How To Clean An Engine And Benefits Of Cleaning A Car Engine?

 

If you truly love your car, your auto detailing won’t be restricted to cleaning the interiors and exteriors too. Once in a while, you should clean our engine too. If you’re living in a city, doing this twice a year is fine. However, if you have more exposure to dust, debris, rain or snow, your car wash needs to include engine cleaning once in every 3 months.

Cleaning the engine isn’t the same as Car Detailing. However, it is necessary to ensure smoother running of your car. At the same time, there is a way you need to follow to clean your engine. Here’s how it benefits you.

·         Prevents fire hazards

·         Reduces corrosion

·         Helps you check for cracks and leakage, preventing accidents

·         Improves the car’s fuel performance

8 Steps to Cleaning the Engine

Car detailing is a relatively easier job than cleaning the engine. It’s only because with the engine, you need to be a little careful as to not expose any wires or the control unit to the water – that may seriously spoil your engine. So, here’s what you need to do:

Let The Engine Cool Down

Leave the bonnet open for 15 minutes to allow the engine to cool down. If your engine is hot, you’ll not just spoil it by spraying cool water on it, but also end up hurting yourself with some awful burns.

Tighten The Caps And The Dipstick

If the water enters any of the engine fluids, it can again cause damage due to unwanted chemical reactions. So, you need to tightly seal the caps in which you have the brake fluid, steering fluid, coolant and other liquids. To seal it properly, you press the dipstick down tightly.

Disconnect The Battery

The water cannot touch the battery of the car. You need to disconnect it from both the terminals using the wrench and then get it out of the car for once.

Cover The Sensitive Parts

Now, we come to the other parts that can neither be exposed to water nor be taken out of the car. These include the ignition wires, distributor caps, coil packs, spark plugs, alternators and filters. Cover them with plastic bags and seal it with tape.

Start Cleaning

Time to take out a scrub brush, all-purpose cleaner and engine degreaser. You need to scrub off all the dirt, wet the engine with warm water and spray the degreaser. This needs to be done on the hoses, caps, firewall and fluid containers too. After 10 minutes, you take a pressure sprayer and rinse the degreaser.

Let It Dry

You need to leave the engine for a while to dry naturally. Then, with a soft, clean microfiber cloth, clean the engine thoroughly. You can also remove excess water with a compressor.

Remove The Plastic

Now that the engine is clean, you can remove the plastic bags and tape carefully. Make sure the engine is completely dry when you do this.

Connect The Battery Again

After an hour, you can reconnect the battery. This one hour waiting ensures that everything has dried completely after removal of the plastic.

And now, you’re good to go!

A good Car Wash will make your car look new and pretty all the time. However, cleaning the engine enhances the purpose of auto detailing by making the car even feel new when you’re driving it.