I've never washed an engine before and kinda wanna look at mine without all the **** on it. How do you do it and what do you use???

(Sorry if it's a dumb question)

 

Just douche the crap out of it with a pressure washer, just cover or avoid spraying the distributor cap.

Do you have a local car wash to use or just a garden hose? I would presoak the engine and engine bay with as much Simple Green as you could then take it to the car wash and spray it down with high pressue soap, rinse with high pressure rinse or you could use low pressure rinse and really concentrate the spray at certain areas.

Some car washes even have a nice engine cleaner, but some don't.

Overall don't be too worried about stuff, just the distributor and major electrical connectors.

Josh

 

I have my engine out sitting on the floor of my shop and im also ready to clean it ...i have no hoses or anything connected to it so should i plug the holes and stuff before i spray it? is it alright it water gets in any of these?

 

It would be a good idea, especially exhaust ports, carb flange etc.

Josh

 

i just pulled my engine for rebuilding and i used heavy duty oven cleaner. it will eat paint and all, and make any exposed cork or paper gasket weak. so only use it if you plan on a light or cosmetic overhaul.

 

oh, and wear some thick rubber gloves if you use it. it will eat the skin from your fingers!! i found out the hard way

 

Two suggestions from someone in the auto biz for years:
1) when still in the truck, avoid using the "degreasers" that use lye. The old foaming cleaners can eat your electrical connectors up over time if you do not know what you are doing. When in the truck, i use either Purple Power or Wesley's Bleach White, available @ Advance, The Zone, or Oreilly's. They clean very well when you allow them to soak. They are also very water soluble and are not a danger to you or the environment.
2) If the motor is out of the truck OR you may want to clean the very grimy, even paraffin coated depending on what oil was used in the truck, parts, go ahead and use the foaming degreasers. These are lye based and usually are nothing more than Easy-Off Oven Spray with a new label on the can. They are caustic and hard on the hands, eyes, pets, kids, etc. But here is a trick an old veteran told me he got from the army motor pool days, wrap the motor in black plastic vis-queen and set it out in the sun. let the block/parts warm up, then spray with the degreaser and recover with the black plastic. Really warms up the grease and paraffin and makes it easier to come off. Now if you have a pressure washer or a car wash handy, even better.

 

I wish I had thought of that...ingenious!!

 

I wouldn't use oven cleaner no matter what. Cover the distributer with plastic bag/tape. Get a gallon of Simple Green. Spray a 1/8 gal undiluted all over. Let it soak for an hour. Hose it off, repeat until you get it as clean as you want.

 

Some pressure washers you can buy have a built-in siphon tube for any kind of cleaner / degreaser you want to spray at high pressure. I've used them before and they work pretty good.

OJ

 

just a heads up! be carefull with the home preshure washers the higher preshure nozels can "cut" and damage the paper gaskets sometimes pushing water into places that it shouldnt be. i cant see a car wash being a problem though their fairly low preshure. i ruined some transmittion gaskets one time preshure washing a tractor. after i cleaned it i couldnt keep fluid in it.

 

Start it up and warm it up the engine. Protect the electrical, carb, distrib., etc. Spray the entire thing with straight simple green (the best stuff since peanut butter! ) let is set about 10 minutes. then here is the trick for me. I run a garden hose directly from my water heater in the garage to rinse it off. Works better than any other method I've ever tried, including toxic degreasers. Then after drying anything you can reach with rags, uncover the stuff you covered up, start it up again and let it run to help evaporate and dry the engine.

Good luck!
Dak