im pulling my motor out in 2 weeks and would like to clean up engine bay.can anyone give me any ideas on what best to use to clean the old rust and grease from everywhere.and what to treat it with before i paint it.thanks for your help.
how much rust are we talking? Just a bit here and there? Or is it all surface rust? Once the motor is out, move all wires out of the way If you have a pressure washer, get in there! If not, you'll have to sit on the cross member and start with soapy water and a brush. You can use that gunk engine degreaser, just rinse well Thin hit all the rust with a wire brush until its gone, and fresh metal is exposed. If its heavy rust, you might use sand paper, I did some of my previous car with a palm sander If you use a palm sander use several grades of sandpaper ending with 240 or more, as that motion of the palm sander can live 'spirals' in your metal if you move around too fast. Blow everything off and give it a good wipe down with some wax and grease remover, followed by a tack cloth Now start masking. When I did mine I had the hood, grill, headlights, bumper etc off.. So I masked the fenders and windshield, and painted from the windshield over the cowl, down the firewall, over the inner fenders and chassis, up the core support and down the rad and behind the lights to the chassis I used spray cans, duplicolor semi gloss, I like it more than other brands, but its preference. Some guys use gloss, but I like it looking stock. One hint, if humidity is high, your black will dry with white ghost spots - paint in the day when the sun is out or in a climate controlled garage. I learned why ... it all turned white... humidity here in FL is a killer.... so I left my interior door open to my house over night, and the garage got nice and cool and dry. I did not open the garage door to let any humidity it. And left it to dry before the door was opened. 2 coats will do a nice job. I also took some WD40, on a rag, and started wiping the wiring harness wire by wire.. they came very clean! Other stuff might clean them easier but I did not want to dry out the 40 wires out more than they were with a thinner or mineral spirit Here's mine after the engine was dropped back in
First off, stock up on beer. :beer This is the most important step. Whiskey works, but it has been shown to cause you to pass out under the car and snooze the afternoon away. Or so I hear. :Smarty: I find that the industrial purple cleaner works pretty darn well. Use a putty knife to get off the big chunks. The next step I did was to use a right angle die grinder with a 1-1/2" dia wire brush. Like this Run that thing all over the frame rails and firewall to fling stuff all over your face and the driveway. If it's on your face, it isn't on your car any longer. You can also use a 4" electric angle grinder with a wire brush to get off a bunch of gunk too if you have more space to move it around. So once you do that everywhere you can spray the stuff everywhere and start wiping it down. You can use brake cleaner to spray on the nooks and crannies to get lots of stuff off it. As you get further down the level of gunk and closer to metal, you can switch the wire wheel off the angle grinder and go to a sanding disk or scotch brite conditioner disk, but that isn't necessary. Then continue with either spray on de-greasers and work your way down to laquer thinner or something like Prep-all to get it pretty darn clean. Then I took a sanding sponge and ran that all over everything that I was going to paint so that it would be nicely scuffed up. One final wipe down with prep-all and it was time to spray. The cleaner it is the better the adhesion, however let me tell you, it never seems to be completely clean. Krylon satin black (#1613?) is a close match to the original color. Personally I have been using Zero-rust spray paint. http://zero-rust.com/?referrer=google&gclid=CJawxM7Y4q4CFQlbhwodgy0VWg Their black looks pretty good and I have been using it on all my suspension and under body parts. It sprays on easy and covers well and does seal the metal really well. You can look over their website to see studies and such on how it compares to other paints. Hope this helps, good luck. Jon
Agree with ALMOST all said above, except the PURPLE cleaner; It will attack any plastic, wire cover, vinyl, etc and leave white splotches on them. Be SURE to shield or remove ANY plastic.
I just got done with this process last week. I had used sand paper of multiple grits..for areas that were pitted and couldn't sand out rust, i sanded it smooth and applied navel jelly to it. This "eats" the rust and only the rust, and seals it so it wont rust further. prime those areas within 24 hrs.
Good to know. It didn't really affect me because I just have the two frame rails sticking out. All the wires and such were removed before starting. Thanks for the point, I will remember that for the future.
I too did it last week in the Riv. I pulled everything off the fire wall. cleaned and painted everything. every nut and bolt then put it back on. did the frame and inner fender tubs the same way. Just take your time and remember you may never have the opertunity to do it again. once its all done and on the raod do your best to keep it clean. ---------- Post added at 08:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 AM ---------- I too did it last week in the Riv. I pulled everything off the fire wall. cleaned and painted everything. every nut and bolt then put it back on. did the frame and inner fender tubs the same way. Just take your time and remember you may never have the opertunity to do it again. once its all done and on the raod do your best to keep it clean.
I used the 4" grinder with a wire wheel it does a great job, then I used the por15 Marine clean diluted to 3:1 it really worked great. I also used the por15 gloss black and if sticking to my skin is any indication (4 weeks to get some off my finger nails) it may never come off the car. they tell you to use gloves just make sure you don't have a pin hole in the (bird) finger. Oh and when they say to clean out the trough on the paint can they mean it, I did not (lazy ass) and their is paint in the can but I can't get it open. I took mine down to fire wall and frame, nothing else now i get to start rebuilding after I clean and paint all the parts feels like I am building a model, Paint all the parts before assembly. Ye Ha!!!
New engine and trans are in and running. Trans is giving me a little trouble. hopefully it wont have to come back out. engine sounds healthy. I'll updats my build thread when I get some pics and vids to post.
X2 - I run a hose from a hot water faucet to my pressure washer - cleans like a steam cleaner! I cover the ground under the car with newspapers to soak up the oil and grease. - Bill
I removed everything on the fire wall 1 piece at a time. Cleaned behind it, painted and put the clean reassmbled part back on. masked where I had to when doing the next part. It took about a week doing it part time in between jobs.
So did you remove the fender wells or just painted them in place? Is it Semi-gloss black? It looks great!
