Ok, now that i am finally home, i'd like to start working on the car...

I went to the car show on Island at the Bellmore train station, every friday night as long as the westher is great... anyways


i want to start cleanign the engine and the engine bay. what will i need to by, and with these products, is it just applying it to a cloth, and scrubbing away? Any techniques with the products would be great, and what to use on what...


Thanks alot guys

 

I like using Engine Gunk or Brite, spray on foam, let sit then rinse off. Using liquid laundry detergent works well after using the foam, as maintenance cleaning. Here's a pic of my engine bay.

 

the other day i tryed this Simple Green Automotive spray to clean the dirt of 20 yrs out of my engine bay and it worked good and then i used it on everything and then used miguires rubber and vynal (spellin) spray and put that on the hoses , plastic pieces and anything i could. the engine bay looked really nice but still i have rust here, rust there, rusty strut thingy. gotta fix all of that but thats what i used.

 

letting it sit, then rinsing it off.... now i thought water on the engine = not good...

 

well as long as u dont get water in the engine or in/on electrical part like the distributor cap and coil you should be fine. just cover your carb if u have one and all electrical parts and have at it.

 

I used Nevr-Dull and mothers on my TPI and it looks pretty schweet now compared to before. I have some pics if you want me to give 'em to ya.

 

sure... post any pics with anything you used to make it look like that..

Do you guys just use a cloth?

 

You don't have to worry as much about getting water on the 'weather pack' electrical connections which are what most of our under hood electrical components use. Keeping water off the distributor and coil as well as out of the intake is the main concern.

I just detailed my engine bay last week. I used a whole can of Gunk Degreaser and Armorall for the rubber and plastic pieces. It turned out really nice.

 

I'm not posting my dirty engine here, screw that.....:nono: I'll have to try some of this degreaser.

 

Just remember guys that silicon based products should NEVER be used under the hood for any fuel injected car. The silicon will foul the f.i. sensors and those cost mucho dinaros.

Also, used a plastic bag to cover the alternator, as water won't do it any good at all!

 

Well, I was really into computers awhile back, but I haven't messed with them in awhile. I'd just like to say from experience, while we were watercooling computers and other crazy things like that, me and many others have gotten water on the hardware and gotten away with it. It does scare the livin bejeezuz outta ya, but you'd just shutdown the comp as fast as possible and let it dry out. Boot her back up, and she runs fine.

Basically what I'm sayin is, as long as the car isn't on, I don't think water will hurt it as long as you let it dry completely before you turn it on and the like. Also, some people say that you should spray water on a hot engine, it may crack something, and I'm not sure how much truth there is to it, but I wouldn't chance it cause it sounds entirely possible to me...

Without further a du....

Before

 

After

All I used was armor-all on hoses, mothers aluminium polish on the TPI and metal hoses, nevr-dull on the TPI(I found it worked better than mothers, and alot less messy too)metal hoses, and alternator. Repainted the Throttle body plate for those of you with TPI, used gloss black rustoleum and silver testors for the letters. On the TPI airbox, someone recomended brasso on it. I know it's not something for it, but put some elbow grease into it and it'll start to get a dull kind of shine to it, then go over it with armorall. I still need to try the castrol superclean on the engine bay, but haven't got a chance yet. After that I'm gonna try simple green.

 

Good photos HG...shows a big difference

 

I just found a pic of the ole 305 in the car right after I got it and added headers, can't get my fricken scanner to work though, that was before my digital camera.

 

Here's the old motor 305.

 

I use Simple Green, straight concentrate from the 1 gallon jug. I use a siphon nozzle and my air compressor and spray it all over the engine, everything, with it. I then use a garden hose, and hose off everything. I have never covered anything with plastic and have never had a problem. I use compressed air to get most of the water off, and then use rags to finish drying it off. Before I had a compressor, I used to use a leaf blower. Works just as good at blowing the water off. I then use 303-Products company Aerospace Treatment on the rubber and plastic parts. Here is a pic of just the engine in it's usual state, not after a fresh detailing:

 

Hg, i hear you on the whole water-cooling issue w/ computers. My brother had a kick-*** cooling setup on his pc about a year ago, and they had some water drip on to the hardware. It wouldnt have been so bad, except they had anticipated stopping mold and things from growing by adding bleach to the water. Bleach = ions = conductor = BAD IDEA. That got fried to say the least.

Anyways, on my engine bay all i used was a lot of simple green and rags. it was REAL bad at first. we had the engine pulled so used kerosene and simple green on the engine since we were painting the block and heads. I just ended up getting bodiy inside the engine bay, sitting on the k-member and going to town with my simple green.

Heres the result:
(the black spots on the firewall are charred from an lg4 fire from way back )

 

Here is a picture of the engine in my 89. I just got it put in about 2 weeks ago and haven't finsihed it yet. i still need to put my aluminum rad in, and finish the wiring mess I'll post some pics after i get it all done. I've been busy working on my blazer so i haven't had too much time.

 

Vader once said to use laundry detergant and water mixed and it would clean the engine compartment very well.

I tried this and whoa it did a great job. just used that in a spray bottle and a light bristled brush and it cleaned up the grime really good. even the old paint that I thought needed to be compounded came clean and shiny

 

I used Super CLean diluted with water LIKE THE INSTRUCTIONS SAY. The first time I didn't, and my paint started to come off. After that I sanded everything, and rattle canned it in Meijer Red.

 

why is that AC still there?!?!

 

before

 

After.

Mainly using gunk, and a variety of small brushes. All the metal work was cleaned using a dremmel type tool with wire brush and polishing heads, using a metal cleaner like autosol.