Berryman® Chem-Dip® Professional Parts Cleaner
This is the stuff that really cleans up the years of nasty built-up glop in your carburators and other parts. A side benefit is that it stinks to high heaven, and may take the paint off the house across the street too. It's not cheap - a 5 gallon pail and the stainless basket will set you back about $175, but a pail of this stuff will last you many, many years. The one-gallon size is a different formula, and doesn't work as well. Due to the stink factor, I keep my pail behind my garage on some 4x4s.
It's 20 degrees here in Virginia, and I went to use my Berryman's on a carburator. I opened the lid, and here is a block of yellow ice in the basket at the top! WTF? I broke up the ice enough to pull it out (with rubber gloves) and transfer it into a bucket. I dipped my carb in the rest of the solution, and it cleaned it up quite nicely, as usual. I wasn't sure what to do next, so I put the ice back in the pail, and called Berryman. Their chemist called me back the next day. He said that the real cleaning stuff is in the bottom of the pail, and that there's an aqueous layer at the top, which they put there to pass EPA requirements. The aqueous stuff has some anti-corrosion properties, but mostly it's there to prevent evaporation of the bottom stuff. So after I removed the yellow ice, I was using the good stuff to clean my carb. He said that freezing had no bad effects. He also said that when I lower the basket into the can, I should do it gently, so as not to mix the top layer with the bottom layer for best cleaning action. So I guess the proper agitation method is to gently rotate the basket in the can, not pull it up and down like I have been doing. He said that I should not keep my pail on metal or concrete with rebar in it - galvanic corrosion would slowly rot out the bottom of the pail.
I told him that when I remove parts from the pail, I wash them off with hot water, but the parts still stink. How best to de-stink the parts? He said that Berryman's was designed to stick to metal for better cleaning action, and that the best "rinse" was (Berryman brand of course) chlorinated brake parts cleaner.
How To Get Water out of Your Regular Parts Cleaner Solvent
When I brought my homemade parts cleaner (converted laundry sink) up from the barn to the house recently, I left it outside overnight while I was building a little stand with wheels. Of course it rained heavily that night, and a whole lot of water got into the parts cleaner, whose top I had not designed to be water-proof, since it normally is indoors. I couldn't figure out how to get the water out of the solvent, so I poured it into a different bucket, and bought a new 5-gal of parts cleaner which I have been using since. I left the bucket of waterlogged solvent outside.
When I looked at the waterlogged bucket of solvent (after using the frozen Berryman's), I found the water in it had frozen. I pulled the ice cake out, and the ice was pretty clear - looked like some sludge had frozen in the interstitial spaces in the ice, but not the solvent - which was unfrozen at the bottom of the pail. I tossed the ice cake into the woods, which left about the right amount of pure solvent in the pail. So that's how you get water out of parts cleaner solvent. At least here in Virginia. You guys in Florida or sunny Southern California will have to figure out your own methods.
Dave