Well, I took all the stuff off to get to the injectors and I'm wondering what is the best way to clean all the various stuff under the hood. Wire brushes, steel wool, what is the best way to do it?

 

With the motor still in the car? Good luck with that. A buddy of mine used a plastic bristle brush and simple green to clean off the heavy stuff on his engine. He taped most everything off and painted over it with the aluminum colored spray paint. He didn't drive his car much but up to now it has lasted for a year without it coming off.

-Destin

 

Im mainly just insterested in how to clean the intake manifold and stuff. Im not looking for show car perefction, just kinda making it look decent.

 

Why bother?
They are cast aluminum.
Try and clean cast aluminum, and it oxidizes overnight.

If you're talking about all the crud and dirt that accumulates in all the nooks and crannies, just use a small brush (toothbrush, brass brush, stainless steel brush), scrub away, if you got an air compressor - shoot all that crap off the engine.
You can get away with some compressed air in a can too.


-Ted

 

Thanks Ted, thats what I was looking for. Just wondering if there was any way that was better than others.

 

use a solvent like simple green or purple power and a toothbrush, and then rinse with water.

pat

 

man go to the dollar store and get some oven cleaner that costs a dollar (easy off SUCKS! compared to this stuff) spray ir all over and then let it sit for a few minutes after that get a hose and spray the **** out of it then blow it off with the compressor and your done.

 

If you do use any type of cleaner (i.e. Simple Green, 409, etc.) be sure you wash ALL of it away with water.
Any residue will cause the aluminum to oxidize (faster), and your intake manifold will be covered with white powder.


-Ted

 

get it powerdercoated is my suggestion. easy to maintain and will hold up well.

if you really want to waste time though you can go ahead and polish the aluminum. it takes MAJOR time.
here is how my dynamic chamber turned out:

 

^^^^ tell me thats powder-coated because if you polished that; that IS ALOT of work.


and i used purple power a hose and a scotch brite pad and about 3 hours

 

yup, that is HAND polished

i learned my lesson though and ended up powdercoating the rest of the manifold, lol

- Aaron

 

wow dude... you had the absolute worst engine bay ive ever seen before you cleaned it

pat

 

I gotta learn how to re-surface / re-coat plastic. Seems no matter what you do, the plastic always comes out looking like crud. Silicon based polishes dry out and leave a residue and the "scraped up flat black" or "shined up greezy" look sucks.

Mabey some fusion paint that works with plastic or use a paint gun with a flat or low-glass black paint & a flex-agent (flex primer) when re-painting the black trim, license plate surround, etc..

 

there was another thread about the window seals where someone mentioned a plastic dip that they sell at home depot ...

pretty cheap stuff apparently ... works great , or so the person said .. thats what i plan to do to mine .. just redip them in plastic

 

Be careful with oven cleaner on painted surfaces - some of that stuff is quite agressive and will dammage paint. I find that degreaser like Gunk works very well in combo with a little elbow grease. Like anything else - the results you get will be very dependant in time spent.

Make sure you use enough water to rinse off the cleaner, and be careful with things that can be water damaged like the alternator.

This is the only pic I have right now......

 

do the painted underhood surfaces have a clear coat too? you could wax that after you clean it and it would look nice. how do you polish the aluminum so well? do you use sandpaper first to make the surface smooth, then aluminum polish. i tried polishing my compressor side of the turbo using mother's mag & aluminum polish with 100% terry cloth towels and i couldn't get it to look that good.

 

Here is when I was cleaning the motor last week. I used castrol purple stuff. Be carefull it is very kerosive do not leave it on to long. The UIM I am polishing the TB is painted the Elbo is polished the coils are polished and I repolished the IC pipes. The engin bay will be redone when car is repainted and engin bay is repainted and motor is rebuilt.

 

truely polishing aluminum will take WAY more work than that.

here is my thread on polishing my dynamic chamber:
https://www.rx7club.com/canadian-forum-42/polishing-my-s5-na-manifold-pics-388189/

- Aaron

 

Polishing you ask. Well here is my IC elbo I have 19hrs of labor into it. It is hand sanded and cut and reshaped with a dremel. I buffed polished it with a compounded. Steps were as followd

80, 120, 320, 680, 800, 800wet, 1000 cream polish sanded. Buffed with compund then whiped down and speed buffed wool pad using polishing cleaner.

 

 

19 hours ??? stuff that....

this has totally made me go off the idea of polishing my engine

 

I work detailing, and when we have to do an engine bay its pretty simple. we soak everything with a heavy duty degreaser, let if sit for a few minutes, and then rinse it off with a verrry light spray froma hose (you dont want to knock anything loose). re do that part if its really bad. then we jsut spray everything with this armor all style engine dressing call protectol, let it sit, then wipe off the excess. only takes 10 minutes if that and it come out beautifully

 

WOW i am really amazed at how good that looks but for 19 hours of work it better stay like that forever, which brings me to a question, has it stayed like that?

 

^ yes 19hrs took a tole on me. The outcome and satisfaction you get was worth it. I have yet to even see it in the car. I am waiting on paint to be shiped to paint the TB and finish polishing the UIM and water pump housing. I started this and several other fix it issues with the car 2 weeks ago. When it is all done you all will know. I am going to put together a blog thread with evrything from start to now of the car when I am done this go around.

 

I use armor all wipes on black plastics and then wipe off with a towel. Turns out great. I even do it on all my vac hoses and radiator hoses to make them look new.

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