Mechanic I worked for in high school used a blow gun on a air line which had a siphon hose that he’d stick in a gallon jug of lacquer thinner. That was a cleaner. He’d use gallon plastic jugs from antifreeze with the labels removed for the lacquer thinner.

He also used the same jugs for water that he’d pour over the radiators of cars sitting there running while he was working on (servicing, testing, etc) the A/C systems. Small problem arose one day when he got the jugs mixed up and poured lacquer thinner over the radiator of a running car. He got his beard and mustache trimmed and his eyebrows removed. No other damage other than to his pride.

Gunk works really well. The non foamy....have to let it sit 10 minutes and blast it off with a hose. The foaming works good but isn't as strong as the origional. Make sure it's the Gunk brand. Also use a stiff tooth brush etc. to give the Gunk a little help before spraying it off with the hose. Then other spray bottle degreasers work also.

 
Getting rid of build-up of hardened on crap is no easy task. It's going to take some chipping and scraping no matter what solvent you use. Personally, I would use diesel fuel or mineral spirits to start the softening process. I've never tried it, but Kroil might also help.

I did several paint jobs and repairs on old John Deere 2 cylinder tractors. They had a lot of old oil leaks mixed with dirt and hardened by engine heat and passage of time. I found the steam cleaner with any kind of detergent did, in one hour, what took 10 hours with a gas pressure washer. In addition the pressure washer never did get the tractors as clean as the steam cleaner. Now if you had a much larger pressure washer with the capability of using hot water it might be closer to the steam cleaner in capability.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Gene Hillman,

I've used Deep Purple with good results for example 6.7 ram egr parts.

Purple Power from Wal-Mart works pretty well.

I use Meguiar's Super Degreaser for a great many things. It is sold in a concentrate so you can mix it to different strengths depending on the project (I use 4/1 for normal projects but even 10/1 is effective). The Meguiar's brand, which is familiar to most, might suggest that it is consumer grade but I can assure you it is very potent stuff--much stronger than you get at Wal-Mart when mixed in high concentration. I've used about 1/2 of my gallon of concentrate in 3 years so it's been a good value for me.

Link to product: https://www.amazon.com/Meguiar...a-381120897983&psc=1

It's a little more expensive, but Carbon X (about thirty bucks a gallon. A gallon goes a LONG way). Safe for use on everything, works on everything. Spray it on, let it sit, blast it off.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:

quote:

Originally posted by powermad:
I've taken engines to the car wash before.
Wash the mess down the grate and not in my yard.

This is why they have those signs outside of every U-Brush ‘Em.....

Personally, I’d start with simple green or purple power and a pressure washer

The ones I use have an engine wash setting.
I've nosed semis in to wash the engine bay down many times.
Don't leave a mess and they won't gripe at you.
The one shop I was at for a couple of months was next to the river and nothing could hit the ground there so we used the car wash down the road.

Washing off a 4x4 after a mud run will get you run out though. Fills the trap with mud and they will freak out on you.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Yeah, hot water and/or steam would really be the way to go. Might have to check into a rental.

Gunk still works, the guys at Roadkill swear at it....

Have to agree, a steamer would be good, probably soak it in Gunk, or a decent brass or stiff synthetic brush using simple green, royal purple first scrub it a bit to loosen up stuff.

You could tape off the engine good, hit it with a pressure washer on a medium spread head first if it's really bad....

This is how mine look when they come out.

After.


The block gets scrubbed with solvent and brake clean.
Other parts get soaked with Gunk non foaming engine cleaner or solvent then sprayed off with a cheapo electric pressure washer that's not much better than a garden hose.
The bays have drains around them and the mess just gets washed into it.
Not storm drains before someone freaks out, it's contained and has to be pumped out.
Same drains that the truck washing bay goes into.
The ones we are not allowed to use because people are slobs and now the service side can't use them.
We can get the engines steamed off here on site but have to cut the detail dept an RO and send it over.
Way more time than anyone has time for so we just clean them the old fashioned way.

It’s not the most affordable or healthy way to go about it, but cans of brake-clean, or B12 Chemtool work exceptionally well. It just might get a little expensive and you would need some really good ventilation.

We use this at work to degrease the mixer to get the paprika oil and other Chile oils out. It works incredibly well, and isn’t toxic.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You're best bet is to use a pressure washer on that chunky stuff. Brake cleaner would probably do better than degreaser at this point.

Priced the rental of a hot water pressure washer @ $130 per day, plus 2 40 mile round trips to get it and take it back. That would have doubled my investment in the project to date. I decided to try a little cheaper approach.

A bottle of Dawn Platinum and a can of Easy-Off was $10-ish at the Dollar Store.

Dug out my regular pressure washer and dicked with it for an hour to get it to run right - debris from the corroded wand kept plugging the nozzle.

Soaked the really heavy bits with the oven cleaner and mixed about a cup of Dawn in a half gallon of warm water and douched the rest of it down, letting it soak while dicking with the pressure washer.

Took a couple of applications, but 90+ per cent of it came off. Still some grime in hard-to-reach areas, but MUCH cleaner than when I started.

Now I have the Shibaura in the shop pulling the engine out of it. Fortunately, that one is mostly clean already.