cleaning the Engine

[reprise]

Yet another basic question.....

after a trip in a bit of mud and dust the old engine is looking a bit filthy.

What do you guys do to clean the engine?? bear in mind im a newb and no nothing mechanical.......also my radiator is full to the brim from my last service, however the plastic canister linking to the radiator(probably just proved how much of an artard i am when it comes to engines) is hovering on the low mark...is that normal?? when adding coolant do i fill the radiator or the connecting canister.

cheers

[suzuki boy]

I did it once and got water in my distributar so i dont worrie about it anymore.......Pretty much the mud keeping it together!

BUt a spray of wd40 in there and all was good!

WHat type of zook do you have? Maybe keep it running while cleaning the engine bay!

[reprise]

91 sierra....also the max 20kb limit for a thumbnail picture is prohibiting me from showing off my zook.......how do you compress a file (without downloading a program that costs $40 us) so i can upload it to my profile???

[want33s]

I pressure blast mine with 2500psi regularly. Gets it pretty clean. Never had a drama with water getting into electrics but I don't blast distributor or carby directly. Be careful of the radiator fins too.
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[Gwagensteve]

I did it once and got water in my distributar so i dont worrie about it anymore.......Pretty much the mud keeping it together!

I'll take that as a joke. Leaving your motor dirty makes every maintenance job a PITA, means you don't see important things when you need to like leaks and loose stuff, and will massively reduce the life of your starter, alternator, even you cables, carby, all rubber parts, anything steel (as the mud holds moisture and minerals, increasing corrosion, seals, belts.

Dirty engines are like driving around the city in a muddy 4WD -very uncool.

Cleaning your engine bay is easy. Buy a bottle of detergent (I use CT14 degreaser and/or CT18 cleaner, but I believe Kenco Shift-it is much better) and a spray bottle. Spray it on neat to the engine with the engine DRY.

Let it soak for as long as you can be bothered. The hose it off. A normal hose will work OK but a high pressure washer is better (or carlovers) Try and avoid BLASTING near the distributor, 90% of the time it will be fine after a wash, but if not just pop the distributor, and give it a hit with CRC and wipe it dry. That's all that's required.

Obviously don't lean into any seal areas with the pressure washer, but otherwise you won't really be able to do any real damage.

Check the thread in general tech on cleaning the engine bay - Guts car is a good example of what can be done with just some detergent.

Steve.

[reprise]

nice......cheers for that......learning something new everyday.

cheers for the help...priceless

[Gwagensteve]

Oh want 33's - good point about the radiator - NEVER spray a radiator down ur up ant any sort of angle. Always spray at it straight ahead. Spaying at an angle will smash the fins, especially with coil sierra, jimny, late WT's and vitara's with alloy fins - they HATE pressure washing.

Steve.