I am cleaning my engine and wondering if its safe to take a hose to it?
If it will hurt it I won't do it, does anybody know?

 

 

Well you can't just drench the engine bay with water, you will have to take your time and clean it. I dunno what others use, but rubbing alcohol and some sort of brush to remove dirt work pretty good. Just get like a spray bottle. After you got the bay looking pretty good, pick up a can of Engine Detailer and spray it on everything under the hood. It makes all the plastic and hoses look like brand new! hope that helped somewhat haha

 

well if you cover the distributer cap and alternator, you can hose it down. use a plastic bag and tape. then detail afterwards

 

Oh and if you can get your hands on a Air Compressor you can also just blow air under the hood just make sure to cover your intake and keep the spark wires in. You can get a decent cleaning out of that too.

 

you can you a couple of cans of engine cleaner and spray it down....as long as you cover the electrical stuff like the alternator, distributor, fuse box, wires, etc. with platstic bags or something. then you can spray it with a hose just be careful of the electric stuff. It works everytime for me.

 

its accually fairly safe, everthing under the hood was made to be water RESISTANT. (notice i didnt say proof)

meaning...............if you just trying to get dust off, a quick spray all over with the hose will not hurt anything, however, anything thats not OEM might get harmed (i.e. aftermarket intake, etc.) BUT DONT SUBMERGE ANYTHING, just rinse quickly.

and you obviously dont want anything to be turned on while u do it.

 

w3rd

 

Anybody thought of using a steam cleaner?

 

spraY "gunk" engine cleaner and scrub and whatever. water it down using a spray bottle.

 

and make sure u wait till its cool to get it wet. just dont spray near the fuel injectors, or any electronic part. and use a degreaser first itll loosten everything up. remember some grease and grime is good, u might find a leak that wasent there before, after cleaning it that was held shut by the dirt.

 

good old soap and water works well for me but after that silicon spray for the hoses and black stuff to shine it up!!

 

I made a mistake long time ago of hosing down the engine and letting it dry on its own. Moisture condensed in the distributor.

So now AFTER cleaning the engine of any of my cars, I let it run for a few minutes to "steam out" the water. This works for me.

 

ok, but if you turn it on too soon after you wash wont that be dangerous for the engine? I heard somewhere if it gets too hot real fast = cracks = doom.

of course, i could have just heard wrong.

-Alex

 

CAN SOMEONE POST A PIC OF THERE ENGINE AFTER THEY CLEANED IT? WHAT KIND OF CLEANING MATERIAL WAS USED? JUST USE ENGINE REG. ENGINE CLEANER?

 

 

Like insyone said "gunk" works pretty good but just be careful of the electrical sh*t, you don't want to fry or short something... if you have a pressure washer it works even better... I usually start up the car after I clean the engine and let it run for a while. make sure you wash all the cleaners completely off.