To anyone who has painted their engine bay...

[moduleunknown]

...posting this from the garage while taking a break from scrubbing, wiping, scrubbing, and wiping some more - I'm looking for some tips on cleaning nineteen years worth of dirt, oil, and grease out of an engine bay. This is horrible! It seems like I've been doing this forever and I still have to remove some rust, scuff, and prep for paint after. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

Of course I expected this to be labor intensive and time consuming, but I'm just hoping to find something to make it a little easier. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Polish]

Simple Green, soak it. Then pressure wash it with the biggest baddest one you can find.

 

[moduleunknown]

Simple green, soaking, and scrubbing with brushes is what I'm currently doing. It's working...

Thought about a pressure washer, but wouldn't that make a huge wet mess? The car is in the garage and there's no way I can roll it right now. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif If it's not too messy, maybe, but I don't want to drench everything in the garage.

 

[turbofonz]

i bought a big 2 gallon thing of Purple Power from walmart for mine... That and some brushes... and a pressure washer helps a good amount. You need water regaurdless, a pressure washer just makes it a lot easier.

here's my summer's experiece:

IIRC that was just purple power and water and some brushing, no pressure washer. I later pressure washed and it got some more grime off of the subframe.

And then I sanded down and painted the bay, just all rattlecanned, but it helped out a lot:

 

[JNR]

If you have adequate ventilation, use various liquid wrench, PB blaster, etc. type lubricants to pre-soak parts. Use a couple good spray bottles - one with degreaser, the other with (purified) water - spray, toothbrush/other brush tools; rinse, etc...although sounds like you're already doing that part. Pressure washing is good, but use caution with the wand and its spray (ie no jet)

 

[thedsmguy]

Here is a tip a body / paint guy gave me once.

When repainting a engine bay use aluminum foil to cover the small items you cant remove ie. a/c outlet, heater core outlets, and other items similar to that.. Works really well if you only use one piece of tape on the part and foil instead of trying to tape the whole thing.

Good luck!

 

Simple green and lots of brush time is the route I went too.
I actually used aircraft stripper and scraper at first to get it down to a cleanable level. That was because the previous owner had layed a thick layer of spray paint with no prep, so it never fully setup leaving a gummy paint finish /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif. Once I got most of that off, simple green with an angle grind that had the light brass wire on it cleaned everything else up really well (and reasonably quick). Once you get everything clean, go back and hit the rusty parts with a courser wire brush until you get it as clean as possible and then get it etch/sealed quickly so you don't have to worry about it later.
It took me the better part of 3 months to get mine fully cleaned, prepped, and painted (put in 20-30hrs a week on normally). It all pays off in the end if you take your time to do it right
Before (you can't tell but you can literally dig a fingernail into all the black paint like it was taffy)

At about half way through black paint removal

And after it was finally painted

 

[moduleunknown]

Well, I figured i'd update this - taking a break from wet sanding at the moment.

I finally got everything cleaned, and what a horrible job that was.



Sprayed primer this past Sunday...







Now i'm in the middle of wet sanding the primer since it didn't lay down perfectly smooth - kind of rough texture in some areas. I blame my technique, or lack thereof with the paint gun being i've never done this before. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif ...and I thought the initial cleaning sucked. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif ha!

Back to work!

 

[broxma]

I just did this. I didn't remove everything from the engine bay opting to cover it with aluminum foil or bags. The wiring harness from the drivers side can be shoved out of the engine bay through the hole vacated by removal of the ABS pump. I taped off the front quarters and covered the rest of the car with plastic tarp.

This was the entirety of the drivers side harness. The other harness I simply bagged up tightly in a garbage bag and moved it where I wanted it.

Like this.

I did not paint match the color to the car perfectly because I honestly didn't care. I would have done it in black possibly but the color I found was fairly close to original. It looks very blue in the pictures but it is hunter green in person. I hit it with 4-5 coats of matte finish clear coat. I love it.

/brox

 

I have had better luck with purple power over simple green. We had some sout of the garage doors at work and simple green wouldn't touch it, but as soon as you sprayed purple power on it, it started to come off with no scrubbing at all. That stuff has magical unicorn urine in it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dunno.gif

 

[broxma]

I approve of purple power over simple green. One big reason is SG eats aluminum at full strength. The PP doesn't. Plus if you buy it in the gallon jugs it is a ton cheaper.

/brox

 

[TurboTrader]

How is purple power on painted surfaces long term? I've been a fan of simple green, but if PP doesn't damage paint over time, I would love to try something better.

 

[mitsu90]

This is the best degreaser I have found..

http://www.lastotallyawesome.com/

 

^^ never tried it, but it has a pretty awesome name. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[moduleunknown]

^ I agree! I need some of that strictly due to the name. As for purple power, I'll give that stuff a try as it comes time to clean off every other grease covered part that came out of the car.

I should be spraying the paint and clear come monday (that's the plan anyway). Right now I just finished applying the seam sealer back into the fender/wheel wells. That 3M brushable seam sealer is some potent stuff. Eesh... this place reeks.

 

[89Mirageman]

I soaked the bay in my colt with purple power and let it sit for 10-15 minutes and spayed on more when it started to dry out. Hit it with the pressure washer and then went back and hit the stubborn spots again. I had to use a rag and a brush on some spots but for the most part it cleaned right up. I was using a small electric pressure washer too.