Hypothetically speaking, let's assume you take a hose and spray down the engine compartment of my 87 305 TPI, just all over the place until its soaking.

What kind of things could go wrong if I tried to start it, assuming everything is in working order and the wiring is the way it ought to be.

Also, same question but if you just point the hose down, right above the plenum, and spray.

 

they steam clean them and dont do any damage. cover anything that looks like if it gets wet - like the distributor - will have problems in starting or running - and have a good time.
just dont put the hose directly on it with the intent of seeing how much water you force into it.

 

Hypothetically speaking....what the heck did you do?

Soaking very old wires/connectors cant be a great idea imo

 

Hypothetically Speaking... what would happen if I drove the front end of my car into a 3' children's outdoor above ground pool on accident. What kind of things could the water do up front there...

 

No Way!! Im not sure if you're serious. If so, Im sure it stalled out. Did you already try and start it? I would let it dry for a while personally.
Sorry for making jokes but I hope there was no kids in the pool at the time.

 

i hope thats a joke

because if it happend it would be like soo funny, but would think that would do some damage to the looks of the car also, 3 feet of water and prob 15 foot around, if my math is correct thats like almost 2,600 gallons of water and thats 21,000 LBS plus, hitting that would do some damage and the water on the motor would be the least of your concern

now if your just spraying it down to clean it you should have no problems if you do like people above suggested

 

Checking YouTube now........

 

Well i can say with certanty that electronics + water = bad idea. Also getting water in the motor itself = bad idea. In eather case hoseing down would likely get water into both. Further more not to make matters seem worse hypothetically speaking if you were to drive it into a small pool than the electronics equation is changed alittle electronics + water in the right places + power = death sentence. You can tell how damaging water can be by looking at how hard GM worked to try and keep water out of the engin bay with its weather tight connectors and gasketing material along the hood baffles in the intake i can go on an on and on. Again back to the hypothetical situation dosnt seem like you have alot of options in the matter as its alittle late now but ide deffinetly do what i could to dry it out and change the oil/filter.