Hi,
I have a 95 Altima with 150K miles on it, which I bought about a year ago. The engine bay looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in ages. So I obviously wanted to clean it. After researching the topic on this forum and various other websites I finally decided to do it.
As a newbie, I felt that there wasn’t enough info about this out there. And I was quite worried about damaging something or the other - probably something very expensive that I wouldn’t be able to fix myself. Now that everything has gone well I figured that I would put my experience/process up here to help other newbies that come along looking for info on this.
What to buy: (I bought everything I needed at Autozone - great service, decent prices)
GUNK Citrus Engine Brite
Meguiar's Natural Shine Vinyl & Rubber Protectant
Eagle One Nano-Polish with Anticorrosion
Scott shop towels (Blue)
Terry towels (100% cotton)
And you will need aluminum foil as well. (which Autozone doesn’t sell)
Out of the items listed above, the most disagreement will probably revolve around the use of the citrus degreaser, but I picked it for a number of reasons.
The citrus degreaser isn’t as strong as “heavy-duty” degreasers. Heavy duty degreasers are strong enough to damage rubber, which I didn’t want to do. The heavy duty degreasers will almost definitely do a better job of cleaning heavily soiled engines, but I don’t think that the risk is worth it. Also, the particular degreaser that I bought doubles as a detailer. Therefore, any stray spray or anything that isn’t washed away will leave a nice mild shine when buffed. Overall: safer and better (at least in my opinion).
Before cleaning:
(It isn’t too bad but could definitely be cleaner)
To begin:
The car has to be warmed up slightly. You should be able to touch the engine without “burning” your hand. Letting the car idle for a few minutes should be sufficient (and then turning it off!).
Protecting various components:
There are various components that have to be covered up to make sure that the car actually starts and works fine after the cleaning the engine bay. Almost all of these parts are waterproof, but since I’m talking about an old car, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t take precautions:
Distributor cap
Air Intake (if not stock)
Alternator
Fuse boxes (3)
Battery terminals
Spark plugs
Sensors (I only covered the MAF sensor)
Also, one website recommended covering up the dip sticks.
Usually plastic of some kind along with tape is used to cover these up. But I used aluminum foil, thanks to a tip that I stumbled across online. It’s perfect because you can mold it very well around all the parts that you are concerned about and it’s a lot faster and less messier than using plastic bags.
Here are some pics of what I covered up.
Now to begin the actual washing/degreasing:
I couldn’t do all this in the driveway to my apartment, so I had to drive to a car wash. After driving around, the engine was too hot to do anything with it. I had to wait 45min before I could start to wash it. If you have the same problem, give it time to cool down. I spent that time cleaning out the interior.
Now that everything important is protected, I sprayed the engine bay with a little water. I suggest low pressure, and not too much water. At the car wash I used the “No-Spot Rinse” setting, because it was the only one with low pressure and pure water. I sprayed the engine bay for about a minute and a half and then wet the entire car and filled a bucket with the remaining time.
Wetting the car is very important. All degreasers will remove wax from a car’s finish, and having the car wet reduces this effect.
Now that all the preparation is completed, I proceeded to spray the engine bay with the degreaser. I heavily coated the very dirty areas, and made sure that I didn’t spray too much on the sensitive areas like hoses and also the stuff that I covered up. Even though the citrus degreaser doesn’t harm rubber, I figured that there is no point in tempting fate.
After which I just let it sit for 5-10 minutes. The can suggested 10-15 minutes, but I figured that less is safer. Also, even though I was prepared for scrubbing off the very dirty areas, I figured that I could just let it work its magic and see how things turn out.
I forgot to take pictures of the hood before the wash, but I did spray it with the degreaser as well.
As soon as I finished spraying the engine bay, I quickly wiped down the front bumper, front quarter panels, doors, front windows and windshield. I don’t mind the degreaser removing some of the wax, but I didn’t want it damaging the paint. So I wiped it down with a damp terry cloth (this is why I filled the bucket earlier).
5-10 minutes later:
Using the low pressure, pure water setting (No-Spot Rinse), I rinsed out the engine bay – this time using the entire four minutes just for this.
After giving everything a couple of minutes to drip off, I quickly removed all the foil and mopped up any water that was on the battery. The last thing you want is water connecting the terminals on the battery! Then I started the car. I did this very quickly so that the water doesn’t sit around for too long, potentially creeping into sensitive electrical components.
And she started up without any problem! I was seriously worried that it wouldn’t start – I’m paranoid about such things. But everything went well.
Here are the results after letting the car warm up for 5-10 minutes, and then shutting off the engine to mop up any places that had collected water. For me, the main place was the tray that the battery sits on, and then a couple of other small places. I also toweled down everything that hadn’t dried, such as the air intake, struts towers, and the frame of the bay.
