Before I started the motor pull, I went to the coin wash with degreaser to try to clean the motor off as much as I can. Now that the motor is almost pulled I can see that it needs alot of cleaning. What is the best solution to use to get the grese and paint off? Is there somethig for navy or airplane use that I heard about? Your thoughts
i usually take a paint brush and some gas and soak 'er down with that and then get some water to clean it off. i think there was just a tread about this last week if you want to go back a page or 2 in the tech section
Mineral spirits and a stiff bristle paint brush like posted above. Gas works as good, but is a bit more dangerous. Mineral spirits are sold at Lowes or HD in a 'low odor' version that is fairly expensive. The 'regular' or 'smelly' spirits are sold as generic "paint thinner", for less dough. Edit: If the parts are in a state that you don't mind using water on them, then Purple Power degreaser is good too. With the gas or spirits, you don't have to rinse off with water. They will dry just fine. But if you go with degreaser, you must rinse. If your engine is open at all, or you are dealing with machined surfaces, you may not want to expose to water. Up to you.
Purple Power is great stuff. Expensive though. As stated in other very recent threads, I like to use the Aircraft Paint Remover as a degreaser. Below are a couple of pictures of a C4 bell housing I cleaned up a couple of years ago with the Aircraft Remover before giving it to scrapper60 for his car. Wish I had a before pic, the car it came from had a leaky valve cover gasket and a leaky power steering system, and the bell housing had alot of crap gunked on it. I started by scraping the thick stuff off with a screw driver, then spray the Aircraft Remover on. Let it sit for a few minutes, then (wearing rubber gloves) scrub the part with a piece of fine steel wool (the SOS dish pads work well). Then rinse with water. I went over the bell housing twice with the stripper and steel wool to get it to look as nice as it did.
if im leaving the engine together i'll just leave the old spark plugs in the heads just to keep those holes plugged up. since i have the intention of replacing them anyway i'll paint right over them too
Before I paint any parts ... I go to the $1 store and get about 6 cans of oven cleaner. It will degrease and eat away the really caked on stuff. Use with a stiff brush for even better cleaning. Do not use on aluminum ... or any painted parts you don't plan on repainting.
If you want all the paint removed, use the aircraft remover, or paint and gasket remover. You need to use it AFTER the mineral spirits and/or degreaser though. It doesn't really work on grease/dirt. You also must make sure not to get it on yourself! or anything else nearby... Gotta rinse real well with water too when done. If you are removing several layers of paint, you might need to scrape away layers, then re-apply.
I have 2 sets of these http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?itemID=10777&itemType=PRODUCT Great for storage of the engine and I guess you could use them when cleaning up one too. Robert
ive used purple power on my car jus to clean it up and the paint started runin as soon as i put it on
