Cleaning Your Engine

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Cleaning Your Engine

When washing your car, you would normally think in terms of washing the outside and cleaning up the interior. Have you ever thought about cleaning under the hood? There are plenty of good reasons to include engine cleaning in your regular maintenance.

Have you ever noticed those tiny drips and grease spots in your driveway? Or tried to find a leak when the engine is coated with dirt, grime and oil? Try to work on your engine in these conditions. You end up as greasy and grimy as the engine by the time you're finished.

Dealing with a grimy engine is no fun when working on your car. Oil leaks are impossible to find when your engine is that dirty. Even simple maintenance can start to look like an oil spill cleanup site. Slippery parts and tools can also be a knuckle buster and can be dangerous.

So if there are so many advantages to cleaning up your engine, why isn't done more often? One of the most important reasons in the last few years is the damaging effects that water can have when forcibly sprayed into delicate electronic components. A clean engine isn't any good if it doesn't run.

Another problem is that cleanups can be messy and environmentally hazardous. All of that dirt and oil has to go somewhere, and washing it down the drain is not a good idea. So how can you get your engine clean without damaging it, yourself or the environment?

Let's start with the tools you will need to complete the job. We should point out that there is no magic potion or cleaner the will simply dissolve all of the oil and hardened dirt and grease off your engine. All of the common cleaners and degreasers require some old fashion elbow grease. Some of the best cleaners on the market today are safe for the environment. They work well and the vapors will not harm you.

For the elbow grease part of the cleanup, a screwdriver works well and a small scraper that can fit into tight corners can be handy as well. Also a small tooth brush sized wire brush will scrub away the toughest grime. It is important to avoid high pressures and large volumes of water. Steam cleaners and pressure washer are the opposite of what we want, because they can blow out gaskets, push water past seal and into the engine, and force water into critical electrical components. Be careful to use these types of cleaning methods only on non-vulnerable components because they can damage your engine.

How is the actual cleaning is accomplished? The first thing to do is prepare the engine compartment for cleaning. This involves covering everything that should not come in contact with water, such as air filter and air inlet holes and breather caps on valve covers. All dipstick tubes should also be covered. Parts of the ignition should also be covered, including the distributor and coils. Other electrical components that should be covered are fuse and relay boxes, wire connectors, and sensors.

Use plastic grocery bags with tape or rubber bands to secure them tightly. Cover and seal off these items from any and all water contamination. If they get even a small amount of moisture inside them, your car might run poorly, or perhaps not at all. If any of these items are dirty and you feel they need to be cleaned, then use a rag and carefully wipe them clean, rather than spraying and scrubbing.

Now you are ready to start scraping away the large chunks of grime, so that the degreaser can soak down to the engine when it is sprayed. Place a large drip pan underneath the area to be cleaned. All of the dirt and degreaser will fall into this, instead of on your driveway. After everything has been scraped, then it is time to apply the degreaser.

You can apply it in any way you see fit, but a spray bottle seems to be the easiest. Don't be stingy, Use enough to really wet down the dirty areas. You can let it soak for a few minutes, but it is a good idea to start scrubbing while things are still wet. It will be a slow and dirty process, but the end results will be surprising. This really is the only way to get the dirt out of every crevice.

After you feel that you have scrubbed all of the dirt loose, it is time to rinse. A garden hose misting attachment will also work quite well in this situation, although it may be a little slower.

After you have rinsed off all of the loose degreaser and dirt, you will more than likely find all of the spots that you missed the first time around. Let the water dry off, and then spray on more degreaser and start the scrubbing process again. Patience and time, that's all it takes. Eventually, you will have a very clean engine, one that can be kept looking good with just light touchups every so often.

The drip pan underneath the engine will have collected all of this water and dirt. Let the pan sit out for a couple of days so that the water can evaporate. What you will have left over is mostly grease, oil and dirt. These items can legally be put into your waste oil container that you use when making an oil change.

Once everything seems to have dried off, and you have removed all of the bags covering everything water sensitive, it is time to start the engine. If you have done everything right, it should have no problems starting right up and running fine. If not, then it is time to start searching for water where it doesn't belong. Most often it will be in the ignition system somewhere. Take care in your original covering of everything to avoid this problem.

When all goes well, what will be left is a spotless and possibly shiny engine. Your clean machine will look better, be easier to work on, and considerably less frustrating. If you're planning to sell your vehicle, a clean engine will definitely impress potential buyers.

Author: Mark Elsworth, 8/05/2005

(this article courtesy, our affiliate partner DIYautoparts.com)

Need More Information? These books are excellent resources. (Info-Source Tip: we have used Robert Bentley books extensively for Volkswagen repair and highly recommend the series if available for your car):