When I walk around quality used car lots, such as "cars and coffee", i notice a lot of nice and clean engine compartments. I asked one person and they said they spray everything down with Armorall Wheel Cleaner and just let it run off. I'm not willing to try that yet without some sort of confirmation. The engine bay of the GR86 at 40,000 is getting a bit dusty. Wondering best way to clean. Hesitant to spray water.
Figured the hive would have the answer.
At the challenge this year, Dusterbd led a clinic on how to clean and detail your car for cheap.
He sprayed the crap out of my engine bay (which is a gm engine swapped into an RX8) with purple power.
He then proceeded to dump literal buckets of water all over the engine bay even with my homemade wiring and gm pcm just hanging out.
No issues whatsoever.
I was rather "concerned" you might say.
Edit... I believe is was Castrol superclean.
I'd love to know how to do this too. Clean engine bays are amazing but the idea of doing it scares me.
I use a spray bottle with Purple Power. Cold engine, spray very liberally. I use a soft brush if I want to loosen any particularly dirty spots and then rinse off with the hose. I've been doing it this way forever and have only had one potential issue. I once sprayed an engine with a plastic valve cover before it was cool and it started leaking shortly thereafter. I may or may not have warped the valve cover. Since then, I've made sure the engine is 100% cold.
I have also watched detailer videos where they go at it with a pressure washer, some foaming cleaner and a big brush.
Apparently, it's not a thing to worry about with newer cars.
I spray mine with tire cleaner or straight Simple Green and blast it with a pressure washer.
Buy one of these, and you can get into all the nooks and crannies.
It does a great job of getting the grime off.
I'd stay away from the Armor All. It just gives dust something to stick to.
Well damn, maybe it's time to clean the engine bay of the Celica. I've always been nervous about spraying crap tons of water all willy-nilly in there.
I use the spray/wash methods as detailed above, but if there are any electrical connections I'm worried about I'll cover them with aluminum foil first to protect from direct spray.
I detest the various 'shine' products that used car lots use under the hood... they just collect dirt over time and can be difficult to fully remove.
SuperClean is an alkaloid. It will etch aluminum. I learned this from experience. Be careful.
I have always been told to cover the alternator in a bag of some sort, but this was on an older car.
You guys enable too much, this forum is a bad influence!
I detail my engine compartments by hand–microfiber towels and a combination of quick detail, Plexus and Griot’s rubber and vinyl cleaner/dressing.
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