I've only had my car a few months now and because it is in storage 9 hours away from where I live (at my folks house) I haven't gotten into a super detailed cleaning job yet. However last time I was home I did a general cleaning of the engine bay and ran into trouble.

First of all, it wasn't horribly filthy but from the looks if it probably has not been cleaned more than once or twice over it's 15 years. There was some dirty/oily gunk on the inner fenders - the typical build-up of oily dirt and grime. I used the Gunk-Brand Foaming Engine Cleaner - sprayed it on, let it sit for a few minutes, and then gently hosed it off.

Bascially what happened is the top color appears to have come off of the inner fenders. For instance, on the drivers-side just inboard of the strut mount where the inner fender is vertical in orientation, it's now all grey in color - must be primer showing.

Has this happened to anyone else? I'm concerned that the car may have been repainted at some point and that is why this happened.

On the other hand, where the paint seems to have lifted is in the areas where the road grime build-up was the heaviest - could this have happened just from the effects of road grime sitting there for many years?? Could the grime have weakened or loosened the paint and then my using the strong degreaser just lifted it all off??

Kind of sucks - thought I might show the car some but now I'm looking at new paint to really have that sort of quality - and I'm not going to all the work to paint the engine bay with out doing the whole car and that's out of the budget right now.

Any thoughts from you guys would be appreciated - tell me what you think about this.

Kevin

 

could have been brake fluid.
this is what happens when you spill brake fluid everywhere and don't do anything about it (stupid previous owners)

 

whoa third post in and im already getting off topic.

85IrocNOH i see that you basically ripped everything out of the engine bay including the grommets that go onto the firewall. im not far behind you and wouldlike to knwoif you have an idea of how to replace them. can they be bought anywhere in a kit for thirdgen specific or are they universal found at a local parts store?

for onebluemcm, get some rattle can spay and start masking stuff off. when careful, itll turn out good.

 

demonchild, that pic was taken before i was finished ripping stuff out of the engine bay. i took out the steering linkage and the gearbox for the steering also. it's already painted too.....has been since september. just haven't had time to get pics. as of right now i've only got the steering box/linkage and brake stuff back in tho. motor was blown up .

also, i wouldn't rattle can the engine bay.... I'm not tryin to **** anyone off but that's ghetto IMO. plus i doubt it'd hold up to much. i just used single stage urethane. had it left over from when i painted the car. i'd at the very least use POR 15. i'll try to get some pics of my engine bay today.

 

I tend to be on the perfectionist side and most of my experience with the 'ole rattle can is not compatible with the requirements of a perfectionist, if you catch my drift. My main reason for not trying that is two fold. 1st, it will be hard to match the dark red metallic paint I have and B) - the engine compartment is so hard to thoroughly degrease that I just don't think I'd get good adhesion of rattle can paint - I just bet it'll start coming off and look worse than the primer showing through that I have now.

I still really hate that this happened - wasn't anticipating getting the engine out any time soon. Guess I'll just have to deal with weird looking inner fenders - no biggie I guess.

In the future, what sort of degreaser do you all think I should use to try to avoid the paint coming up?

K