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Steam cleaners for the engine bay

General Tech Talk

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Steam cleaners for the engine bay

Post by TheOtherLeft »

Does anyone use steam cleaners in their engine bay?

I've tried degreasers, car wash etc and they don't seem to shift any of the dried mud. The only way I've found that works is with a brush, which is not that easy in the tight areas.

Would a steam cleaner be useful? Aldi have a cheap hand held cleaner for $30 which I think comes with some nozzles that would make it wasy to get into tight places. http://www.aldi.com.au/au/html/offers/2827_10298.htm

The only time my engine bay has been steam cleaned was with an old Merc and that was when I had some work done on it and then tacked the steam clean on as well. The blew 1 fuse which was the alarm but it was pretty exposed.
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Re: Steam cleaners for the engine bay

Post by PCRman »

TheOtherLeft wrote:Does anyone use steam cleaners in their engine bay?

I've tried degreasers, car wash etc and they don't seem to shift any of the dried mud. The only way I've found that works is with a brush, which is not that easy in the tight areas.

Would a steam cleaner be useful? Aldi have a cheap hand held cleaner for $30 which I think comes with some nozzles that would make it wasy to get into tight places. http://www.aldi.com.au/au/html/offers/2827_10298.htm

The only time my engine bay has been steam cleaned was with an old Merc and that was when I had some work done on it and then tacked the steam clean on as well. The blew 1 fuse which was the alarm but it was pretty exposed.
In a previous life as a shop assistant for an auto electrician I saw an EFI falcon that had had the engine bay steam cleaned. Never seen so many fault codes come out of a ECU all at once. I'd use extreme caution on any modern vehicle.
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Re: Steam cleaners for the engine bay

Post by bogged »

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Post by mhgill »

Degrease, leave for a few minutes, then hit it with a gurney.

Dont need Steam but it does help.
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Re: Steam cleaners for the engine bay

Post by TheOtherLeft »

Shift It is my next option.

I was just wondering if steam cleaning has benefits.
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Re: Steam cleaners for the engine bay

Post by Tiny »

TheOtherLeft wrote:
Shift It is my next option.

I was just wondering if steam cleaning has benefits.
heat assists with grease, not so much dried out mud. when a workshop steam cleans a truck or engine bay they are generally using a hot water gerni, it simply heats the water been spat out of the high pressure pump like these http://www.aussiepumps.com.au/high-pres ... aners.html

These work much better than using striaght steam as seen in cheap houshold "steam cleaners" and are obviously used for very different purposes.

I have seen and used an enzyme based product that works very well, the guy was based in tanilba bay, not sure of the name though
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