Citroen XM Forum

Worth keeping any eye on your Aldi's/Lidl's middle aisle - some of their 'special buy' DIY fare is actually manufactured by Bosch, but comes quite a bit cheaper. E.g. Parkside router

Stickfinger wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:54 am ZERO effect on the Alloy.

Dishwasher detergent is ----"very mildly" alkaline----- it is not "highly alkaline"....if it were so strong as to do what you say under such short term exposure to a lump of cast Aluminium alloy then you would need gloves and PPE to handle it.

Just tested a dissolved d/w gel-tab (Finish brand).
pH = 11

That is highly alkaline, and when used in hot water it will be quite aggressive on soft metals, which is why you are warned not to put silverware etc in a d/w.

Greatly effected by the amount of water it is in solution with......and time.

Try it, take a piece of polished alloy ...put it in there for a cycle.....once.

Well that has come up OK.....it should keep it clean with an etch primer, zinc and a light see through dust of gold with a clear on top. Block cleaned and ready, just need to apply high suction around the pistons with a fine nozzle on the workshop vac to make sure there is no crud in there and I should be ready.

[pH] "Greatly effected [sic] by the amount of water it is in solution with....."

Not something to lose any sleep over, but the Royal Society of Chemistry does say:
. https://edu.rsc.org/resources/chemistry ... 0glycerol.

I was just very concerned about the finish on some of these seriously precious alloy wheels, not so much a one-off clean-up of a cylinder head.

TBH I would think it is a concern, if exposure is over a protracted amount of time/constantly washing the parts on a daily basis .....such as road salt/wet roads all winter. Trapping such a solution under a powder coating or a lacquer coating (via a stone chip/crack) maintains the damp environment.

A 30 min "wash" as a one off = NP on a practical level as the oxide layer will maintain its integrity.

When an engine stops quick (more accurately the cam shaft stops dead) all sorts of stuff suffers.

I just found this inside the EGR Vac Pump....sheared off drive teeth.

As the car will be suffering an EGR disablement I am told (thanks Paul BR) that all I need to do is gut the drive cog thus keeping "the look"

Moving on....

Stickfinger wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 2:28 pmI just found this inside the EGR Vac Pump...

Gutting. Shouldn't delay progress too much, I'm guessing.

No delay, I can fit one later if I wish. Just the EGR valve will not work (ahhh shucks !)

You got it sussed.