Engine Case Cleaning

[1982911SCTarga]

With my heads due back possibly this week, I've had to get cracking on cleaning things up for project Cabriolet's engine reassembly. To set up the story, I can't say that there were many places on this engine that didn't leak prior to teardown.

First up, and starting two weeks ago, I began with decarboning the piston tops, and then cleaning the chain housings, chain housing covers, valve covers (the lowers -- what a huge pain in the rear -- every rectangular rib section is a grease/grime trap), the cam towers and the oil cooler. The cam towers were challenging to clean, too. I'm convinced now that you can figure on 90 percent of the time of an engine R&R on our cars is going to be spent cleaning.

On Saturday, I finally got going on cleaning the case itself. This task started with carefully scraping the worst grease/grime/sand/acorn tops (grrr!) with a plastic scraper. From there, I moved to carefully pre-soaking small areas with solvent, working that area and moving on. By Saturday evening, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was actually an engine case waiting to emerge from all the muck.

Anyway, by yesterday evening I had this:





Last night, I started cleaning the transaxle. Not nearly as bad as the engine, but still a lot of grease and road grime (and a ton of rectangular rib sections to Q-Tip.

I've still got to clean and repaint my engine tin, and clean up the heat exchangers.

The CIS portion, the fan, alternator and shroud, and the wiring harnesses are ready to go back on (I cleaned all of those components earlier in the process).

Brian

[Zeke]

Awesome! Did you use anything besides the solvent?

[1982911SCTarga]

Hey, Milt. I sometimes use PB Blaster (especially on cleaning up fasteners). Mostly I was using Berryman's B12 (I think that's the name). It was the cheapest light fuel-injection solvent at my local auto parts store. I bought it to soak and de-carbon the piston tops (it worked great at that but I takes about a 12-hour soak for each piston).

After that, I used the "dirty" Berryman's as a washing solvent on the exterior parts, brushed on or applied with a small fine scotch-brite pad. You want to follow that quickly with a wipe from a shop cloth (I bought a ton of those). As things get cleaner, you can move up to nicer cleaning cloths, etc.

I still will go over everything with clean solvent and Kimwipes before I begin putting things back together.

Let me also note that I'm not in the same league as some of the other engine rebuilders who can make their cases, valve covers, etc. gleam. I'm going for a nice quality patina -- and the ability to, in the future, work on this car in the engine bay and not get my hands completely filthy.

Brian

[Mike Andrew]

Looks very good to me.

I have been doing the same thing while my engine is out & the trans is rebuilt. You are correct, it is very time consuming and every corner is a pita to get 100% clean. I typically clean as I disassemble because I hate getting filthy twice. At least when it goes back together, I stay relatively clean. But, soooo tedius.

[1982911SCTarga]

Tedious is the word. I have gone through hundreds of Q-tips (clean, flip, clean, toss -- repeat over and over). I can't stay with it for than an hour without taking a break. Wiping down harness wires is enormously fussy work, too, along with cleaning the shroud, fan housing and fan.

I cleaned enough beforehand to take things apart, figuring it's easier to clean component by component. All in all, it probably doesn't matter.

I keep wondering how much weight is coming off the engine, transaxle and engine bay. It's gotta be worth a few pounds. And it has to help cooling, right?

Like I said, if I have to take a trip back inside this engine again, I want it to be a relatively pleasant and clean one.

Brian

[Mike Andrew]

I went thru about 6 cans of brake cleaner and a quart of trichlor cleaning my trans before I sent it off to JW. I still have some bits to attend to but I got probably 90% of the gunk off of it. I looked at it Saturday and wondered if I really want to put in much more time doing any more cleaning as it looks pretty good now. I am so tired of the smell of solvent....

I imagine that less gunk = better cooling as more surface area is exposed to be cooled and airflow is improved.

[RWebb]

Tips:
- save the Brake Cleaner for Last. Use a light solvent (he used pb Blaster, which is interesting) or even WD-40. Stoddard solvent or kerosene works well.
- Use a brush after scraping away the worst. Save the Q-tips for last.
- Non-polar solvents are good too for regular "dirt" - Simple Green or 409 or just a regular detergent in water.
- Finally, I'd do it on the car first if I could. Use hottest water and detergent and a pressure sprayer.

