The three tricks I learned on cleaning those was: I never took mine apart, just using an eye dropper dripped water into the tank until the wicks were clean and no longer tinted my liquid color shaking it and repeating this step a few times.. Then doing the dry burn, leaving the cap off the clearomizer and attaching it to the battery and holding the button down for 5 second intervals to burn out any remaining gummed up liquid in the heating element.. And finally, leaving the tank with the cap off overnight to let the wicks dry out from the water.
Sometimes even after all that I would still get a few beginning hits where it tasted a little burnt because the first few hits were just water and the liquid hadn't soaked into the wicks well enough yet.
Hope this helps
