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Had an incident that left my engine bay and most of the underside of my car covered in oil this weekend. I am trying to clean it up as I work on fixing the problem I had but it is every where not one inch of the engine bay was left uncoated in oil. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how I should go about cleaning the engine bay and the electronics inside here is a picture to show you what I was working with
I would probably pull all the stuff like coils etc off that you can clean by hand easy enough of the engine then just hit it with a degreaser and a steam cleaner/pressure washer. I used to wash excavators down like this covered in hydraulic oil (different I know but long as your careful and not a fool about it). Id go to a hire center and get one of those big **** off steam pressure washers those things are the ****. Just got to be 100% not to get any water into the engine depending on what you remove. Id probably cut rubber tyre innertubes for covers and hose clamp them down on any hole.
And those heat wraps they need to be binned HUGE fire risk right there!
*** the carpet on the rear firewall would be the one id be concerned about whats others experience with that! Is it washable?? Should be if its done right??? Or fire risk aswell????
Last edited by austingtir; 10-07-2015 at 03:23 AM.
Cat litter. Just cover the engine with it and fill up the intake and inside the valve cover where you add oil. It'll soak up all that oil and what not.*
*JoeNobody is right. Use a mild car wash soap and don't apply crazy pressure. Uh.......engine should be cold, of course.
use dawn soap mixed with water to rinse it all off, then hit it with engine degreaser the kind that foams up (it will cling to the engine surface and break down the oil, Its expensive that why i said use dawn first for the easy parts.
A few cans of "Original Gunk degreaser" (not the orange stuff) a long handle stiff brush and a hose. As per the previous post, the heat wrap has to go.
Later, any residual oil can be removed with brake/parts cleaner (the chlorinated ones work best)
Stay away from exposed bearings of the idlers and you should probably replace the serpentine belt.
You need lots and lots of rags. Avoid those cheap-o red shop towel rags because they leave fibers everywhere. Costco has some pretty big bales of rags for a decent price. I use the yellow microfiber ones in my engine bay once they get too dirty for cleaning the exterior. They're cheap enough to be discarded.
Thank you for the responses guys , I have been going at it with micro fiber rags on most of the stuff I could wipe by hand. Iv had enough electrical problems with this car as it is, didnt want to get ahead of my self and go at it with water with out knowing if it was safe or not. The cat litter in the intake that's a good idea might port and polish the heads at the same time as soaking up the oil thats a win win right ?
10-06-2015, 10:44 PM
