Hey guys,

I'm on the verge of pulling the motor from my S4 (on the verge for me means in the next month or so) to do some much needed maint. When I do that, I want to completely clean the motor, engine bay, suspension bits, underside of unibody, etc.

I'm willing to put in the elbow grease, and I have a pressure washer that I may or may not use on the engine bay, suspension bits, unibody.

But, I am concerned about sending all of those accumulated greases, oils, antifreeze and god knows what else down the sewer.

I used to pressure wash my dirt bike at the end of my driveway right next to the sewer drain. It worked great, but that was basically blowing the dirt and mud off the bike. There was very little in the way of chemicals coming off the bike.

With the S4, it would be like a mini Exxon Valdez spill going down the sewer if I cleaned it up in that way.

How are you guys that have done this, doing it? Are you doing one little area at a time, using paper towels? Seems like that would take forever.

Or are you using pressure washers and blasting away, and letting the mess go where ever?

Give me some tips here guys. Thanks.

Ed

 

I live in the middle of a faculty neighborhood on the campus of the University of California, Irvine. Many of my neighbors would ban cars tomorrow if they could. There is a healthy smattering of grease, motor oil, and dirt on the underside of my car. I have a steamer that I use in conjunction with brass brushes, Simple Green Max, and (occasionally for Cosmoline) Easy-Off. I have on several occasions spent an afternoon scraping caked on grease off the underside of my car using paper towels. These paper towels go into regular trash. All the remaining grime, a nice emulsified mixture of oil, citrus cleaner, and lye gets diluted by large amounts of rinse water and goes directly into the storm sewer. Most of the long chain hydrocarbons are going in the trash, some are going down the drain. My guess is that between cleaning my 928 and driving it ~2000 miles per year, I'm polluting significantly less than any of the half dozen or so pre-1975 Volkswagen beetles, Karmann Ghias, 412 wagons, and M-B 240D and 300SD wagons that are (slowly) putt-putting up and down my street. I think the first thing I'd do as EPA czar is crush all old Mercedes turbo-diesel wagons. Just looking at their rear bumper covers should tell you something about their "carbon footprint"......

 

i was at UCI 2 weeks ago. i wish i knew there was a sharkfan there

 

I use carb cleaner, simple green and my power washer. Then when it is all off the car and on the driveway, I then use concrete cleaner and my power washer and shove it all out to the asphalt street. Street sweeper then comes and makes it all look pretty again.

Not exactly eco friendly, but then again, we have 3 cars with v-8's.

 

Spencer-

There's actually 3 928's in the faculty neighborhood, I've never spoken to either of the other two. They're not rennlisters as best as I can tell. So there are a few car guys on this hill.

 

Ed,
I had quite a bit of grease cleaning to do when I pulled my engine last summer. I used mostly Orange Blast and some carb cleaner. However, I used a couple of kiddie pools (a small one and a larger one) from K-Mart (something like $8-$10). Great for hand washing parts in also great for sliding under the car for washing the engine bay. I used Orange Blast and a brush on the engine bay and rinsed with a garden hose.
In the summer here, it is very dry and warm. After a few days, the water completely evaporates in the pool and all that's left in the kiddie pool is dirt or sludge. When I was cleaning engine parts, the residue was mostly sludge so I put it in my used motor oil recycle container and it got recycled. When I was cleaning the engine bay, the residue was mostly grime/dirt and it went into the trash can. Nothing went down the driveway or into the gutter.
I didn't use the pressure washer because I couldn't control runoff as easy and I couldn't control where the flying debris was going (e.g., on the house or block wall, etc.). Here's a pic of using the same technique when I was going through the front suspension cleaning...


BTW....I like your avatar title "NeverLateInMyNineTwoEight", Neeto!

 

for what its worth...
i ve just dome the whole of the underside of mine with an industrial steam cleaner... no chemicals

geoff

 

The most environmentally friendly way I would imagine is to use a citrus decreaser, paper towels and tons of elbow grease. Combine all the paper towels into a bag and bring it to your local dump which handles toxic chemicals like paint etc.

Oh and take some before and after pics.

 

I usually use my battery electric toothbrush
Marton

 

Don't forget that most storm drains go straight into the environment be it the neighboring bay or the local wetland. Your best bet Ed is to get some get a clinging type cleaner..or spray it on..let it sit and soak in..and then what you can't wipe off with rags you can pressure wash off. You can get one of those socks filled with sorbant to lay in front of the drain and then dipose of it when saturated.

Later,
Tom
89GT
82 Track car

 

Thanks for the tips guys.

And Tom, you're correct. My street drain goes straight down to the Snoqualmie River. From there the pollutants can settle in the valley, or wind their way down to the Skykomish, then onto Puget Sound. (and I need to get down to see your track car one of these days).

If I need to do a little more work to keep the worst of it from flowing downstream I'll do that.

Dwayne, I like your idea. I may have to look into that. I've done smaller versions of that, letting things dry, then cleaning them up.

And I just picked up a used (never used actually) engine stand, so the next time I get some free time I'll get this party started.

Scare-yyyy!

 

That's my original neck of the woods. I was born in North Bend.

 

For serious cleaning you may try contacting a heavy duty garage like a truck repair facility. They may have an area with a pit or grease trap that you could rent or pay them to steam clean your car for you. In my area there are a few guys that advertise mobil pressure / steam cleaning services. I'm sure that if something like this exists in your area they could advise you.

 

No kidding. I was there today at the outlet stores.

Some old timer said to me today while we crossed paths in the parking lot while it was drizzeling "Boy, this sun sure is wet."

Freakin cracked me up! I'm from the east coast, been here 14 yrs, and still haven't adjusted to the constant wet.

Must be nice down there in NV. Spent a weekend down there last winter dirt biking outside of Reno. Beautiful country.

 

That is a great idea! I'll look into it. I would love to save myself some time and effort, and to do it at a place that can capture the runoff, that would be great.

Thanks!

(by the way, there is one of those big semi truck repair facilities right in North Bend. )