HOW TO: degreasing engine bay
supplies:
You do not need very many supplies to degrease an engine. All I used was aluminum foil, Purple power degreaser, gunk citrus, gunk engine brite gel, a wheel brush, shop towels, and WD-40.
Before:
From the top you can mostly see dust and light grime, the nasty blackness was further down on the engine, so it was harder to get pictures of it.
Prep:
To get started, I put the front end of the car on jack stands, removed both front wheels, and all splash shields on both sides of the car. Most people dont do this part, but I wanted to clean as much of the engine as reasonably possible.
Before covering parts, I removed the plastic distributor cover and all spark plugs.
Then I used aluminum foil to protect electronics from taking on excessive amounts of water. Parts to cover with aluminum foil:
MAF and air filter,
Distributor
ignition coil
alternator
sparkplug holes
To cover the sparkplug holes I laid down 2 strips of aluminum foil, that I cover over the foil with a strip of 2 inch painters tape to keep the foil in place.
The alternator was also tricky to cover as its kind of difficult to get a full piece of aluminum foil down to the alternator without ripping it up. It took me 2 tries to get it covered.
Spray down:
Heres the fun part, I went crazy here. I sprayed everything down! I used up 1 full can of engine brite gel around the bottom half of the engine and the wheel wells. Then I used an entire can of engine brite citrus all over the top side of the engine bay. As long as your foil is applied decently you will not hurt anything. Now take a break and let the cleaners do their job for the next 15 minutes. If you need to scrub now is the time to break out the wheel brush and hit the rough spots.
Finished:
After scrubbing and letting the engine cleaner sit for 15 minutes, spray the whole engine bay down with a garden hose. I used a nozzle with multiple settings, but I found that the "jet" and "stream" settings worked the best.
If the water pressure was too light, it would not be strong enough to actually rise off the engine cleaner, especially the gel. When spraying everything down, I tried to avoid spraying the sparkplug holes directly, I didnt care if the plug holes got wet, I just didnt want to hit them with directly with the water pressure. I also tried to avoid spraying any foil covered parts. I may pass by them quickly but I would never stop and spray at any foil parts.
For the rest of the engine bay and the wheel wells, blast it with as much water as possible until everything is clean.
After the spray down, I used the shop towels to pick up any puddles near any electronics. I also soaked up any excess water left in the sparkplug.
galley.
Remove all foil, use shop towels to blot dry as much as possible.
Put the engine back back together, and fire it up to assist the drying process.
last step is optional, with the engine bay back together, spray everything down with WD-40. Now go for a short drive to complete the drying.
You do not need very many supplies to degrease an engine. All I used was aluminum foil, Purple power degreaser, gunk citrus, gunk engine brite gel, a wheel brush, shop towels, and WD-40.
Before:
From the top you can mostly see dust and light grime, the nasty blackness was further down on the engine, so it was harder to get pictures of it.
Prep:
To get started, I put the front end of the car on jack stands, removed both front wheels, and all splash shields on both sides of the car. Most people dont do this part, but I wanted to clean as much of the engine as reasonably possible.
Before covering parts, I removed the plastic distributor cover and all spark plugs.
Then I used aluminum foil to protect electronics from taking on excessive amounts of water. Parts to cover with aluminum foil:
MAF and air filter,
Distributor
ignition coil
alternator
sparkplug holes
To cover the sparkplug holes I laid down 2 strips of aluminum foil, that I cover over the foil with a strip of 2 inch painters tape to keep the foil in place.
The alternator was also tricky to cover as its kind of difficult to get a full piece of aluminum foil down to the alternator without ripping it up. It took me 2 tries to get it covered.
Spray down:
Heres the fun part, I went crazy here. I sprayed everything down! I used up 1 full can of engine brite gel around the bottom half of the engine and the wheel wells. Then I used an entire can of engine brite citrus all over the top side of the engine bay. As long as your foil is applied decently you will not hurt anything. Now take a break and let the cleaners do their job for the next 15 minutes. If you need to scrub now is the time to break out the wheel brush and hit the rough spots.
Finished:
After scrubbing and letting the engine cleaner sit for 15 minutes, spray the whole engine bay down with a garden hose. I used a nozzle with multiple settings, but I found that the "jet" and "stream" settings worked the best.
If the water pressure was too light, it would not be strong enough to actually rise off the engine cleaner, especially the gel. When spraying everything down, I tried to avoid spraying the sparkplug holes directly, I didnt care if the plug holes got wet, I just didnt want to hit them with directly with the water pressure. I also tried to avoid spraying any foil covered parts. I may pass by them quickly but I would never stop and spray at any foil parts.
For the rest of the engine bay and the wheel wells, blast it with as much water as possible until everything is clean.
After the spray down, I used the shop towels to pick up any puddles near any electronics. I also soaked up any excess water left in the sparkplug.
galley.
Remove all foil, use shop towels to blot dry as much as possible.
Put the engine back back together, and fire it up to assist the drying process.
last step is optional, with the engine bay back together, spray everything down with WD-40. Now go for a short drive to complete the drying.
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Originally Posted by sr20aaron 
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