Fingers

After using Castrol Superclean to clean my engine bay, i found that it tarnished ALL previously shiny aluminum. *CRIES*

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY... did it take the clearcoat off? What do I do to fix this? Is there anything i can do to restore the shine?

On the plus side, it works REALLY REALLY well.

vectorminds

what parts are tarnished... ive heard castrol superclean can do some funky things to aluminum sometimes... thats why you wanna get it off quick....

did you have polished parts?... and what does the tarnish look like?

Fingers

Which parts? umm rotor housings, water pump, alternator, upper intake manifold. All were shiny and new before this stupid **** got to them. They turned a dull dark grey colour... looks almost like a film of **** was left on them.

I hosed everything off REPEATEDLY@ high pressure, and even went over everything with a rag.

vectorminds

ive used superclean on engines before (never on my fc, engine wasnt that dirty) but on my volvo i used it, and the aluminum was fine.... if i rememeber i used an 18:1 ratio of water to superclean...

how strong was the superclean that you used...

also, i have a friend that works at castrol, so if something weird happend i can ask him about it and if he knows a way to fix it

Fingers

Umm... it says to spray directly on the engine. I did. And not even a minute later, hosed it off.

vectorminds

im almost certain it says to dilute it... im gonna go run down and take a look at my bottle to check

vectorminds

just checked the bottle... it does say for engines you can use it full strength (i never have though and seems to work fine diluted, i think the strongest i ever used it was 4:1)

also says to make sure the engine is cold, and to get it off aluminum parts quickly (and to test it on hidden parts to make sure it doesnt tarnish)

sounds like it might have eaten into the aluminum a bit... i can ask my friend if hes ever had that happen to him at work... and what to do about it when i next see him

Edit: i've heard some horror stories of people using castrol superclean to go and clean polished aluminum rims... and after they sprayed it off the rims had the "been at the bottom of the ocean for 20 years" look to them... i hope thats not what happened to you.... but it does seem like superclean sometimes doesnt agree with aluminum... but in all of my experiences its been fine

Fingers

Yup. Let this be a warning to anyone who thinks its safe on aluminum -- IT IS NOT. I think it ate the clearcoat right off. Whatever, i'm not going to lose any sleep, its just that I had a very mint engine bay before i used that crap, aside from the casual grease stains.

Let me know what your buddy says, thanks vectorminds