It may not be perfect, but it’s a huge improvement!
The process, however, is far from over. The degreasing and rinsing out the engine bay should take about 30 minutes (without the time needed to cool the engine if you had to drive around first).
Now for protecting everything:
I started with the Meguairs Vinyl and Rubber protector. I used this on all the rubber hoses that I could get to, as well as every plastic component in the engine bay. I personally don’t like the idea of using a piece of cloth to apply a polish/protector. The cloth absorbs too much of the liquid for my liking. I wore a pair of nitrite gloves (the type used in laboratories, Autozone has these as well) which fit very firmly on my hand, sprayed the liquid on to my fingers and then rubbed the protector directly onto the parts. The results are much better using this method (but only for this purpose), and I’m able to apply a proper coating on the parts. Especially for the hoses, this works great.
Here are the results. I’m almost completely done with this stage, just a few more parts to coat.
Aren’t all the shiny hoses and plastics just beautiful? Definitely worth the time! This part of the process took a little over an hour. Not too bad for the results.
And now for coating/protecting the metal components:
This is where the Eagle One nano-polish comes in. Applying this requires using a terry cloth. Just dab the cloth in the container and get enough to rub onto the metal part. While rubbing you will notice a black residue collecting on the cloth. This is the metal polisher working. It is filling in all the tiny pores in the metal and displacing any dirt that was in there. It worked great on a few parts: the aluminum pipes, the strut towers and the frame of the engine bay.
Unfortunately the Eagle One polisher doesn’t seem to do anything for metal components that do not have a polished surface. I was hoping for it to have some effect on the dull looking valve cover that I have. But it didn’t do anything for it. So I’m probably going to replace the cover with a powder coated one. (The current cover definitely detracts from the look of the engine bay)
A caveat:
One can of the engine degreaser isn’t really enough if you want to do a thorough job of cleaning a very dirty engine bay.
However this probably only applies to the first time you do this. After the first time, one can is probably more than enough to remove the mild dirt/grease that would have collected.
So that’s it! The main thing is that the car is running fine and its engine bay is looking much better. I also got to know the engine bay a lot better; definitely more aware of where things are.
I hope that the excessive detail that I have provided will encourage everyone who hasn’t already done this to try it out. It’s worth it! The difference is so stark that I don’t believe that the first few pics came from the same car!
So give it try!
I have a 95 Altima with 150K miles on it, which I bought about a year ago. The engine bay looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in ages. So I obviously wanted to clean it. After researching the topic on this forum and various other websites I finally decided to do it.
As a newbie, I felt that there wasn’t enough info about this out there. And I was quite worried about damaging something or the other - probably something very expensive that I wouldn’t be able to fix myself. Now that everything has gone well I figured that I would put my experience/process up here to help other newbies that come along looking for info on this.
What to buy: (I bought everything I needed at Autozone - great service, decent prices)
GUNK Citrus Engine Brite
Meguiar's Natural Shine Vinyl & Rubber Protectant
Eagle One Nano-Polish with Anticorrosion
Scott shop towels (Blue)
Terry towels (100% cotton)
And you will need aluminum foil as well. (which Autozone doesn’t sell)
Out of the items listed above, the most disagreement will probably revolve around the use of the citrus degreaser, but I picked it for a number of reasons.
The citrus degreaser isn’t as strong as “heavy-duty” degreasers. Heavy duty degreasers are strong enough to damage rubber, which I didn’t want to do. The heavy duty degreasers will almost definitely do a better job of cleaning heavily soiled engines, but I don’t think that the risk is worth it. Also, the particular degreaser that I bought doubles as a detailer. Therefore, any stray spray or anything that isn’t washed away will leave a nice mild shine when buffed. Overall: safer and better (at least in my opinion).
Before cleaning:
(It isn’t too bad but could definitely be cleaner)
To begin:
The car has to be warmed up slightly. You should be able to touch the engine without “burning” your hand. Letting the car idle for a few minutes should be sufficient (and then turning it off!).
Protecting various components:
There are various components that have to be covered up to make sure that the car actually starts and works fine after the cleaning the engine bay. Almost all of these parts are waterproof, but since I’m talking about an old car, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t take precautions:
Distributor cap
Air Intake (if not stock)
Alternator
Fuse boxes (3)
Battery terminals
Spark plugs
Sensors (I only covered the MAF sensor)
Also, one website recommended covering up the dip sticks.
Usually plastic of some kind along with tape is used to cover these up. But I used aluminum foil, thanks to a tip that I stumbled across online. It’s perfect because you can mold it very well around all the parts that you are concerned about and it’s a lot faster and less messier than using plastic bags.
Here are some pics of what I covered up.
