Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

I just recently got a exhaust that appeared to be in better shape than the one on my '86 spree. When i put it on, my scoot smoked pretty bad after warming up. Do you thinking de-carbonizing the exhaust would help this? Also, have you used Drano to clean it out? I don't think I'll be able to find Lye in my area.

thanks for your help!

go to your local rite-aid or luckys. most grocery stores have oven cleaner which has lye in it and is perfect for the application.

The good Draino is mostly lye. Just used some to clean out a muffler, works good. Get the stuff covered with caution labels.

keithw

Thanks for the tips guys!

Wow, So i started cleaning out my exhaust and found it was basically clogged. Unbelievable. But the Drano it doing it's job and getting all the gunk out!

They have 100% lye at my local Hardings, It's in powder form though.

so what, you just pour draino in the exhaust and shake it around in there?

Its best to soak it in a trash can.

I used a cat litter bucket. With the crystal lye disolve a few caps full in a bucket of water.

keithw

I used 3/4 lye 1/4 acetone mixture and plugged the bottom end. Fill the exuast up from the head side and let it sit for a few hours. Shake it around a bit every 30 mins or so. After, unplug it and drain/rinse with a water hose.

MAKE SURE to use chemical gloves. You don't want lye on any part of your skin.

i dunno if I can get lye anywhere. I know I can get bad * draino though. I'm in Wisconsin.

jonsteffen wrote:i dunno if I can get lye anywhere. I know I can get bad * draino though. I'm in Wisconsin.

I got mine at home depot. Its not pure lye, but its still pretty strong. Especially when mixed with the acetone. Look in the chemical section towards the gardening side.

Be prepared to get strange looks from the home depot employees when you're buying this stuff. lol. Reminds me of trips to the local hardware shop asking for a funnel and lengths of plastic tube back in college.

Lol, our ACE here in Oxford keeps the funnels by the tubing and the ping-pong balls

I decided to clean my exhaust since there's a good chance that I will be getting a title for my scoot after all this time.

I started simple: bonfire. I built a bonfire and dumped the exhaust on top. I left it outside all night to cook and checked back this afternoon. It seemed to knock a bunch of junk loose, but I guess the pieces were too big to shake out. Next I tried flushing them out with a hose. I got a few pieces out, but not much, and then everything else inside turned to some kind of slush and wouldn't come out at all.

After class I bought a can of Kroger Brand Over cleaner. It was a spray foam so I tried to spray it in both ends which proved to be harder than I thought. It would foam up so quickly that I'm not sure enough of it got into the muffler to do a whole lot. So I sprayed it in, then flushed a little water in to try and force it into the big cavity.

Still had a lot of gunk (I didn't let it sit very long, because I was constantly adding foam and water to try and keep it as full as possible).

To get all the water out that I couldn't shake out, I threw it on another bonfire. I cooled it off and now it is noticeably lighter and I can't hear as much stuff rattling around.

Upside: I think it worked OK
Downside: My muffler looks like a crisp piece of (even worse than before) crap, and is going to need painting.