray. I wont use that stuff on aluminum unless I plan to paint over the clean surface.
I had an intake glass beaded. Be careful though, since the beads stayed on the surface and I had to wash the intake with soap and water to avoid the beads from getting into the motor!

Mag wheel acid will get it clean, but it can turn aluminum almost white. It will eventually go back to it's natural silver color though.

PPG makes an aluminum cleaner that deep cleans pretty good, but the stuff is pretty damn expensive and requires several applications.

Bead blasting work great, although on an engine part you'd need to wash the heck out it afterwards. A single plane is easy to clean up, but a dual plane is much more difficult to get the crud out of so you may want to try blocking off the carb opening and ports with some sheetmetal beforehand to make the cleanup easier.

I've powder coated a couple intakes and the carb on my 318. This is what I do, and find it work great.

Coat the part completely with Dawn dish soap, scrub it a bit with a tooth brush (scrap any big stuff off first) to make sure the entire surface is coated. Let it sit for a couple days, then rinse really good, dry completely and blast with as much pressure as you can using salt. Rinse good with hot water, and all the blasting media dissolves away...