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When cleaning their car, many people completely disregard the engine bay because cleaning it appears as a daunting task. Besides just appearing difficult because of the tight and hard-to-reach spaces, car owners are also scared of damaging their car’s engine and electrical components.
However, learning how to clean a car engine is actually quite easy if you know how to do it. What’s more, a clean engine just makes your car look so much better. Read along and find out how to clean engine components without risking any damage.
Prepare to Clean Your Engine: Tools & Time
When understanding how to clean car engine components, preparation is the key to success. It’s ideal to clean the engine bay when the weather is nice – not cold but not hot either. In cold weather, the engine will be difficult to dry, and if it’s too hot, the cleaning products will dry too quickly on the engine. In any case, you should allocate between 30 minutes and two hours for the cleaning. It all depends on how dirty your engine bay is, and also how much of a perfectionist you are.
The tools needed for the task are a water hose, a few towels, and a degreaser. In case you want to be more thorough, you can get other specialized engine cleaning products and a soft brush, which will make tight spaces more accessible and easier to clean. For drying the engine at the end of the cleaning, an air compressor is an advantage, but you can get around without one as well.
Make Sure Your Engine is Cool
To avoid doing more harm than good to your engine, make sure the engine is cool, as metals don’t react too well to abrupt temperature changes. In extreme cases, spraying a hot engine with cold water may crack the engine block. Not only that but you could burn yourself. Thus, it's best practice to open up the hood and let the engine cool down.
Remove All Plastic Components and Battery
As the next step, remove all plastic components and the car battery. You will be using water to clean the engine, so it is best not to have the electrical systems energized. In general, it is always a good safe measure to at least disconnect the car battery's negative terminal when doing maintenance or repairs on your car, engine cleaning included. If your car’s battery is placed in the engine bay, it’s a good idea to remove it entirely, making cleaning the parts surrounding the battery easier.
Next, remove the plastic engine cover, so that you have better access to the engine itself. Clean the engine cover or any other plastic components separately but be careful with the type of cleaner you use. For example, plastics are not resistant to chemicals that most brake cleaners are based on. A more specialized automotive cleaner for plastics will do a much better job and revive the color of the plastics during the process as well, improving the looks of your engine bay even further.
As the last preparatory step, make sure to cover up all sensitive components like the fuse box, ignition wires, and the ECU (Engine Control Unit). This will ensure that nothing gets damaged in the process, and also allow you to clean the engine more thoroughly. In case your car has an exposed air filter, you should cover it as well. Plastic bags are ideal for this purpose.
Clean Your Engine with a Degreaser
Once you have prepared the engine for cleaning, apply a degreaser to all dirty components. Generally, the entire engine will be greasy or otherwise contaminated, even though it may not look like it at first glance. Because of that, you should spray pretty much the entire engine compartment. The type of degreaser used shouldn’t be much of a concern, as they should all do a good job under the hood, whether they are standard kitchen cleaners or purpose-made engine degreasers.
If you’ve never cleaned the engine of your car, it's more than likely that you’ll need to scrub the engine to get all the grease and dirt to come off. To do so, use a towel, and in spaces, you can’t get to easily, use a soft synthetic brush to work in the degreaser.
While at it, don’t forget to clean around the engine as well - the insides of the fenders, under the windshield, the bonnet, etc. All these parts will be likely just as dirty as the engine itself, if not more. You should clean these parts just like when you wash the rest of the car. First, rinse, then use a mitten or a towel and a car wash soap to scrub the dirt and debris off. Do it gently, so that you don’t scratch the paint.
Lastly, there might be a sound insulation pad on the hood. These are usually made of fabric, and to clean them properly, it is best to use a soft brush, to really work in the cleaner. If it's greasy, you can spray it with a degreaser but you can also use a fabric cleaner or APC (all-purpose cleaner).
Rinse, Dry, and Make This a Regular Thing
Once you’ve completed the above steps, rinse the engine with water. If you still see some dirty spaces, apply the cleaning product again and repeat. Keep in mind that using a pressure washer is not advisable, especially from an immediate distance. The high pressure may damage connectors, hoses, or other fragile components. A water hose is the better tool for this task.
Once you are satisfied with the results, remove any covers and plastic bags that you used to protect the electrical components and dry the engine. Specialized detailing stores most often do this with air compressors but unless you have one, you can just dry the engine with a towel. You may also leave the engine dry on its own but unless you are using decalcified water, water spots may be visible once it dries. As the last step, reconnect the battery.
When finished, enjoy the results and make sure to keep your engine clean by making engine bay maintenance a regular thing. Cleaning the engine every few months will ensure your engine looks shiny at all times. If you do it relatively often, the cleaning will also become less laborious and time-consuming, as the dirt, debris, and oil residue won’t have time to stick to the engine surfaces. Additionally, if you live in an area where roads are treated with salt during winter, you will protect the car from excessive corrosion. Not only will this increase the resale value, but it will also make maintenance and repairs easier.
From detailing supplies to repair parts and more, find all of your automotive parts at JEGS. With expert advice and a huge selection of the top brands, why would you shop anywhere else?
