Some good ideas here. I've used the wire wheel on bench grinder plenty of times but it wants to pull the part out of the pliers I use to hold the part and toss it, that gets annoying.
Fredo, nice to hear from you, bud! Anything happening with your truck? I heard about the baking soda mini blaster before here:
http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-o.../soda_blaster/
Any idea if it would clean up the minor dirty-ness an aluminum intake manifold gets after awhile without having to remove it from the car/truck? I've always liked how they look new but wouldn't want to have to remove/replace for media blasting periodically. Anyway, I've never tried it but it looks promising.
As for molasses, electrolysis, etc. those strike me as a PITA to be blunt. Maybe I'm over thinking this but thank you everyone for the ideas!