At 01:53 PM 12/8/99 -0800, Jeff McNeal wrote:
>
>Back in the old days, I remember a gas station that offered steam-cleaning
>services for engines. Is this method safe for Spitfires? Or is there an
>easier/better/do-it-yourselfer way to thoroughly clean the gunk and grime
>without messing up the electrical system? As long as I keep the coil and
>distributor covered with plastic, is there any harm in using a high-pressure
>sprayer on a cold engine with some commercially available degreaser? Any
>tips?
Funny you should mention that. Just this last weekend I was at my neighbor's
(Jim) house and he was going to "degrease" his eng. and xmission. I asked
him if he used "simple green". He said that he had, and does but was out. I
also use this and it works pretty well.
However, he said that for a real greasy eng. that you want to degrease and
are NOT worried about the paint, etc. he uses "oven cleaner" and NOT the
environmently friendly one. It worked quite well, and was cheaper that
gunk.
I must point out the obvious, if it is a real dirty eng. the more of the
caked on stuff you can scrape and pick off, the better (what ever chemical
cleaner you use) will work.
For periodic maintenance, I take my cars to the local "wish washy" the
ones that have a wand and start at about $1.25 to wash your car. The
one down the street even has an "engine degreaser" mode on the selector.
I will take my cars down there at least every 3 mo. and wash down the
eng. compartment. I only wish I could get the front end up in the air
so I could do as good a job on the bottom and steering assembly as I can
do on the top.
Now if you are trying to really clean up - detail your eng. and xmission
you should pull them out of the car. Now you WANT to use a cleaner that
WILL NOT hurt aluminumn. On many cars the you alternator case and the
bellhousing are aluminumn and you'll really have to rework them to clean
them up.
Once the major stuff is out of the way, you can tape up all the holes
on the engine (ie. intake, exhaust manifolds, tip stick, etc.) and
sand or bead blast it. This does a very nice job of finishing off the
job and giving a good surface for the new paint to stick to.
If you are going to rebuild the engine, then you should have it dipped
or "hot tanked". When this is done, the engine will be as clean as a
whistle, but WILL need all new bearings, etc.
John
John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair@exis.net
Va. Beach, Va Phone: (757) 495-8229
48 TR1800 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1109)
71 Saab Sonett III (71500840) 75 Bricklin SV1 (0887) 77 Spitfire
Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
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