How to Properly Clean the Engine Bay of Your Car
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Keeping your car’s engine bay clean will prevent any premature damage and keep the engine parts in good working condition. An engine bay smudged with oil and grime all over will predispose the engine to malfunction issues such as overheating, dislodgement of parts and masking of serious leaks.
Fortunately, cleaning the engine bay is as simple as cleaning the toilet and will only take you about an hour to complete. All you need is to use the right cleaning products, wash off the washable parts, and keep the electric parts dry and clean.
Here’s what you will need for this cleaning chore:
- Water hose or jet
- Pail or bucket
- Plastic covers or bags
- Wash brush
- Wash mitt
- Car wash soap
- Engine degreaser
- Metal and plastic cleaner or polish
- Clean towels or rag
- Absorbent pads
- Drip pans
Follow these steps for cleaning the engine bay properly:
- Allow your engine to cool off. Open the hood to let the air cool the engine for about an hour. Do not hose the hot parts with cold water because the temperature reaction can cause the parts to become brittle and crack.
- Place the drip pans and absorbent pads down under the engine bay. These will catch and absorb the oily dirt and grime once you hose down the engine. You can’t allow the chemicals mixed in the water to simply drain down the gutters because these can contaminate the groundwater.
- Place plastic covers or plastic bags over the battery, alternator parts, carburetor and even the distributor parts. For newer cars, cover the alternator, fuse box and the coil packs. Those parts conduct electricity, so it’s not safe to hose them down with water. You can also disconnect the terminals of the battery just to be safer.
- Once the electricity-conducting parts are covered, you can safely hose down the engine parts to rinse off grime, dust and oil that have accumulated. The moisture from water will also make the degreaser and car wash soap work better.
- After hosing down the parts thoroughly, you can now spray the degreaser on them. Engine degreasers are good for removing oil and grease that stick to the parts and surfaces. Though the engine needs oil for lubrication, excessive grease can cause the engine to overheat because the grease traps in heat and makes the car cool down more slowly.
- Make sure that you spray a liberal amount of degreaser to effectively loosen the grease. Use a wash brush to scrub and help peel off the greasy grime from the parts you sprayed with the degreaser.
- Rinse off the degreaser and all the grease that was scrubbed off. Then take a look if the engine parts are all cleaned up.
- If there’s still some dirt left, you can use the car wash soap. Apply the soap on the dirty parts and let it soak in for a few minutes, depending on the instructions on your car soap’s label.
- After letting the soap soak in, use the wash brush to gently scrub off the remaining dirt.
- Rinse the soap off and take a look at your engine again to see if all the dirt has been cleared.
- For car engines that need heavy cleaning, you can just repeat the application and rinsing of the degreaser and car wash soap until you finally achieve the right clean.
- Once the engine is clean, you clean the rest of the engine bay with the car wash soap. Just mix it in a pail or bucket of water until soapy and bubbly and apply it using the car wash mitt.
- Rinse off everything when you’re done scrubbing.
- Take the plastic covers or bags off the electricity-conducting parts. If the covered parts need cleaning too, just detach the fuse box covers and clean them manually on a dry surface using the degreaser or simply wash them off with the car wash soap.
- Let the fuse box covers dry off before placing them back on.
- Once you’re done with the cleaning part and you’ve replaced the covers back on, it’s time for the finishing touches.
- Using a metal and plastic polish, wipe the parts with the towel or rag and shine them up so they look clean like new.
After all is done, you can put all your washing tools away, so you can clean them separately and store them for the next clean up. As for the dirty water in the drip pan and absorbent pads, you can collect them and take them to the nearest recycler to see if they can reuse or recycle the grease and oil.
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