Ever looked at your car engine and wished it was cleaner than it was? Have you ever thought of picking up a horse pipe and shooting a jet of water right inside your car hood? How appropriate would that be? Should we or should we not clean the car engine?
TO CLEAN OR NOT TO CLEAN THE CAR ENGINE?
There is a lot of content out there showing you how to clean your engine. They make it look so easy that you might want to do so at home. But is cleaning your engine necessary? Is it wise in the first place?
As far as I am concerned, I would say cleaning the car engine is not necessary at all. My vehicles look quite neat on the outside but the engine is quite dirty and I don’t care. After all, am I going to serve a meal on top of the engine?
Do the dirty engines affect the performance of the vehicles? The answer is NO! My vehicles are quite strong despite the number of years spend on the road and dirty engine! I have never cleaned the engines.
What about my motorbike? That’s extremely clean and shiny. Why? Because it’s air cooled. If it gets dirty and greasy, it won’t dissipate heat that well.
What about the car? Your car has water cooled engine. What this means is that water flows within the engine to cool it.
Therefore, you can clean the outer area of your radiator to keep the radiator fins clean because air flows in to cool the radiator. But you don’t have to clean the engine itself. Heat is dissipated through the radiator and not the engine itself. See the difference?
Now, note that your car has very many electronic parts. If you keep spraying water in the engine; or even worse, use the pressure washer, you can easily mess with the electronics of your car.
Some clients have had to replace the car computer because of this simple mistake. Water can also be sucked into the air filter and end up hydrolocking the engine. The engine either seizes or suffers catastrophic failure due to the ingress of a substantial volume of water in the cylinders. See why it’s not advisable to clean your car engine? After all, you don’t even see the engine unless you pop the hood!
So concentrate on cleaning and polishing the paintwork but let the engine be.
When can you clean the engine?
Sometimes you will be required to clean the engine especially if you have oil leaks. Oil leaks can affect your car electronics. It can mess your alternator, the distributor or the starter just to mention a few parts.
Therefore, you need to find the source of the leak and fix the leaking problem first before cleaning the mess. This should be done as soon as possible. You can use the ultra violet leak guide to find the source of the leak.
How to Clean
First, unplug the car battery. You don’t want to shot circuit the system with liquids.
Then, Using the oil degreaser, spray the dirty part (not the whole engine).
Wait for about 30-45 minutes for the degreaser to act on the oil patches.
If it’s so dirty, you can use a brush or a scrubber. Then spray some water on it.
Ensure that your engine is cold before you begin doing all this. Ice cold water on red hot engine can lead to metal cracks.
Also, cover the exposed parts like the alternator, the distributor and the circuit box that can be affected by liquids. Don’t get them wet at all costs.
Wait for a couple of hours for the engine to dry. When dry, attach the battery terminal you disconnected and switch on the engine.
There you have it! When to clean or not to clean your engine!
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