Tips for cleaning under the hood?

[CadillacMac]

I know it will never look good-as-new unless you take all of the components out and clean them off, but what are the best options for cleaning off 50 years of grime without hurting any wiring or engine parts? 

I know just spraying with "Gunk" and hosing the engine down is probably not a good idea outside of a used car lot...

[quadfins]

Simple Green (or similar) and a power washer is a good start. Also, a plastic putty knife can dig several inches of oily dust-mud off, getting the layer thin enough so you can use degreaser.

I obtained duplicates of almost every component under the hood (short of the block & heads). Bead blast, refurbish, repaint, restore each component, then swap it in and treat the original to the same TLC. Then you'll have a nice engine compartment, and a set of spare parts for that inevitable day when something goes wrong.

Jim

[tpowel2]

Wow, Jim, what a great idea!    Funny how simple that sounds, but I would have never thought of it!

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

I have just cleaned the hood lining (Insulation) on my '72, and boy, what a mess it was in.

As I was removing it, I should have covered the engine, as well as myself as I, and my friend assisting me, got covered with grit and dried muck.

I am not referring to the couple of tears that have been sustained over the years, but the amount of grit dust and grime that were ingrained into the material.

I couldn't vacuum it out, as vacuuming would destroy the fibres, and I couldn't shake it out as shaking would also destroy it.

So, all I could think of was put it down on the garage concrete floor, and using a broom as a pounding device, bashed it from the top, and "encouraged" the grit to drop through the fibres to the floor.

Then, once it was done, lift it up, sweep away the mess, and turn it over and do it again, with the broom, and repeat the process till there wasn't much to sweep up.

The picture was taken on about the fourth "turnover, and it was still "losing stuff".   In the top of the picture is a pile of sweepings from the previous bashings.

Boy, it was lighter when I finished.

Bruce.

PS.   The only reason I didn't replace it was that new stuff is not available here, and getting replacement from USA is expensive.