share your methods to cleaning a orig engine bay.

[budnate]

I want to pose a question..

you buy a nice clean old heap and it has the normal 3/8 thick grease on the lower part of the motor and trans and the firewall and fenders look good but dirty...

I normally blast off all the grease and leave things as they are..but never really found a good method to clean the firewall and fenderwells back to a pretty nice stock look without damaging it with a chemical...as crazy as it sounds I have found oven cleaner is a dandy cleaner just a little hard on rubber if you leave it on to long....if its on for only a short while and rinsed off it tends to lift the grease well, but can discolor the paint and leave it milky looking, but only sometimes.

what do you guys use to clean the black paint and not wreck it in the process...????

I dont have a real steam cleaner but man Charleys blast jobs look really good in the photo's.

throw me some ideas....

[Mr70]

I like the Local U-Wash it Carwash here.
They have a chemical on their dial titled "Engine Cleaner" that can take the stink out of S***.
No paint discolor,and you can set the degree of removal by switching to Hot or Cold water rinse off,as well as how far away you stand from it with the rinsing wand.

[kwhizz]

[ QUOTE ]
I like the Local U-Wash it Carwash here.
They have a chemical on their dial titled "Engine Cleaner" that can take the stink out of S***.
No paint discolor,and you can set the degree of removal by switching to Hot or Cold water rinse off,as well as how far away you stand from it with the rinsing wand.

[/ QUOTE ]

And you told me that you used old "Tee" shirts.......The secret is now out of the bag (or Box)

Ken

[BBIGG BLOCK 396]

Budnate get the engine warm on the way to the carwash!When you get there cover the carb and dist cap with plastic and large rubber bands also take along a can of wd40 and a scredriver to pop the cap if necessary if water or moisture happens to get in there.Spray the engine down real good with a can of GUNK engine cleaner I always get mine at the auto parts stores or wallmart if it is really dirty use 2 cans of it. Let that soak for about 10 minutes then wash it real good with the soap selection on the carwash.Then spray everything down with simple green and let set and rub any accessible areas such as firewall and fender wells etc you can reach.Then rinse really good.Careful not to get simple green on any powder coated surfaces! It will eat some powder coatings down to the bare metal.I usually take a air tank and blow off the intake or you can use a gas powered leaf blower,some carwashes even have air outlets to use and just take a hose and nozzle along.After that remove the plastic covering on the distributor and carb.install breather and fire that baby up and drive it back home.This usually works well for me.

Bobby Dodson

[SuperNovaSS]

I can't believe car washes let you wash your engine nay where you guys live. Its a $10,000 fine here if you are caught with your hood open at a car wash.

Jason

[indyjps]

ive been using a biodegradeable degreaser we have @ work. super concentrated stuff, i usually fill a liter bottle of it and it lasts for a long time. ill try to get the name of it for you guys. excellent on driveway stains too.

[budnate]

keep it coming guys...

Rick we have the greenish stuff at the wash to but it dont seem very powerfull here, maybe the cheap a$$ operatore is dilutting it???...I do better with straight soapy water and my Oven cleaner.

Bobby that's about what I do but gave up on Gunk as it stained some of the orig paint on things plus I didnt think it seemed to help the cause just more dollars spent.

Jason, you are correct you can do under the hood but if he catches you with ramps going for the big stuff he will dang near beat ya to death before you get out of there.

I started doing them at home and lay old sheets down to catch the grease and use a little cheap Home Depot sprayer and to be honest it has plenty of power to get it pretty clean without forcing water into places I dont really want, I think I am going to lay old blankets on the fenderwells and along the firewall and go to town on the motor/trans and underneath but undecided on how to go at the black surfaces by hand yet...

Thnx Bud.

[Verne_Frantz]

Bud,
This may sound like an old thread.......but why not something like WD-40 soaked in cotton rags? It will remove ALL the grease and grime, and leave the original paint untouched. You will also avoid having water inside all the suspension joints and fittings.

Just a thought....

[budnate]

yea that stuff is almost like armol all cleans then shines stuff up, on the flip side I spent a little time at the body shop learning how to get the type of job I couldnt afford and let me tell you what any of that stuff applied around a car is bad mix if you ever have any hopes of painting down the road...we used to fight painting cars and parts sometimes...I am very carefull about how that stuff is used around my cars.

let your paint guy catch you doing that and he may beat you to death on the spot..or just shake his head and tell you thats a real exspensive thing you just did.

[Verne_Frantz]

Bud,
I've always tried to keep silicone products away from my car, especially from anything that might need painting. I wasn't aware that WD-40 presented the same concern. I figured it was petroleum based and could be washed off easily with a solvent if painting was needed.
Any penetrating oil could be substituted for WD-40 for the same degreasing purpose.

And don't forget kerosene.....but be careful!