Keep your engine and engine bay clean
Posted on Jan 28, 2009 by Josh Merva in How To
This article was originally submitted in 2004 by Tom Fraley aka MountaineerTom. Thanks Tom!
For a clean looking engine and engine compartment, give it a wash. Maybe not as often as the exterior, but it won’t hurt it if you’re careful and watch what you do. Of course, you don’t want to spray the engine down when it’s hot. You don’t want to crack something by spraying hot engine parts with cold water! Let it cool off for a little while then wrap anything that you don’t want to get wet with aluminum foil. Things like the alternator, plugs and wires, and any other electrical stuff. The biggest thing is just watch where you spray the water. You don’t need a full jet stream of water either. Just mist it to get it everything wet enough to wash. I never spray directly onto the throttle body or electrical items.
I usually do mine after I’ve washed my truck, so I use the soapy water that is left over in the bucket. You can use a sponge, brush with a handle or a rag, what ever your comfortable with. I use a brush for most places and dip it in the soapy water and wash everything with it without scrubbing really hard. The sponge and rag will come in handy in tight places like behind hoses and the battery. If it’s really dirty, you may want to spray it down with some kind of cleaner, like Castrol Super Clean or an engine degreaser, and let it soak for a few minutes to loosen up some of the tough stuff.
I don’t go to any real detail in drying, just hit what I can easily reach to get the water off of it so I wont have any water spots, but after that, I unwrap all the stuff I put foil on and wipe it down with the damp towel I dried with. Sometimes, depending on if I feel like it, I’ll spray a little Armor All, or something similar, on a rag and wipe down all the hoses and plastic with it.
For some custom detailing, get some Testors brand paint markers to highlight some of the raised areas under the hood. The paint markers can be found at most stores that carry model cars and supplies and come in many different colors. (You can see one of the markers lying on the battery. Visit www.testors.com and look under the enamel paints section for the different color markers available.) Some area’s I did on mine are the windshield washer fluid cap, the electrical center cover on the drivers side, the “caution fan” and arrow on the fan shroud, the - and + symbols on the battery, the word battery and + symbol on the little red cover where you connect a set of jumper cables, and the VORTEC’s on the painted intake cover. I also had an old Chevrolet script emblem that I cleaned up, painted and put on the front of the intake cover as well. Some 1/8 inch wide pin striping can add a unique touch too. I used silver on the intake cover and the air filter housing lid.
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