As always be careful with strong detergents like Purple etc.

And keep the water and solvent from going down the storm drains in your street. A car wash that recycles their wash water wold be best. They have lots of filters.

[1982911SCTarga]

It's good to share our pain.

Use a brush after scraping away the worst. Save the Q-tips for last.

You can't always do this because you'll invariably face tight corners in which the way to get at that glob of grease/dirt/foreign matter is with a Q-tip.

Finally, I'd do it on the car first if I could. Use hottest water and detergent and a pressure sprayer.

I'm wary of this -- pressure and water can easily force crud exactly where you don't want it to go no matter how careful you are. My approach was minimally clean the engine enough to get it on the stand for careful, slow, ponderous (dare I say tedious again) sprucing up.

Brian

[RWebb]

1. use the corner or edge of the brush - use new one if old one has bent bristles

2. yes, exercise care in where you spray - hundreds have done this - ON THE CAR - with no negative results.

[Mitch Leland]

Well since I just completed cleaning up my engine here's what I did... I had the engine out, intake plenum off, distributor out, and the exhaust off. I made plates for the exhaust ports that I bolted down on the old gaskets. I bought rubber freeze plugs 1 1/2" diameter (they look like a thermos cap) to plug the intake ports. and a cork in the distributor hole.

Then I used Wurth cedric degreaser with my 1500 PSI pressure washer. I had all the sheet metal powder painted. Powder painting isn't as cheap as it use to be... but it's a great product and saves a lot of hand work if you don't mind buying your way out. I then assembled all the engine sheet metal and miscellaneous parts with S.S. hardware.

[1982911SCTarga]

No question it's worked for hundreds. For me, pressure washing is way too blunt an instrument. Plus, if you start blasting everything, you potentially destroy forensic evidence that can help you understand the car's, and the engine's, history (like, where the heck is all that oil coming from?) My car came to me non-running and the patient was clearly in a bad way. Taking the engine out as is (was), was a helpful learning tool about what was going on with it.

Still can't figure out the acorn tops, though. A Super Carrera for Secret Squirrel?

Brian

[1982911SCTarga]

Mitch, sounds like you were very thorough in sealing things up for the wash cycle. Good job.

Brian

[RWebb]

cedric ?? do you mean citrus?

[1982911SCTarga]

Well, the joke's been teed up ...

Brian

[mca]

Just curious ... did you split your case? Just wondering b/c it looks like it would be tough to clean the outside without debris finding its way inside the case.

Looks great! I am preparing to do the same. All this rumbling about cleaning being a PITA has got me worried.

[1982911SCTarga]

I didn't split the case, but you're right, you need to be extra cautious cleaning. I stuffed clean shop cloths and towels in places as I went along. The other key is to focus on small areas at a time. Rotate the case on the stand, too, as you go along.

Don't stress to much about the task of cleaning (heck, if you don't have any acorn tops, the job should be a cinch).

The task takes patience and stick-to-it-ness. Just work carefully and take a break when you get tired or bored. Remind yourself that you're not a production shop and you have the luxury of setting your own schedule and work time. At least, that's my approach.

Brian

[RWebb]

I am going to be cleaning up a 915 tranny case soon. It is already out of the car.

I may treat you guys to pics of an innovative technique...

stay tuned.

[1982911SCTarga]

Randy, hurry up and get to it.

I'm halfway through cleaning my 915. Lots of grease, sand, road tar and small pebbles pocketed in some of the ribbed areas.

I'm thinking it would almost be worth springing for a second $39.99 engine stand so I could mount the dirty 915 and be able to spin it any way I want as I clean it.

Brian

[RWebb]

this is a "fine scale" technique.

for your description, I'd... use the pressure washer...

or -- since it's dismounted any small high speed HOT HOT water with detergent will help

got any used dental pics lying around?

otherwise, just scrape

I bet you could put together some scrap 2x4's if $40 is too much...

[Mike Andrew]

If you buy industrial Q tips, they have a wood shaft which can be turned around to dig at corners. Or, just snap the end off when they are saturated.

Man, are we a seriously anal group.