I just bought a 1992 Camaro RS.. and well, the stock engine is in there... The 305, Looks as though it hasn't been cleaned since the car was bought. Is there any suggestions as to what would be the best stuff to use to make it shine again?

Its rather dusty and greasy, so I'm really unsure what to do with it....

 

Get some engine degreaser and a lot of rags. If you want, you can unplug the battery and even hose it down a little bit, but try to avoid getting the distributor wet if you can. Aside from that: a little engine paint and some elbow grease goes a long way.



Chrome helps too.

 

Just any engine degreaser? No one has a specific kind that is better than the other?? That is going to suck. Should I let it sit for a while before taking a rag to it?

The battery is brand new.. and so is the altenator, so those are clean. You open my hood and its all dusty & dirty with the altenator all blinging.

 

i use WD-40 it work very well and there is no need for water. It work the same if not better the engine gunk or anything else i love it. and love the smell to

 

I use simple green or some purple crap. spray it down and let it sit for a little bit. Then I use a Hot water Pressure washer. Just dont spray the Distrib. directally and you should be fine. Ive NEVER had a problem.

I do the same thing at the selfserve car was with the pressure washers.

 

ditto to what was just said thats what i did. If you wanna be safe cover the distributo with a plastic bag and also the TPS sensor which is next to the throttle body.

Power washer works wonders but be careful with them dont directly spray electrical parts and smaller wires. They have LOTS of pressure

simple green and power washer and ur good.

 

i took off my air cleaner and covered my carb with a plastic bag, same with the distributor. Then I sprayed everything in orange clean and then rinsed it off.....i scrubbed the harder stuff with a tooth brush

 

I would use an engine degreaser for the really dirty areas. Any brand will do. They are all about the same. Gunk is probably the most popular brand out there. A small brush would probably help in some areas.

As far as the less dirty or just dusty parts, Simple Green is the way to go. It's not harsh on painted surfaces and it won't harm pets or plants. Smells halfway decent too.

A power washer is the way to go but a hose with a good nozzle will do fine. Don't spay directly on alternator or distributor or any other small electric parts. Don't be surprised if you have to do it one or more times if it is really bad. Just keep at it and you will get results.

 

Im going to definatly try to get to cleaning it up tonight. Possibly spraying it down after work tonight.

Thanks for all the tips, you'd figure being a girl I'd know how to clean real well, but I dont know about caked on dirt and grease.

 

i use mean green degreaser put it in a spray bottle and soak the crapola out of the engine bay bring the car to a manual car wash and use their powerwasher that you can also mix soap with then rinse really good, then to make it shine like crazy use tire shine on any of the rubber or plastic make sure to wipe off extra stuff it doesnt smell good when it hits the manifolds

 

The manual car wash by my house has a engine degreaser option on the sprayer, I just spay that around, let it sit for a couple minutes and then spray it off with high pressure water. I repeat those steps until i'm satisfied. Just make sure you let your engine cool down a bit before you start the process. I can't imagine spraying cold water on a hot engine being a good idea.

 

I'm not a big fan of power washing the engine. I think you're much better off covering the distributor, alternator, battery,etc with either some plastic wrap or plastic grocery bags, then spray the heck out of the engine with a good strong engine degreaser. Gunk makes one that you can pick up at any auto parts store, or any of the strong citrus degreasers work well too.

You want to spray this on a warm engine, not hot. Let it soak in for a while and go after the tough stuff with a stiff brush (some of the stiffer toilet cleaning brushes you can pick up at the grocery store work great for this) and scrub everything else with some old rags. You will never use these rags again for anything!

You can give the whole thing a rinse with the hose, but even then I don't lke hitting it with a really hard spray.

Remove all the plastic bags from the electrical parts and start the engine to help with drying. Once everything looks dry you can spray everything down with Armor-All or something similar. I like Meguiar's Hyper Dressing from their pro line, but then I'm sort of detailing freak and like to keep all my cars spotless.

 

i use a powersprayer and armor all on my engine area....i have a few pics of it ,but i hadn't done that process in a while so it doesn't really support my method. looks dirty in the pics...but i can tell you that armor all (spray bottle) and a power sprayer works......just take some painters' plastic and cover the front end and the side of the car so the armor all doesn't get on it. also so if you get too close with the sprayer it wont take off the paint lol...and make sure it's after the car has cooled down efficiently, dont want anything to crack

 

Excellent point that I forgot to mention! I always mask off the surrounding painted panels so that I'm not taking the wax off them! Of course, once you've gotten the engine nice and clean it's so much easier to keep it that way.

 

I work at a dealership, so the only thing i use is degreaser(multi-purpose) and stuff that is called engine shine. Just spray the degreaser, hit it with the power washer and spray some engine shine. I think it worked out pretty good for just one time through. I dont know, what do you think??

Before...


After...

 

Hmmm, I'm interested in this Engine Shine stuff. Where do you get it from?

 

Nice work 87_350! Nice to pop the hood and have a clean, shiny engine bay, isn't it?

 

By me you can get it at almost any auto parts store, but I also worked at a dealership so I could get it from there too.

 

Yup, what he said. Except i dont remember seeing it around at any parts store though. We order ours from a company called Malco. If your interested in some, let me know and ill check on prices for ya.

Thanx man. Ya, it sure is a BIG plus to pop the hood and having it look good at the same time

 

Where I used to work we used engine shampoo from a parts store. We would put it in a garden sprayer, go to town, then power wash it off. Shortly after we would start it up and let it run, then blow all the water off. Worked awesome, and never had any electrical problems.

 

Yeah Im working on cleaning my engine bay up right now too. I wish I could find that Engine Shine stuff around here but no luck.Id say just do alot of painting,scrubbing,and hiding wires and stuff and itll look good after.

 

yeah i used the cd2 engine detailer on my lincoln and it looks great to this day
i would recommend it for anyone wanting to get their hoses and plastic back to gloss black

 

Yeh I use the same stuff, its like a glaze, you just spray it on everything especially black plastic parts also it brings the engie bay paint back to life even if the paint under the hood isnt in the best shape it'll make it look a 100x better, no need to wipe down its "cd2 engine detailer" comes in a tall silver spray can with a big picture of an engine on it, I get mines at autozone or strauss.