Saito FA-72GK Customer Engine Disassembly

[@Nivola1953]

I see this engine has the infamous plastic crankcase cover. I went through a couple of Saito engines with that bad idea on the back. If you have one like this you better replace it with the aluminum part, don’t wait until the plastic start bloating, rubbing against the crank pin and finally destroy the crankcase as it happened to my 72. Saito has now stopped using this big blunder and all new engines use only aluminum for the cover

[@patrickbradford6223]

For things like the headers, I use a product called carbon off, it's what a chef friend uses to clean his pans. It's amazing for carbon and nonsense for crank cases, exhausts etc. Melts it right off. It's basically oven/ pan cleaner. MUST use gloves, I have gotten the over spray on my arm and min later felt something 'Burning" lol. Makes pipes look new that were covered in garbage.

[@dmrcflyr2]

Yeah that is some nasty stuff there. I don't think I want clean exhaust bad enough to use that. Check out the SDS sheet on it. www.turnservices.com/Images/Interior/safety/safety%20data%20sheets/carbon-off.pdf

[@patrickbradford6223]

@@dmrcflyr2 It's nasty stuff, but I JUST used it yesterday and my FA-72 crank case went from looking awful to looking like new with minimal effort (read tooth brush off.) I would rather use that than clean it multiple times with anything else. One can has lasted me like 6 years and it's almost full still. Yesterday I thought It was plugged but I just rinsed the nozzle and it worked great. Then the steel parts into the tumbler with walnut media, valves into barymans chem dip. Like new engine parts with minimal effort. I used to race rc cars and the pipes / headers get covered in foam, fuel and dirt, that's where the carbon off shines.

[@patrickbradford6223]

Sidebar, When I broke down my FA-72 the piston had rough nasty casting marks on the center of the dish like your example engine. I first wondered if it was a crack... Poor casting.

[@dmrcflyr2]

Yes, but one of the very reasons I use what I do is that it is NOT a. Hazardous. b. Expensive. c. Hard to find d. Single purpose: it is multi-function: it can be used for many other purposes. That is the entire point of what I use.

[@patrickbradford6223]

@@dmrcflyr2 No worries.

[@ericsplan1]

Not too bad for what it went throw