I have a moderately dirty engine and engine bay.....nothing crazy just 111,000 miles worth of dirt. I was wondering if anyone had steam cleaned their engines and how it looked afterwards?

 

IMO I would not do it to your car.It is a 1989-many old electrical sensors that would be disturbed or even broken

 

VERY bad juju!!!!

 

Dont do it.

 

If it's an LT-5 don't do it, you'll ruin the starter $$$$.

If it's an LT-1 or LT-4 don't do it because you'll probably ruin the optispark (distributor) $$$$$.

The L-89 or crossfire engines might be OK, but I wouldn't.

Get some rags, an old toothbrush and some mild cleaner and go for it.

Scott

 

Don't totally listen to them, LOL... you can't do the major steam cleaning, but you can get one of those small portable power steamers, and they do work......

I rest my case.

 

This one has 110K. Oil leaks were so bad it had 1/4" coating of crusted oily dirt on everything. Intake gaskets leaked so much oil was even dripping off the mufflers and rear end housing. I bought a gallon of WD-40, put the car on four stands over a tarp and cleaned the entire bottom of the car and engine compartment with brushes and rags. Of course dismantling the engine to get to the source of the leaks made it a little easier to clean I guess. Replaced every seal except for the rear main.

 

Wow your engine looks great

 

How the heck did you get your engine so clean like that?? I tried cleaning mine yesterday when I cleaned my Iac and it was about 1/4 of dirt and oil underneath the throttle body and near water pump wow I need to do that to my car I still have some light brown stains from the oil.

 

wow that is some clean motor-you can make alot of money detailing Vette motors-I would have you do mine in a heartbeat

 

I wouldn't use a grown up steam cleaner but one of the small hand held types would be fine IF you were careful. Wife gave me one so I didn't keep borrowing hers, use it quite often. Still use hers, don't want to get grease on my new one.

 

The car was purchased at a local swap meet a couple of years ago when I was looking for a project car at the time to gain some C4 knowledge and experience. I also bought several good C4 books soon afterwards including the Helm's FSM set and a C4 factory parts manual on CD to look up GM part numbers. The previous owner had kept up with oil changes and other usual basic maintenance but there was a lot of it that was neglected too. The car was otherwise completely original but it was a "ten footer" that looked tired and showed a lot of normal wear. The engine was clean as a pin inside though and ran well but it had all the usual oil leaks from 110K miles that made a real mess of everything under the hood. The leaks needed to be fixed and in the process I thought I would try to see if I could make it look a little better in there while I had it apart. I started disassembling the engine for an idea what was going to be needed and kept going and finding problems till I eventually ended up with just a short block with heads. This of course made it a lot easier to do a good cleaning job and I either restored the old parts or bought new replacements and put nice stuff back together. New parts obtained for the job included all seals and gaskets (except head gaskets and rear main seal), new front cover with seals, timing chain and gears, Optispark, waterpump, oil pump shaft coupler sleeve, all hoses, belt, tensioner and idler, exhaust manifolds, catalytic converters, complete exhaust system, sparkplug wires, and the injector rails and throttle body were rebuilt.

 

IMO I would change the hose clamps to the screw on type.

 

Damn...my L98 wants to be that clean!

 

BAD idea.

 

I have a 92. Just shot mine with a 2000psi pressure washer. Then blew it off with compressed air. It did get rid of most of the grime but now I have to do more detail work. WD40 good idea will also use spary carb cleaner and a tooth brush. and LOTS of elbow grease.

 

I thought about that but from an engineering standpoint the spring clamps are actually better because they provide constant pre-set tension while the screw types have to be tightened up occasionally. Also, the screw type clamps are harder on the hose ends for whatever reason... overtightening maybe.

Oops, made a correction above... said spring type was harder on hose ends meant screw type was.

 

I like your spring clamps better, they look more 'untampered' with...

 

Looks awesome! I have the same problem! Wanna do mine?

 

Did it smell like burnt WD-40 upon start-up? If so, how long for the odor to dissipate?