As some of you might remember, the engine from The Green Car (my '71
MGB) is out, awaiting disassembly and eventual rebuilding. In its
place is going the motor from The Black Car (my old EP racer with
mild hot-rodding done to it, to the tune of about 110 bhp with the
race exhaust in place, probably 105 with the exhaust that's in the
Green Car, still a healthy jolt up from what was probably 75 to 80
bhp in the well-used motor that came out).
But before the new motor goes in, I wanted to clean the engine bay.
As several of you can attest (notably Tim Pettenati, who last labored
under the car to get the starter out), this is like something out of
Greek mythology. Not being in a position to change the course of a
river to clean out the Augean engine bay, I rolled TGC out to the
driveway and set about this mighty task.
At Chris Kantarjiev's suggestion, I dispensed with the brush and went
straight to a scraper. The guck was so thick here that I was scooping
it off with a Bondo-spreader -- a great tool for the task, as it's
rigid enough to dig under the heaviest layer of dirt and grease, yet
flexible enough to fit around and between pressings. And it won't
scratch the paint underneat the crud.
I used four different cleaners for this attempt, and I have reaffirmed
my belief that Simple Green is the best all-around engine (and engine-bay)
degreaser. Better than that, I've found a neat, cheap way to apply it
more effectively than any sprayer, aerosol, or pump action gadget, and
it reuses something we'd throw away (or recycle, actually, but you get
the point).
Take a 1-liter soda bottle, the PET plastic kind (we used a Canada Dry
club soda bottle, but in retrospect the Tonic Water would have been more
appropriate somehow :-). Use a small nail to punch a hole in the
center of the cap, from the inside out. Then fill the bottle about
1/4 to 1/3 full with Simple Green (or Breeze, though I like the smell
of Simple Green better -- and you're going to be smelling it for days,
so that's important). Now run hot water and fill the bottle up near
the top. Run it slowly down the side of the bottle to reduce the amount
of foaming you get. (On foaming: For the first application, it foams
least if you put in the water, then add the Simple Green. On later
applications, putting the water in first causes so much foam that it
impedes your ability to put in the Simple Green, causing you to waste
the cleaner. Pour the Simple Green into the bottle first, then anything
that spills out due to foam is just hot water.)
Next, use a foam-rubber paintbrush to work the cleaner into the surface
of the grime. Hold the bottle in your left hand and keep a steady drip
onto the sponge in your right. From time to time, give the area you're
cleaning a strong squirt -- just squeeze the bottle. One of the best
things about this squeeze-bottle method is that you *can* keep up a
constant stream just by holding the sides of the bottle tightly; you
can't do that with a pump.
When you've softened the goop a little, try the scraper. Get it into
the crud, and again use the bottle in the left hand to keep the dirt
soft and to loosen it. When you have a lot of crud off the car and the
surface of the engine bay is covered with slimy goop, take a high-
pressure hose to it to blast it all clear.
One additional tip: be sure you hose down the driveway under the car as
the pieces of greasy dirt fall off the car. If you let them sit overnight,
they will bond to the concrete yet retain a gooey upper surface. This
means that when you walk on them, they will stick to the bottom of your
shoes and you will track them through the house. Nobody likes this, with
the possible exception of divorce lawyers, who appreciate the business...
Other cleaners I used:
Steam Clean by Gunk. This is an aerosol in a large, black and silver can.
It's good, but it really needs a warmer surface to work on than the engine
bay, even after standing in the sun for a few minutes. And the aerosol
sometimes spits out in spurts rather than a continuous stream. Works well
on warm engines, though, but can't compete with hot water and Simple Green
if the surface you're cleaning is cool.
Precision Clean by LPS. VERY expensive ($6 for a pump sprayer) and no
better than Simple Green and hot water. Works well at getting oil out of
oil pans and off driveways, but again, not as good as the Simple Green
approach. The sprayer is good, however, and I refilled it with my
own mixture, so it's not a total writeoff.
Brakleen or other perchlorethylene cleaner. Still the best at a residue-
free cleaner, but also expensive. Use this for final clean-up; good for
surfaces you're going to paint, for instance, or when you want the extra
pressure of an aerosol to loosen deposits. I'll use another can of this
before I put the new paint down on the crossmember.
The best news is that the engine compartment, though it needs more detail
work before I paint it, looks VASTLY better than Kim or I ever thought I
could get it. The green panels are green, the wiring harness is wrapped
with blue plastic tape (I always thought it was black!), the brake lines
are silver (I always thought they were black too!) and the crossmember
is silver (but it SHOULD be black!). The hot grease and time have
combined to peel all the paint off the crossmember, so I'll be painting
that before the motor goes back in.
Any recommendations? I've used Derusto brand paint to do engine
compartment work in the past; a few coats of black seem to be impervious
to anything but brake fluid, and the finish on the brake pedal box I
did a year or so ago is still quite nice. But even with careful application
of the Permatex, I'm sure I'll get some drips off this engine, so I'd
appreciate any suggestions on paint that resists oil and heat. (Of
course, the oil has also nicely preserved the crossmember -- there's
no rust on it, even though the paint came off with the scraper, it's
just shiny silver metal.) Daren, have you got some Hammerite you'd
consider selling or swapping?
So, in review, a shopping List:
Bondo spreaders for scraping off old crud
Soda bottle from recycling bin
Simple Green
Pack of foam brushes (I bought one handle with 6 foam brush replacements)
Rubber gloves (which really only mean that you'll have to wash your
elbows and wrists instead of your hands, elbows and wrists)
Brakleen
Shop towels
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