# Engine Cleaning



## Boromir (Oct 13, 2002)

I just steam cleaned my engine bay and now i wonder whats the best product i can find at pep boys, walmart etc... that would make the parts shine. i love spray on stuff.


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## 95 SentraB13 (Jun 14, 2002)

I'm going to suggest a few products. First,*Turtle Wax* plastic and vinyl protectant spray in a black bottle. It's very inexpensive and even a small bottle goes a long way. I use it on my coolant hoses and anything else that's plastic and it leaves a nice even, high gloss, long lasting finish with out being greasy. I've also used and would suggest *Meguiar's Natural Shine Vinyl & Rubber Protectant* which I liked even more so compared to the *Turtle Wax*. It appeared to be thicker and provided a more rich, longer wearing finish but again with a non-greasy feel.
Meguiar's *Gold Class Vinyl/Rubber Protectant* and *Gold Class Trim Detailer* would work equally as well if not better. Meguiar's products are relatively inexpensive, widely available and work extremely well so I'm going to suggest using that.

For application I generally spray some of the product onto a disposable shop towel(blue type) or a white cotton detailing cloth. A toothbrush is handy if you need to remove dirt from crevices or from the ridges on wire loom. To clean my coolant and air hoses I scrubbed them with a wet scrubber sponge using *Simple Green* and warm water to rinse. I removed most of the air hoses to do so. After, I dressed them with the *Turtle Wax* protectant. It's probably going to take you a while longer to dress up the engine this way compared to a spray on and leave detailing product from a can but the results are worth it and you don't need to worry about over spray. You can easily touch up any parts in a matter of a few minutes to keep everything clean or just build up the shine again after a week or two or even longer. Personally, I think hand application/detailing would provide a better and more prolonged and desirable finish.


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## Boromir (Oct 13, 2002)

wow, you a detailer?  how long you spend cleaning your engine bay? just estimate.


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## 95 SentraB13 (Jun 14, 2002)

Nope, not a detailer but I love a clean engine. It makes working on it easier and more enjoyable, for me at least. I feel more proud driving the car knowing that it's clean inside and out.
To get the engine as clean as I have it now I probably spent around six hours over the past few months. But before the car was mine the engine was never cleaned so I had a lot of work to do last year such as the removing caked on dirt and oil from air, vacuum and other numerous hoses. Like you said, that's just an estimate so I would say six hours is just a minimum. If I'm bored and things look dirty I may spend 30 minutes touching up any plastic pieces and remove any road dust.
The only downside is that my engine has a fair amount of rust so most of the work I put into it will go unnoticed.

Latest pic: 1995 B13 Sentra engine bay


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## B11sleeper (Oct 15, 2003)

I live in CA, how can i clean my engine? anything that would get dirt and grease off is illegal to dump on the ground, and realistically the dirt and grease would be illegal to dump anyways, so how do i clean my engine? other than by hand with papertowels/etc... I really need to clean it again after the oil filter hose rugbbed through and made a mess...


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## Rama (Mar 8, 2003)

Boromir how exactly did you steam clean the engine bay? When I cleaned mine I used simple green for really greasy & dirty parts and I also used this engine degreaser by STP from Autozone to generally clean the whole area. Now while it got the engine bay clean it left some plastic parts discolored. Was anything discolored when you steam cleaned it?


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## sentrapower93 (May 11, 2002)

Simple green and alot of rags gets the job done for me. Then i use some blue magic liqud metal polish on my strut tower bar,valve cover,aluminum oil cap,radiator cap and my billet battery tie-down brace. I use stp son of a gun vinyl protectant on all the hoses...


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## Boromir (Oct 13, 2002)

well, rama, my car was never cleaned before (engine bay wise), so my friend told me its better to do once in a while. so i took it to his garage where he used his steam cleaner and got all the shit out. dried it off, then he sprayed some product on it to make it shine. i was just wondering which spray on products would be best for fast cleaning. i see lotta products at pepboys and walmart and i wanna use something that would give it the NEW LOOK shine. cleaning my car and waxing it is soo much fun. i spend all weekend doing it since i got no classes. i got nothing discolored, but i noticed thAT armor all protectant wipes gives the color back to those discolored areas.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

god that's alot of work. I jus wipe off any sand or loose dirt in there, then I wipe down the plastic parts with Armor-All wipes. My engine bay is pretty damn clean.


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## Exalta (Jan 21, 2003)

Steam cleaning huh. Would the household steam cleaner work? So how do you do it? Put the steamer under the car? I'm tired of the fumes coming off when I spray diesel when I'm cleaning engine bays.

By the way, what do you need to cover when cleaning the engine bay? aside from the breather, air filter and alternator...


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## azkicker0027 (May 31, 2002)

i use compressed air to get the dust off and then follow through with a bunch of rags and some wd40, now i know more can be done.


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## Boromir (Oct 13, 2002)

i put a plastic bag (cheesy move ) around the distributor, altenator, air filter ...etc. i think those steamclaners i saw on QVC and HSN would work. no i dont put it under my car. theres no chemecals in steam so it wont harm anything. if u cant do, just take it to a detailer in your town, they will do it for 20 or less.
i was impressed by the amount of dirty grease water that came out while cleaning it.


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## Exalta (Jan 21, 2003)

Okay. Thanks for the info man!


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