How to Clean an Aluminum Intake Using Only Household Items

Today on Prairie Wings, I’m taking on the challenge of cleaning a 1969 Chevy small block intake manifold — using only stuff I already have lying around the shop and house. No LS swap, no fancy parts, just old-school small block power on a budget.

I’ll test a bunch of household and garage chemicals to see what actually works on tough aluminum staining. From rim cleaner to brake clean, polish, oven cleaner (spoiler: don’t), hand sanitizer, Comet, SOS pads — and more — we’ll find out which one is the real winner.

If you’re trying to bring an old intake back to life without buying new products, this is the video for you.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro and project overview
0:50 Assessing the intake condition
1:17 First test – rim cleaner
3:25 Results of rim cleaner test
3:57 Paint stripper test
4:49 Paint stripper results
5:13 Mother's aluminum polish test
6:10 First signs of improvement
8:16 Rinse and review
8:55 Oven cleaner test (danger zone)
10:38 Staining reaction to oven cleaner
12:16 Observing blackening from oven cleaner
13:39 Hand sanitizer & grease remover test
15:01 Hand sanitizer results – fail
15:31 Metal prep solution test
16:35 Metal prep results
17:12 Gojo hand cleaner test
18:39 Gojo results – promising but not perfect
19:20 Comet cleaner test
20:20 Comet results – big improvement
21:22 Testing SOS pad
22:55 Combining Comet + SOS pad
23:27 Final cleaning and results
24:02 Key takeaways & advice
26:01 Product-by-product review
27:25 The winning combo revealed
27:42 Wrap-up and closing

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