Casper – Page 9 – UnderstandYourCar

Cleaning a dirty engine block isn’t the kind of project you have to outsource to the professionals. Believe it or not, with just a little bit of prep work – and plenty of driveway space – you can do a professional job cleaning your engine at home! You’ll need to get your hands on some cleaning products, buckets of water, a decent hose, and a couple of other extras. But outside of that all you’ll need is the inside information we highlight below to hit the ground running. How Do You Clean an Engine Block at Home? Armed with this guide you’ll be able to get top-quality results cleaning your engine block without having to bring this into the shop and spending a small fortune for someone to clean up for you. It’s going to take a little bit of time – probably a couple of hours (so schedule a sunny Saturday if you can) – but with a little bit of elbow grease and a little bit of planning this can all come together pretty easy for you. Invest in Quality Engine Cleaning Products Straight out of the gate you want to make sure that you are investing in high-quality engine cleaning products. This isn’t something you want to cheap out on. There are tons and tons of options available today, all with mountains of reviews – including real customer reviews – that you’ll want to have a look at. At the end of the day, though, you need to be sure that you get yourself a quality degreaser, a quality cleaner, a quality engine detergent, and a solid brake cleaner. Those are absolute musts. Don’t even attempt to start this project without getting your hands on quality cleaning products. Disconnect Your Battery After assembling all of your cleaning products you’ll want to make sure that you disconnect your battery. Water (and any other liquid, for that matter) and electricity just don’t mix – especially when you are working on something as sensitive as the engine of your vehicle. Disconnect your battery completely. Take the time to clean your cables, get rid of any corrosion, and make sure that your electrical system is cleaned up as well. Cover Sensitive Components After that has been taken care of you’ll want to cover any of your other sensitive engine components. You want to make sure that your alternator is covered. You’ll need to make sure that your relay boxes are covered. You’ll want to make sure that your distributor is covered. Use plastic bags and plenty of electrical or duct tape to do as good a job as you can. Take your time. You don’t want to get this wrong. Air Off Dirt, Dust, and Grime If you have an air compressor handy (and you should), you’ll want to use the compressor to blow off any of the dirt, dust, and grime that you can. Air compressors have nozzle attachments that let you really focus the jet, knocking off caked on particulates that you to have a tough time getting off any other way. In a pinch, a shop vacuum running on reverse – or even a leaf blower – can be used just to make sure that surface dust, dirt, and grime has been removed before you go in for a deeper clean. Spray Down Your Engine and Let It Soak Now’s your chance to spray down your engine – carefully avoiding all of those core electrical components that you taped off. Use your degreaser and make sure that you cover every single inch of your engine that you want to get clean. Once again, take your time and be very deliberate. Degreaser can only work its magic when it comes in contact with engine parts. If you miss some you’re going to have to circle back again. After you apply your degreaser you’ll want to let time work its wonders. How long you wait really depends on the particular degreaser that you are using. Scrub Tough Gunk Away It’s not a bad idea to scrub tough gunk away with a stiff wire brush after you let your degreaser go to work. You want to make sure that you had hotspots across your engine bay, especially those that looked particularly funky before you started to clean things up. Use that wire brush to loosen things without going crazy, letting your degreaser handling the bulk of the heavy lifting to get things clean. Use Brake Cleaner for the Real Stuck on Stuff After you have rinsed off your degreaser (using a quality detergent to get the job done right) it’s a good idea to swing in with a bit of brake cleaner to make sure that everything is really squeaky clean. Brake cleaner is going to clean up pretty much everything left behind – including a lot of the grease that even the very best degreasers on the planet have a tough time with. Best of all, brake cleaner dries without leaving behind any residue whatsoever. That’s a big piece of the puzzle when you’re talking about adding chemical cleaners to something like your engine. You don’t need leftover residues burning up, catching fire, or leaving potentially flammable fumes inside your engine compartment the next time that you turn on your ignition. Jet Off Cleaning Products Finally, you’re going to want to swing through with a low pressure hose to just sort of rinse off anything left behind. You want to make sure that you get rid of detergents, you want to make sure that you get rid of degreasers, and you want to make sure that you hit all of the spots that you touched up with brake cleaner as well. The last rinse should be nothing but clean, clear water. You also want to make sure that you give your engine plenty of time to dry naturally before you even think about starting it up again. Maybe this means a couple of hours (if you do this on a hot summer day, for example), but maybe it means leaving your vehicle off overnight or even longer just to make sure that it is bone dry. Rinse and Repeat as Necessary If after your final clear water rinse you notice that things are still kind of dirty all you have to do is rinse and repeat the steps we highlighted above until you get your engine as clean as you are happy with. You’re in the driver seat now! Final Thoughts So there you have it – a full, top to bottom guide on cleaning your engine at home. As you can see, the project isn’t anywhere near as challenging as some people make it out to be. Sure, it’s a little bit time consuming but a lot of that time is just sort of sitting around and waiting while the cleaning products do the work for you. Set aside a Saturday afternoon sometime in the summer to tackle this project, though, and it’ll go by a lot faster than you think. Good luck!