Hey guys!

I painted some things in my engine bay yesterday, and noticed that everything is really dirty. My friend who was helping me said I can just spray it down with the hose. I asked him if it would hurt anything and he said it won't and that he does it to his Miata all the time. So what are your guys' thoughts?

Thanks!
Tyler

 

Cover the ICM and the alternator in foil or plastic then have at it.

 

Also be careful around your air intake if you have an exposed filter.

You drive in the rain don't you? This stuff is made to get wet.

 

So cover the PCM, alternator, and filter.. Then I'm safe to spray?

 

On a fuel injected car, I have never worried about anything getting wet. Just don't spray water up the airbox inlet and you should be fine. On older cars, check vacuum lines and rubber pieces for dry rotting (blasting with a hose might finish of a dry rotted part and you'll be in a jam before you can replace it).

I just sprayed Simple Green on grungy under hood stuff of our '05 Impala, lightly aggitated with a brush, on more grimy stuff, used cheap-o engine degreaser, again aggitated. Hosed it all down. Not a show room shine but now it doesn't look like the car came out of a junk yard!!

On a car with a carb, you may want to take car around the carb so not to have water sitting on the air cleaner box (possibly seaping into the carb where the wing nut is), or forcing water around the seals for the air cleaner.

 

I just spray Simple Green on engine and under hood stuff , never had a problem..

 

I Spray the engine bay on the Deuce (have for the last 5 years) no problems yet

 

it is pretty hard to get anything wet. I have probably washed over 7000+ cars motors and have had very few problems. the biggest thing is to not drench or ecu or a fuse relay box. you should be ok.

 

Okay thanks guys! I'll be leaving for Des Moines early tomorrow morning, but when I get back I'm definitely cleaning up the bay!

 

Just water isn't going to cut it unless you're just trying to wash some dust off the top. You're going to need some kind of degreaser to get the nasty stuff in the lower half of the engine bay off- like Simple Green or a can of engine degreaser. Using a plastic brush to scrub will help too.

Also, I've found it helps to get a little bit of heat in the engine also. You don't want to get it 'hot', I like to get it warm, but still cool enough that I can touch the engine parts with my bare hand- you don't want to warp anything by spraying fully heated up engine parts with a concentrated stream of cold water.

I think its a great thing to do regularly- even on a daily driver. You won't really care day to day- but when you've got to get in there and do some maintenance work- you'll be much happier not coming out absolutely covered in grease and oil.