Engine Cleaning – Part 3.

by Bev Gould

Cleaning your engine takes some time and dedication, so it depends to what level you want to go to. That being said, a clean engine is easier to spot problems and easier to keep clean. As I mentioned before this is my favorite area of the car to clean, a clean engine just looks spectacular.

In this section, I am going to discuss cleaning your fan and fan shroud area. For now, I am going to discuss rear engine Porsches. Boxsters, 914s, 968’s, 928’s and 944’s are different in the fan area.

The fan is a bit tricky, depending on how dirty the fan is. First, take a good look at your fan. Is it painted, coated, anodized, polished or otherwise treated? If so, for most of you, you need to take care not to take the coating off. If the fan is not treated, is it aluminum or some other material? This is a bit harder to determine, so look at your owner’s manual or spec sheet to see what material your fan is made of.

The fan on my 911E is not coated and made of magnesium. I used to polish the fan to a high gloss, and then have a clear coat sprayed on it. While that looked nice for a few years, it was a bit of a pain to keep up. Then the EPA changed the rules in California for lacquer paint, the new clear coat no longer worked well with the polished magnesium. I tried keeping the polish up by hand for a couple years, but do not do that now. It still looks good and is easy to maintain though.

OK, now to tackling the fan. There are 2 ways to do this; one remove the fan, the other leave it on. Try leaving the fan on first, unless you are really comfortable with removing the fan from the engine. Make sure the engine is cold when you get started. The tools I use are a soft bristled bottle brush, cleaner (WD40, Strik Engine Wash, or a good Citrus cleaner), soft toothbrush, QTips, old towels, and plenty of old cotton socks. If your fan is coated, it will probably be easier to clean as the material is not as porous. Spray the cleaner on the fan and fan blades, don’t be afraid to spray onto the fan blades, but make sure you don’t spray the alternator in back of the fan. Let the cleaner sit for a few minutes.

The fan will probably take multiple cleanings to get it super clean, so don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t look perfect the first time through. Take one of the socks or towels to begin wiping the outside areas of the fan housing (front and top). On the stubborn areas, spray your cleaner directly on that area and use the soft toothbrush to loosen the stubborn dirt. Continue using the towel and toothbrush on the outside of the fan until clean. Use some Q Tips sprayed with cleaner to get under the coil and fastening bolt. Next you want to tackle the fan pulley area, use your toothbrush and a sock to clean the grease and dirt from this area. Don’t forget to get sheet metal below the fan pulley; this is an area that traps all sorts of dirt and grease. 

Next are the fan blades. Take the bottle brush and insert it into one of the socks. Spray some more cleaner in between the fan blades and let sit a couple more minutes. Put a little cleaner on the brush with the sock on it sock and insert in between the fan blades. Move the socked brush back and forth; this will begin to remove the dirt and grease from the fan blades. Rotate the socked brush as you move it back and forth. Make sure you don’t press too hard; you don’t want to scratch your fan or the coating around it. After a couple minutes remove the brush/sock, it should be pretty dirty. Take another sock and repeat this process on another fan blade, until you can get to all the fan blades. You can always use your hands instead of a socked brush, if they are small enough, but they can get pretty banged up this way. If you want to continue working on the same fan blade, that’s OK too – just don’t forget to get to all the blades if possible. If your fan is somewhat obscured, like on the newer cars – you may have to move the fan to where you can get your brush tool in between the blades you were not able to reach.

That was a lot of work, but the fan looks so much better!

The next area we want to look at is the fan shroud. On later rear engine cars, the shroud can be hard (almost impossible) to get to; on pre 2000 cars it is easier. So, we will discuss the models where the shroud is more visible than not.

On the early cars like the 356 or 70 911 the fan shroud is pretty visible and you can use a towel or your hands to clean the shroud. The newer models have more components that are packed into the engine compartment. This makes them very tight, but it is not impossible to clean the stubborn dirt off. In previous articles, I mentioned cleaning techniques that would also clean the fan shroud. But I want to point out a couple spots that may get missed. This is the area at the base of the shroud and near some of the sensors. On my car I also have the intakes to deal with together with the linkage. I usually remove the air cleaner and hoses to get to these areas. I typically use a sock on my hand to get down to the base of the shroud, then work my way up to the sensors, electrical harness and linkage. On a few models that is not possible, so you will have to get creative on how to get a towel or sock in there to clean. I have used the covered bottle brush, long Q Tips, toothbrush, wooden ruler (covered) and such to try to get into areas that I cannot get my hands into.  The socked brush will works well, but be careful of the sensors or electronic connections, the wires on those can come off – you don’t want that to happen.

Now the engine and fan area looked pretty darn good - Good job! The hardest part is over, now it is a matter of getting it to the level you want and maintaining it.

Let me know if you have any questions, I can be reached at bev@tcsgarage.com

Bev & Tom Gould have been active members of PCA for over 30 years. Bev’s 1970 911E has won many awards within Zone 8, Porsche Parade, and other non PCA Concours. 

Bev Gould owns TCsGarage.com with her husband Tom located in Vista, California. For more tips and tricks, visit their website at www.tcsgarage.com , The Place for Porsche or BMW Parts & Accessories.