What is the best way to clean the engine bay and get all the grime off there? After years of spills, grease, and dirt what is the safest way to clean it? And do you have to cover any part of the engine while cleaning? What's everyones ?

well to be honest with you. everytime i degrease my engine bay something goes wrong minor or major it happens. i used orange blast back in 2002 and knocked off a vaccum line and couldnt figure out why she was running like garbage for 3 months. this past week i used simple green( and buy the way if your going to do it i recommend simple green i love it) and i broke another vaccum line but caught it. she to old to use a pressure washer so just let the garden hose cascade over the engine use no pressure. and dont be surprised if something goes wrong it happens

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I bought a 40 oz bottle of Purple Power and was wondering what the best way to get all the oil, sludge, and grime off of my engine. The only thing I could think of to get it spotless was to pull the engine out, take it apart, degrease it and put it back together. If there if a much easier way to just get her looking pretty for now, let us know. lol.

Free bump. I really want to know this as well if someone could share. I just jumped into being a gearhead and I'm willing to learn as much as I can.

LOL im afraid of really getting serious about cleaning the engine bay too!...in case i break something trying to get at the grime....

I clean a little bit here and there everytime i open the hood tho...I use degreaser mixed with water and a bit of detergent in a spray bottle...works good

Well, whoever had this car before me did NOT take care of it. It has a bit of an oil leak in the rear seal and the entire engine is covered in grime. It's hideous. Would I just be able to say lift the hood, spray it down and just let the water flow over it after I let it sit for a little while? Say like 5-10 minutes?

I second the simple green.I spray it on full strength and let it sit for awhile.Then wipe or scrub what you can,use water hose spreyer to wash it off.

Well, I've already bought Purple Power. That should do the trick as well, right?

I'm probably going to put simple green into the pressure washer and use it on the engine bay. The engine is out so it is the best time to do it.

I think I'll get as much cleaned as I can for right now, that way when it comes time to pull it out and do what I want with it, I won't track grime and crap all over my garage.

Should be carefull when spraying the engine with water while it's still in the bay....lots of sensitive stuff in there that you could nock off or get wet...not good

Best bet is to just spray and wipe...

Just some tips, cover the alternator and distributor with a bag, don't just spray those parts too. and don't spray the motor just after you drive it, let it cool down. or stuff falling off won't be the only problems you'll have

Very good suggestion. Also, I have to push the simple green as well. Especially if you have swapped out for an LT1 or have a gen' 4 pre '95 with an LT1. The optispark detests water at all costs and a little water will run you a huge price. Not only the cost of the optispark but also the time it takes to remove the old one and put in the new one.

I use industrial grade degreaser (don't know what it's called but it was ordered by mistake at my old job and I took home a bunch of cans of it) to clean the bottom of the car. This is good s#!t. You spray that sucker on and wait ten minutes then hose off. Takes all the crap off. But for the engine bay, simple green and rags works best IMO.

"ocdetails" wrote this on Autogeek.net and I found it helpful. You can decide for yourself: This is a guide I wrote for Autogeek when I was maintaining their blog.

Well, I personally still have the stock 305, but I've got a 4-barrel carborator instead of it being TPI. If I'm at that big of a risk with it in the bay, then I'll just wait until I get my cherry picker to pull it out and I'll degrease it when I start taking it apart. lol. I'll also look into simple green, thanks guys.

When you do that, I'm sure you'll get it super clean and looking like it was on day one

Definately. My baby is going to be taken care of unlike her previous owners. I mean hell, everything that could be disconected on this car was and everything besides performance, was and some still is, broken.

That's a great attitude to have and I wish you well as you take care of your baby. Keep us posted on the future engine works and cleaning of the bay.

As a former pro detailer I want to say to you don't be afraid to clean that engine while it is still in the bay. We use to do it all of the time. I clean my engine at least once a month. You can catch a sale at your local Pep boys / Auto Zone, etc. of engine cleaner (Gunk, Engine Brite) for under $5.00. Spray it on the engine and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Or you can use the Simple Green that everyone is suggesting too. Anything that will loosen grease and grime will work.

We never covered the dist or other electrical parts, we were just careful where we sprayed. You can also use aluminum foil or plastic bags to cover areas you are worried about getting too wet. We also used a pressure hose on real dirty but mecanically sound cars. If the engine was a rough runner then we used the regular hose to spray it off. Very important to keep the hose moving and not steady streaming any particular part. We prefered to let the engine cleaner do most of the work.

