TC's Garage - Cleaning your engine article

Cleaning your Engine – Part one


By Bev Gould

Cleaning the engine at first looks like a daunting task, but if you take your time and have patience the benefits will last for years. Keeping an engine clean does more than to enhance its appearance. A clean engine makes it easier to spot oil and fluid leaks, will run cooler and is easier to repair/maintain. Although this article is geared toward the 911’s - the principles apply to most vehicles.

Let’s assume you have a vehicle whose engine has never been touched beyond changing the oil and minor maintenance. It only takes a couple years for this stuff to build up on an engine, so this washing routine would also be good for your other automobiles as well.

You look at all the grease and gunk and want to say "Forget it!" My Porsche 911E was like that, the car had been raced, rallied and toured to the point I had over 300,000 miles on it. The engine was well maintained and clean by those standards. But not where I thought a person could put their hands in there without coming out with a grease trophy.

So where do you start? Start with a good engine wash. Take a can of engine cleaner (WD-40, GUNK, Citrus Degreaser or some other comparable product) and go down to the local "Do It Yourself" (DIY) car wash. Check the signs at the DIY – some don’t allow engine washing.

Why the DIY, because:

The DIY tanks are set up for yucky engine junk and chemicals.
Most people do not have a high-pressure hose at home; you’ll need it.
The area around your car will be a mess afterwards.
In many cities,like in California, you could be cited for washing hazardous materials down the storm drain. For example, the storm drains in our area flow out to the ocean.

Here are the following things you will need to take with you on your journey to the local DIY (do-it-yourselfer).

Tape, Baggies, toothbrush, plastic wrap, rags, plastic trash bags, small towels, large towels, note pad, rubber bands, post it notes, gloves and lots of change.

First thing to do is protect your electrical components. Take a baggie and put it over the distributor, next use the rubber band or tape to secure the baggie in place. Each model is unique on where the electrical components are located; my 911E has electronics on the left side of the engine. I use the plastic wrap to protect this area and tape to secure it. I also use plastic wrap on some of the electrical harnesses and the coil. Look anywhere else the water may cause you car-starting problems. If you have exposed carburetors, use the plastic wrap or Baggies to protect them.

Next thing I do is disconnect the coil wire, this way I won’t pull a no-brainer of starting the car with plastic inside the engine. You can guess why I started doing this J . Pay close attention to where the decals are, you want to protect these as well. Write yourself a note to reconnect the coil wire and put it on the steering wheel. On the note pad,

write down the places you put the plastic and tape/rubber bands, it may seem redundant but better safe than sorry. Now take the large towels and place them over you fenders and the deck lid. This will protect your paint from any debris and chemicals that may over spray. I suggest you wear old clothes while cleaning your engine and use gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals (latex is best). Washing the car afterwards is a good idea; I usually take my car wash (I use Einszett Perl shampoo) with me so I can make sure no chemicals from washing the engine are on the paint.

Now you are ready to attack the built up yucky gunk. Take your engine cleaner and apply it liberally in the areas of the engine that have the most built up grease on them. Let the engine cleaner soak for a few minutes, it will start eating away at the grease and dirt. Depending on how bad the buildup is, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to 20 minutes. You probably will not get it all this first go around, so keep that in mind. While the engine cleaner is soaking, take the toothbrush and gently work the engine cleaner on the worst spots, if you have a severe build up, you may have to do this with a larger (not stiffer) brush. Once you have determined the engine cleaner has stopped working, you are ready to steam clean.

Set the DIY’s wand setting to engine or steam clean (it may be slightly different depending on where you live). Take care not to use the wand on the exterior paint of your car. The heat and pressure from the wand was not meant for your paint. Now use the wand inside the engine compartment to steam away the engine cleaner and grease. Be patient and get the wand onto the nooks and crannies. Do not forget to get the sides of the engine compartments as well, dirt gets kicked up into the engine from the fan and always seems to find it’s way on the shelves of the engine.

While you are steaming the inside of the engine, make sure you do not get water inside your plastic covers. Remember shooting the water onto a surface will cause the water to go upwards, so be aware of your plastic and not to get water up there. Also if the inside of your engine compartment is painted, do not put the wand too close to the paint, it could strip it off. Once you are satisfied you have taken out as much dirt as possible (this go around), set the wand to rinse. The rinse water usually has a softening agent and will rinse the chemicals out of the engine.

A word of warning, GUNK works great but smells horrible. If you use GUNK, do not do this on the same day you are going to use the car for a date or tour. It takes a couple days for the smell to go away. There are other engine cleaners out there (see list above) , I have tried the Citrus ones (they smell better), WD-40, and GUNK. For the nasty jobs I use the GUNK, for the easier ones (like the newer car) I use the Citrus engine cleaners.

When you are finished rinsing the engine out shut off the wand. Now take the rags you brought with you and wipe down the engine. Make sure you use some pressure on the rags while wiping it down. The grease has softened because for the heat of the water and will come off easily in your rag. When you are finished with one rag (because it is too dirty or wet) put it in one of the plastic trash bags. Keep wiping down until the engine is rather dry or you run out of rags. Next take the towels off the deck lid and fenders. Wipe down the paint with the part of the towels that did not get wet or exposed to the chemicals. When done with the towels, put these in the other trash sack.

Now you are ready to get the engine ready for starting. First take ALL the plastic, plastic wrap, tape and rubber bands out of the engine. Next reconnect the coil wire and make sure there are not any other foreign objects in the engine, like towels, toothbrushes or gloves. Check your notepad to make sure you got all your protective wrapping out.

You may want to put a few more quarters in the machine and rinse down the area you have been working. Chances are some of your greasy gunk might be on your shoes or get on someone else’s, be considerate.

Sometimes our new cleaned cars do not want to start right away after an engine washing, make sure you give it plenty of time to start and take care not to flood the engine. If you protected you electrical components from water, your car should not have any problems starting up.

If you should have a problem, push the car into the sunshine and open the deck lid. Within a few minutes the components should dry out and you’ll be on your way. Let the car warm up before driving in traffic, and then drive it several mils to let it dry completely.

If your engine was really bad, you may have to do the engine wash a couple times to get the worst junk out. Bare in mind, the grease and gunk took years to get there and it will not give up its home easily.

Bev has been showing her 1970 911E Targa for many years and the car has won at many Concours event. The car now has about 440,000 miles on it and keeping the engine clean is pretty easy. Just an hour of touch up and it is Concours ready, it is the maintenance that is the key and really worth it when people go ooohhhh when you show them the engine.

I originally wrote this article a few years ago. Most of the tips are still good today, but I have tweaked it to be more relevant for today. Let me know if you have any questions, I can be reached at bev@tcsgarage.com

Bev Gould has been involved in PCA for over 30 years. She is the former Zone 8 Representative for PCA and has held many positions within the club. Her 1970 911E has won many awards in both PCA and Non PCA Concours d’ Elegance shows. Bev is Vice President of TC’s Garage which she owns together with her husband Tom and can be reached at bev@tcsgarage.com .