Well.. 84,000 miles and 4 years after buyin my truck I guess it's about time I clean the engine compartment for the first time.. :)

Are there any special products for cleaning stuff under the hood or will regular degreasers work alright?

How about any precautions I should take? I have the stock air setup. Is it OK to spray everything down with the garden hose or are there some areas I should avoid (obviously a little care around the airbox should be taken).

Thanks in advance!

You can just get any degreaser and just spray it down, the use the degreaser, then spray the degreasing liquid off. Repeat until statisfied. I did this on mine, and it looks ten times better. I just lightly sprayed it with water, not full pressure.

Matt

I've used two products on my engine so I'll give you my experiences. First I used Gunk's Engine degresser. This stuff is good. I didn't even have to scrub any of the grease off the engine. Everything just came loose and than I rinsed with light hose water. When I got done the engine compartment was clean but I wanted it to be shinny you know like you would get if you used armor all on all the ruber hoses. The downside of the Gunk stuff is my truck smelled heavily of Desil fuel for about a day and than went away. Didn't matter how much you rinsed it just stunk but was clean. So the next weekend I went out and got Foamy Engine Bright. I figured the name being what it was it would yeild the shiney results that I wanted. It didn't, the engine didn't shine anymore than it had the weekend before. I can't really speak for it's cleaning ability either as the engine bay just doesn't get all that dirty in 5 days. However after repeating the same process as I did with the Gunk my truck only smelled for about 3-4 hours this time.
When you do this just make sure ot cover up your intake/air filter and your fuse box as well. If you've got a distributor cover that as well. I just use plastic bags that you get from the grocery store to keep the rain out of my stuff.

Oven cleaner works very well in dirty and/or greasy engine compartments. Just don't let it sit on the paint for too long. :)

A little trick that used car dealers use. After cleaning the engine and while it's still wet, spray it with Armor All. That's how they get those hoses and stuff so shiny. Armor All is water based, so it just spreads out to cover everything. Only works if you like shiny hoses though. :)

I used to only use Gunk until my dad came home one day with Tech2000 foaming engine cleaner before we sold my mom's old Seville. That stuff works great! And it's only about $2 a can. (that's Wal-mart's brand, btw)

Just make sure you dont water log the engine. Im not sure how well a DIS withstands being soaked.

Originally posted by MazdaSOHC
A little trick that used car dealers use. After cleaning the engine and while it's still wet, spray it with Armor All. That's how they get those hoses and stuff so shiny. Armor All is water based, so it just spreads out to cover everything. Only works if you like shiny hoses though. :)

Same thing i do, works great. But a towel or plastic baggy around your electronics, i leave my trucks running while spraying off the motor.

Try WD-40 for that High gloss shine after the degreasing has been done. Works Great and is usually cheaper than the other detailing products!!!! I use it everytime I clean my engine it wont hurt a thing plus it gives your truck a like new smell under the hood!!!

ive used the foamy engine bright and it works good, i also used the meguiar's extra spray degreaser for the little stuff that i didnt get w/ the other stuff and that worked good too

There's some new shi ... er, stuff at Price Club called "Oil Eater" and it works better than anything you have ever used (sounds like an infocomercial, huh?). It is like 7 bucks a gallon and comes with a spray bottle to mix with water. It is citrus based so it won't kill the grass and all.

RD

haha, last time i cleaned off my engine my starter started ****ing up. the gear inside was making a weird ass noise for like 2 sec after i started the truck, and ever since then, i haven't cleaned it..not that water cause it, just made me paranoid :)