OK so, I have been working for the past couple days on cleaning up my engine bay. It started as "I wanna clean my carb" then went to and "maybe the engine bay too". Next thing you know the hood is off, radiators out, A/C is gone, fluid tanks are out, etc...

ok so here is the engine bay before...

here is my arsenal. I later added some other small wire brushes

here is the underside of the hood (looks like my engine exploded)

huston we have a problem...

starting to clean the hood. can you tell which part i did?

starting to take out the a/c

this bracket is heavy..

glad this is gone.

i put every a/c componet in a trashcan.

heres me before the a/c

heres me + the a/c components...(40 pounds!!!!)

A lot of the plastic parts and trim pieces i am painting flat black and putting back in. Should be a nice contrast.

Heres my new door! since mines got a big dent in it from getting hit.

here is the engine in its current state...

*note the cleanliness of the passenger side inner fender area


let me know what you guys think. It is of course not done, I still need to clean the drivers side, and try to get the block a little cleaner. I also have a new radiator on the way. I will post pics again when its all done.

 

you should have gotton a spit gun...put some of this degreaser that I bought that I can't remember what its called...leave it on for 5 minutes and wash it off with a hose...and it looks exactly what you've been scrubbing so hard to achieve...o sorry not trying to burst your bubble...honest...

 

hey, thats cool, if you can remember what it is exactly or where you got it, im sure its a much better alternative to my method.

 

awsome lots of elbow grease and ya good to go
i got a wire brush on the air compressor and took it to the block worked pretty good heres a pic

oh well ya cant seen much
have ya got a air compressor?

 

my friend has an air compressor, but i dont know how i would get my car to his house. and theres no way he can bring his tank to my house cause its like humengous. Maybe ill just buy a little one and borrow some of his air tools. I have a pretty heavy duty wire brush that i used to clean a little bit of the block with and it looked really good.

 

Looks better keep it up when its done youll be so glad. Only thing is it wont stop with the cleaning.

 

its starting to look really good! im guessing that this isnt your d.d.

 

Ah feel yor pain...
started cleaning oil off the block under the oil filter - ended up laying up the RX for 2 weeks (I am slow and methodical I guess) redoing the whole compartment. Every black metal item in these pics was removed and powdercoated (except rad, couldn't powdercoat that), including the water pump body (not impeller, seals would melt in heat curing the powdercoat). My tool of choice: toothbrush and good ol' Simple Green. Everything came out except the block, wire harness and brake booster. Followed up with a complete polish of paint in compartment and a nice coat of wax. Figured I 'd only do this once....
Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

 

wow, looks nice. And no its not my daily driver, this is.

**cant have a car on campus.

 

good work

 

Stu,

Mighty Sweet.

jeff

 

Ive been there before myself, looking good though. I always just used cheap engine degreaser, never tried the oven cleaner method.

Anyway, just a piece of advice that I think really dressed up my engine bay was pulling the shrouds that the radiator bolts to. Theres only like 2 bolts to each side, and the ones across the top for the front. Pull those suckers off and hit em with some sandpaper or something, then respray them. I did mine with gloss black, but I think anything would look good. I also did the overflow bracket on the passenger side shroud, as well as the hood prop rod and some other misc. bracketry. I think it really cleaned it up well. Yours is looking good, keep it up!

~T.J.