What are some good ways to degrease my engine compartment?

Im replacing valve cover gaskets and afterwards i want to degrease the whole of the engine compartment. What are some of the best ways to do that in the driveway with the engine in the car?


Thanks

 

get a large painters dropcloth under the engine bay,scrape by hand all you can,hit it with oven cleaner or engine cleaner,rinse with as little water as you can(i used a water bottle),roll up the dropcloth,stuff it in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid & drop it off at the local hazmat station:TU: then the detailing chore awaites you:Brow:

 

If you want a real low impact method try Simple green and lots of rags. Takes forever however. Best method is remove engine and climb right in. Easier than you think if you have never removed one. I have done many now and I am no mecahnical expert.

 

Thanks for the advice and ideas.. I opened the hood did some valve cover gaskets and then thought about degreasing, but.. i just closed the hood instead and went inside and ate ice cream. haha

 

Ice cream is a very nice alternative. ha ha...very nice.

 

One recommendation regarding the oven cleaner - don't get it on your paint. It'll "degrease" that too.

I'm up for ice cream!

 

I've got the engine out... so I cheated, but I tried scraping and simple green/spray can engine degreaser with a brush... and I drove myself nuts trying to get things clean.

Then I borrowed my father-in-law's Sears home pressure washer and it was beautiful! It had a very fine water wand with a tight circular motion that made it fairly easy to keep the high pressure where I wanted it. I'd be willing to try this method with an engine in and duct tape-covered electrical connections/distributor.

 

Get your self a cheap tarp from Menards or Home Repo , scrap the thick ugly stuff , Use Brake Klean spray ( cheap :laugh: ) and it works great .
Well you get the picture . The stuff works great ! Oh yea be sure to have alot of rags ready . And keep rinsing the car and windows with water as needed .

When your done toss the tarp and rags and have your ice cream ..

:laugh: :laugh: :TU:

Have fun !

 

Simple green works best with things that can be submerged entirely. put the object in and just wait 24 hrs and it comes out clean.
But under the hood and on the chassis there is only one way. STEAMCLEANER.

 

I would agree that the quickest most effective way to clean the empty engine compartment is with a degreaser (I've always used a gunk product called 'steam') followed by a pressure washer. Just starting the engine detailing and will be trying the above suggestion of Brake Klean before repainting with Bill Hirsch Buick red paint.

 

get some foaming degreaser, spray the crap out of the engine bay and take it to a self washing car wash with the pressure washers and degreaser spraying guns, also if the car was is any way keeping with the laws the water run off will go into filtration system and not into the city water.

 

Being an Army cook for 24 yrs. that oven cleaner will eat through anything. I used it to clean all kinds of equipment that I knew would be inspected. Can't beat it, but ya gotta be real careful. I put it on the valve covers (which look like they had never been removed) and it ate the cork gaskets and stripped the paint which is what I wanted anyway.

 

I have used a product called SD-20 made by Spartan Chemical. It's think it's produced mainly for the aircraft industry. I've been using it on the worlds greasiest 70 Caprice, and it works like crazy. Gotta be careful though, becuase it removes the factory undercoat as well.

Mark

 

one product i tried was gm engine shampoo , scrape off the big stuff ,squirt on the shampoo work it in with brush & leave sit .1st time was with hot water & garden hose with pressure tip .this next goaround i will use the shampoo & pressure washer .This product doesn't hurt the paint which is a good thing .If u want paint ,grease etc off use liguid chisel gasket remover works like a dam . Later bake