Once we got the dirt and grime off we would dry immediately with a leaf blower. This is the fastest way to dry the engine and will get water out from all of the cracks and creavices that are found in the engine bay. Towels do the final drying but usually after the leaf blower there is very little use of towels. Start your engine and make sure everything is running. Don't run it long because you will have to wait for it to cool down before you can do anything else. You just want to make sure you have no starting problems.

We would then dress all rubber with any type of dressing like Armour All. If the engine bay is black we would rattle can any rusted or worn looking areas. sometimes we would use silver or aluminum rattle can as well on some parts of the engine. Once finished do a good visual inspection for any lose wires or disconnected spark plug wires.

You will be surprised how clean the engine bay will become. The whole process should take 45 minutes at best.

I clean my engine bay alot and i cant get everything but get alot. I use simple green then tire shine on the hoses! Works great!
kevin

then tire shine on the hoses! Works great!

I agree with the tire shine making the hoses look great, but the drawback on that is after a couple days, the tire shine acts like an magnet for any and all dust present and tends to end up looking like doo doo pretty quickly. But I still use it! lol

I was going to do my bay, but am afraid. I dropped my goals down to removing really greasy areas. Will spray the lower areas down with simple green, have used it for other stuff before, and probably hand scrub most everything. Going to keep below the valve covers though, maybe hand scrub what I can reach of them. Mostly concerned with cleaning up gunk and seeing where it starts building back up first. There shouldn't be a lot of old greasy stuff around gasket areas, should there?

Anway, rusty areas first, intake and such, Navel jelly, wire brush, sandpaper and spray paint.

depends on the car, I always cover the elctronics and the alt.

I spray one any engine degreaser on a warm engine not a HOT engine. Being warm softens grease and oil. Then I spray on the cleaner let it sit awhile and either pressure washer or use a garden hose. And then use compressed air to dru it.

Or i just get some brake cleen from work the pump and spray kind not the cans and that stuff will cut through grease and crud like nothing and its quick to. we get brake cleen in 5 gallons pail and we use it as degreaser on big *** engine (4400hp) v16s it works quick and does not leave residue at all when it dries

i wouldnt use the purple power stuff, that will ruin the paint if its decent under the goop and its quite possible to have nice paint under there. i will fire up my motor and let it get "warm" not operating temp. the warm motor and such will help break stuff up better. but as said just warm. run it for about
1½ mins and then be done.
i also use a lil wax on my engine bay, it really makes a diff.

*shrugs* I just pressure wash the hell out of mine. Haven't broken anything yet.

I cover the air filter and distributor with a plastic bag then spray brake cleen on all the oil and grime then rinse it off with a garden hose or pressure washer
and dry it with compressed air.

This topic is very popular and has been posted many times before. A simple search will find you even more ideas and pics.
Here's an example . . .
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...ng-engine.html

I too was confused and concerned. Here's a copy of my post about 6 wks ago:

Having never done this before myself, I was nervous about screwing something up. I spent about 1.5 careful hours and am very pleased with the result. Here's what I did:

> Covered alternator with plastic garbage bag.

> Mixed 1 part Simple Green to 2 parts water.

> Started on the painted / plastic areas on perimeter of the engine bay one section at a time (1/2 @ front; 1/2 @ side, etc). Note, by leaving the worst / oily areas to last it helps prevent "spreading" the grease and saves on rags.

> Applied mixture with long handle soft brush, then wiped with soapy cloth rag, followed by old tooth brush for crevices and hard to reach spots.

> Rinsed each section with with a garden hose sprayer at low pressure.

> Repeated as necessary.

>Split the engine into 4 sections to clean.

No engine start-up/run issues at all.

I've used simple green. Great stuff. Spray it on, let it sit for ten minuets or so and hose it off. When you spray it, you can see it lift up grime instantly. Also, I never covered any part(s) of the engine bay, I just let it dry before turning it on. Ran without a hiccup.

Whats best to use to clean that black grime build up? Something that you spray on and hose it off. Most of the grime is in places you can't reach with a rag. So, you need something that will do the work for you. Also, it needs to be something that won't damage paint or aluminum.

Is that DP engine degreaser any better than Simple Green? It is kinda pricey, and looks as if you can only buy it off the net. So that means shipping charges as well.

I power washed my engine last year. The damn thing wouldn't start for like an entire day, until it was all dried out.

power wash in moderation. when i wash ither of my engine bays i hand wash and mist rinse it. i never power shoot it as this will cause things to happen like JD had happen.
the only time i full out powerwash is when the engine is out prepping for an engine swap and still then im carefull around electrical.

power washing causes penetration of things that shouldn't be.

i always use a hose. but i'd say even if the car starts, let if sit with hood open all day on sunny hot day. get that stuff dry. may start then zap.