Rep Power: 0

I want to clean under the hood, dont think the previous owner cleaned it. are there any tips that will make this go smoothly? like what do i have to cover and what to use? and where the hells the alternator and such ... lol, yea im such a newbie.

 
Rep Power: 240

yea just make sure you dont "shoot water" into the engine bay

spray the water/mist

 
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I'm really big on keeping my engine bay clean. I buy engine degreaser from the parts store and follow the directions.

Basically, you (on a cool engine) spray the engine degreaser over everything you want cleaned (run water over exterior paint if you get any degreaser on it). Wait 10 minutes, then hose off. I use a hose with a standard gun-type nozzle and spray the crap out everything. Just becareful around electrical connectors (I use dielectric grease on all my connectors). After getting ALL of the degreaser off, start the car and warm it to aid in drying. After it dries (after the first drive), I mist Armor-All over the entire engine bay. After you drive it and let everything warm up, it coats everything and looks great. It also makes cleaning easier the next time.

Here are a few engines I've done.

 
Rep Power: 332

nice, i gotta try this, my engine bay is dirty

 
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get yourself a bottle of "simple green" and follow what yamahaSHO said. you can pick it up at walmart or practically any auto parts place

 
Rep Power: 812

some cloths, engine degreaser, plastic protectant, and metal polish is all you need. dont spray any water in the bay

 
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Simple Green is the SHIZNIT, we use it to wash our bikes ( well not so much now that we all sold our bikes, to many broken bones ) also make sure you wrap your filter in plastic unless you need to clean it to, then follow the filter cleaning in structiosn ( cone filter that is wash able of course )

 
Rep Power: 0

Spray all the water you want. You're never going to get everything clean otherwise. For someone who is **** about cars, you'll never find a leak and the like if you're only cleaning the top of everything. An engine also runs cooler when it's clean, rather than caked greas all over the block. All the pictures above used LOTS of water sprayed in the bays. I've been doing this for about 7-8 years now.

 
Rep Power: 325

citrus engine brite