Now to begin the actual washing/degreasing:
I couldn’t do all this in the driveway to my apartment, so I had to drive to a car wash. After driving around, the engine was too hot to do anything with it. I had to wait 45min before I could start to wash it. If you have the same problem, give it time to cool down. I spent that time cleaning out the interior.
Now that everything important is protected, I sprayed the engine bay with a little water. I suggest low pressure, and not too much water. At the car wash I used the “No-Spot Rinse” setting, because it was the only one with low pressure and pure water. I sprayed the engine bay for about a minute and a half and then wet the entire car and filled a bucket with the remaining time.
Wetting the car is very important. All degreasers will remove wax from a car’s finish, and having the car wet reduces this effect.
Now that all the preparation is completed, I proceeded to spray the engine bay with the degreaser. I heavily coated the very dirty areas, and made sure that I didn’t spray too much on the sensitive areas like hoses and also the stuff that I covered up. Even though the citrus degreaser doesn’t harm rubber, I figured that there is no point in tempting fate.
After which I just let it sit for 5-10 minutes. The can suggested 10-15 minutes, but I figured that less is safer. Also, even though I was prepared for scrubbing off the very dirty areas, I figured that I could just let it work its magic and see how things turn out.
I forgot to take pictures of the hood before the wash, but I did spray it with the degreaser as well.
As soon as I finished spraying the engine bay, I quickly wiped down the front bumper, front quarter panels, doors, front windows and windshield. I don’t mind the degreaser removing some of the wax, but I didn’t want it damaging the paint. So I wiped it down with a damp terry cloth (this is why I filled the bucket earlier).
5-10 minutes later:
Using the low pressure, pure water setting (No-Spot Rinse), I rinsed out the engine bay – this time using the entire four minutes just for this.
After giving everything a couple of minutes to drip off, I quickly removed all the foil and mopped up any water that was on the battery. The last thing you want is water connecting the terminals on the battery! Then I started the car. I did this very quickly so that the water doesn’t sit around for too long, potentially creeping into sensitive electrical components.
And she started up without any problem! I was seriously worried that it wouldn’t start – I’m paranoid about such things. But everything went well.
Here are the results after letting the car warm up for 5-10 minutes, and then shutting off the engine to mop up any places that had collected water. For me, the main place was the tray that the battery sits on, and then a couple of other small places. I also toweled down everything that hadn’t dried, such as the air intake, struts towers, and the frame of the bay.
It may not be perfect, but it’s a huge improvement!
The process, however, is far from over. The degreasing and rinsing out the engine bay should take about 30 minutes (without the time needed to cool the engine if you had to drive around first).
Now for protecting everything:
I started with the Meguairs Vinyl and Rubber protector. I used this on all the rubber hoses that I could get to, as well as every plastic component in the engine bay. I personally don’t like the idea of using a piece of cloth to apply a polish/protector. The cloth absorbs too much of the liquid for my liking. I wore a pair of nitrite gloves (the type used in laboratories, Autozone has these as well) which fit very firmly on my hand, sprayed the liquid on to my fingers and then rubbed the protector directly onto the parts. The results are much better using this method (but only for this purpose), and I’m able to apply a proper coating on the parts. Especially for the hoses, this works great.
Here are the results. I’m almost completely done with this stage, just a few more parts to coat.
Aren’t all the shiny hoses and plastics just beautiful? Definitely worth the time! This part of the process took a little over an hour. Not too bad for the results.
And now for coating/protecting the metal components:
This is where the Eagle One nano-polish comes in. Applying this requires using a terry cloth. Just dab the cloth in the container and get enough to rub onto the metal part. While rubbing you will notice a black residue collecting on the cloth. This is the metal polisher working. It is filling in all the tiny pores in the metal and displacing any dirt that was in there. It worked great on a few parts: the aluminum pipes, the strut towers and the frame of the engine bay.
Unfortunately the Eagle One polisher doesn’t seem to do anything for metal components that do not have a polished surface. I was hoping for it to have some effect on the dull looking valve cover that I have. But it didn’t do anything for it. So I’m probably going to replace the cover with a powder coated one. (The current cover definitely detracts from the look of the engine bay)
A caveat:
One can of the engine degreaser isn’t really enough if you want to do a thorough job of cleaning a very dirty engine bay.
However this probably only applies to the first time you do this. After the first time, one can is probably more than enough to remove the mild dirt/grease that would have collected.
So that’s it! The main thing is that the car is running fine and its engine bay is looking much better. I also got to know the engine bay a lot better; definitely more aware of where things are.
I hope that the excessive detail that I have provided will encourage everyone who hasn’t already done this to try it out. It’s worth it! The difference is so stark that I don’t believe that the first few pics came from the same car!
So give it try!