Cleaning all the grease

[Mekerek]

My engine has an oil leak I think from the valve covers on both sides, but in general it's got built up grease all over it, it's pretty thick. I tried some degreaser sprayed on a rag, but that's tedious and takes a lot of scrubbing. I know I don't want any moister in the carb on top, is there other places I don't want it or can I just spray degreaser where I want and then rinse it off after some wipe down? I am suspicious that the spark plugs don't want that leaking into them either (and I need to replace those). For the most part the rubber hoses etc seem pretty decent just a huge leak of oil somewhere.

Any advice how to clean the engine en mass?

[Pete Whitstone]

You'll want to keep moisture away from the distributor area also. I haven't really found a good way to clean off that thickened goo mixture of engine oil and dirt. Scraping it is tedious. I would imagine that steam cleaning it off of there would work well, but I don't know who does that. Hot pressure washing after the engine degreaser would work, but most pressure washers just use hose water. I wonder if you could hook a pressure washer up to a hot water heater drain spigot... hmmm.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, the carb and the distributor are places you want to keep dry.  But you also don't want to hit the 30+ year old wiring with really high-pressure water as it can easily break the insulation.  And many high-pressure washers have nozzles that give really high pressure.

But most car washes don't have really high water pressure or they'd be stripping the paint off of vehicles.  So if you were to spray degreaser all over the engine and let it sit, then take it to a car wash and use hot, soapy water you might get a lot of it off w/o damaging anything.

However, in my experience you may not get the engine started until things dry out, so if you had a way to take it on a trailer that might be better.

[BigBrother-84]

Pete Whitstone wrote

I wonder if you could hook a pressure washer up to a hot water heater drain spigot... hmmm.

On the farm, during winter time, I use a Propane Tankless Water Heater hooked to my pressure washer (when I have to fight against some ice accumulation).


It works well, although I never used it to wash a vehicle.

[mat in tn]

I have been known to hook a hot water rated hose to the washer connection in the past but not every home is as simple as the old houses with the washer and dryer adjacent to the garage.  I prefer to use something like simple green regularly as opposed to more harsh chemicals. everything will drain somewhere! not all have a place to clean grease off and car washes use the common drains too. I have heard of many using kerosene to cut the worst of it but have not tried it for staining my drive and not wanting to drive it to a car wash covered in fuel. sadly, I have not found any off the shelf engine cleaners worth a dime let alone five bucks. I would say that a putty knife will come in handy, but my trick is to buy a bundle of wood shims at Lowes as they do not cut or scratch. you get a bundle of them so as they wear down just grab another. then they are used to start the fire pit. plus, you can cut them to fit in almost everywhere.