bigbass37

My mechanic has scared the hell outta me about cleaning my engine. He doesn't believe in steam cleaning, high pressure wash, etc. Claims all of these can cause problems. Said to get a rag , put some degreaser on it and do it by hand. Make sense???

Dave

Yup! Steam isn't too bad if your careful with it, but at the end of the day steam turns back into water and water isn't the most compatible thing when it comes to electrical systems and petroleum products. High pressure wash is like begging for trouble, take a look at most of the exposed sections of your wiring harness, how much water pressure do you think it would take to destroy those connectors? And again there's the water issue.

ErichCS

I power washed mine, well actually my father in law did the blasting! I just covered up all the important things that could be damaged (electrical etc). We were careful where we washed and let it sit out in the sun to dry off for a few hours before i fired it up.

I think if you're careful doing it, power washing can be fine! I think someone out there has a write up of what exactly to cover and not blast when washing.

Good Luck!
-Erich

Lousailor

I vote for the non-water wash. I tried mine once and even though I tried to be careful, I messed up my rotor. Seems that water got inside the belt cover in front, afetr driving a little the heat from the motor turned any water to steam which came up through bad old seals in the cap and collected there as condesation while parked. On the way home it started to stumble then stall then just quit with no restart. Turns out the rotor was almost completely fried. Brass end was gone, and inside of the cap was scored, plastic of the arm was all melted. It must of been exciting in there. Good thing I didn't have a fuel leak or it would have been firework city.

83na944

I've washed my NA engine several times - even used Gunk degreaser. I just drove to the closest carwash, covered the distributor with aluminum foil, sprayed the degreaser on, and sprayed it down. Never had a problem, but I guess it is risky.