I started off wanting to clean headlights and seal the housing to keep them from collecting moisture. While working on the truck I realized how old and corroded everything is under the hood.

I plan to do some detailing and possibly get rid of most of the corrosion by cleaning up the existing parts. Who has gone to detailing procedures to make the engine compartment look decent?

Taking care of the lights, grille and behind the grille will be my starting point for now.






Going to be a daily afterwork project.

I hate seeing the truck rust away, it needs some TLC. Any pointers?

 

Oh it's addicting once you start making things look nice and pretty! (Well either that or very tedious and then the feeling of giving up sets in! Unlike my friends, I like cleaning my stuff so I think it can be fun.)

Anyways, after I installed new cylinder heads on my Bronco a few years ago, I decided to pretty up my engine bay. I did paint some things like the valve covers and used touch up paint in some areas where the body was that had scratches, but otherwise I just used a spray cleaner.


Here is a few before pictures:






This is what it looked like after I was done:







Now obviously the paint helped a lot and most people probably aren't going to take big things off to paint, but I was surprised how well cleaning up everything else went.

I live on dirt roads so things get dirty very fast, but I found that Meguire's Ultimate Protectant works super well for cleaning things in the bay. It works really well to make black things look black again and stay black for a little longer (rather than just cleaning them off and having them turn up grayish.) It also seems to get rid of the dirt and dust well too. It doesn't seem to attract dust much either compared to any other cleaner that I've used. It's kinda a thicker consistency, but I guess that's what makes it seem to last a little longer and keep things looking cleaner.


What I do with it is just tackle a few areas at a time. I spray the entire section and completely saturate it with the cleaner, then wipe off as much as I can with a microfiber rag. You'll want a few rags to clean, especially if it's your first time. The hard to get areas just get sprayed even more with the cleaner! I almost soak them completely and then try and shove a rag to reach the hard spots (like under the twisty brake lines or behind the brake booster etc.). Those hard to reach areas can't be wiped very hard due to it being hard to reach and fit a rag in there, but just soak it anyways and try and wipe up as much as you can.

I've been cleaning the engine like this for a few years and have had nothing bad come up by cleaning this way. I just take it a little easier around the alternator. The distributor cap should be sealed well enough so you can soak that area pretty good as well, but it doesn't hurt to be a little more careful around there too.


Pretty soon that nice and clean engine is going to be on its way out of that bay, but an even prettier 7.3 will be dropping in so I'll have an excellent chance to perfect and paint the engine bay with everything in it!

 

I plan to take care of the area behind the grille and headlights first by stopping the rust, then painting the sheetmetal with a brush on "hammered"

textured silver paint.

I broke one of the mounting studs on the passenger side parking light housings so I am ordering a new unit off of Amazon.

So much corrosion up front of the truck many fasteners need to be replaced too.

Removing the headlights were a chore, but I am sure refreshing the parts up front will allow this truck to last a few more years.

 

Yeah I remember when I installed my clearer style headlights it took me longer than I anticipated, and that's with no corroded fasteners!

I'm going to leave those attached when I paint my truck and just take off the turn signal housing. Now that you have the lights out of the way, that black light support bar should be able to come out pretty easily.

 

Rust is a killer on our trucks , lowes sells a rust inhibitor that I have used on other project like my Trailers . They sit in the rain snow ice sun etc etc . Rustoleum sells it (gallon size) . When I pretty my firewall and engine bay , brush on before spray painting it..Good luck TR