Opened my bonnet last night to find that it isn't only my tyres that are covered in Billing dust, so is everything under the bonnet! Can any of you detailing freaks tell me how to clean it off? I've got a pressure washer but am a bit concerned about spraying water around under the bonnet. Obviously I wouldn't spray on the ignition coils but what about everywhere else? What bits should I avoid?
I wouldn't personally pressure wash a P38 engine bay.
I Use several damp cloths covered in APC.
Afterwards Mop up any mosture and spray Autoglym vinyl and rubber care everywhere!!
It makes everything look new!!
StrangeRover wrote:
I wouldn't personally pressure wash a P38 engine bay.
I Use several damp cloths covered in APC.
Afterwards Mop up any mosture and spray Autoglym vinyl and rubber care everywhere!!
It makes everything look new!!
I agree with this. If you have an air line you could blow most of the muck off first. When I detailed my engine I used carb and brake cleaner aerosols on the oily bits.
Rob.
I thought about using brake cleaner but figured that would wet it and make it even harder to get off. Air line might shift some of it (the engine stays pretty dry except when I spill oil down the rocker cover after missing the filler) and I was concerned that as well as drowning the electrics the pressure washer could end up blasting a dust and water (i.e. mud) mixture into the alternator which probably wouldn't do the bearings and brushes a lot of good. However, having given it some thought while sitting in a traffic jam today, all I'm going to do is wipe the fan blades off so they are clean and see how much gets blasted off by the airflow on my 800 mile run on Friday night/Saturday morning.
Edited to add that if I knew what APC was I could use it but these cleaning products are pretty alien to me. I've got T Cut, Turtle Wax, Mer and AutoGlym glass cleaner and that's about my lot as far as cleaning goes.
All purpose cleaner I think. I remember buying some mer years ago after see some salesman at a car show cleaning a bonnet. If I rember I think he then poured lighter fluid over it and set if on fire ha ha. Those were the days.
Rob.
I quite like Mer, gives a nice shiny finish to paintwork without the elbow grease needed with wax. It's a wipe it on, leave it for a couple of minutes and wipe it off job. I can do the whole car in about 15 minutes on the very rare occasions I do it. Not sure what's in it but it doesn't make the black bits go white like wax polish does. Good on fibreglass too and as one of my other cars has GRP bodywork, I originally got it for that.
Must admit when I used it years ago I liked it. Just don't set your bonnet on fire when you are finished 😂
I'd give the brush attachment on the end of the vacuum cleaner hose a try if you want to remove the worst of it.
Having just bought a brand new Dyson, I suspect someone might not appreciate that idea......
Cleaned the fan and shroud off and wiped some of the worst off the alternator and other places. Hopefully it will just get blown off over a period
Gilbertd wrote:
Having just bought a brand new Dyson, I suspect someone might not appreciate that idea......
Cleaned the fan and shroud off and wiped some of the worst off the alternator and other places. Hopefully it will just get blown off over a period
I'd suspect not - But surely you have an old one kicking about somewhere you use for that sort of job?
No, the old one packed up so I put it out with the dustbin. The dustman didn't take it but somebody else did before I had chance to take it down the dump........
Strange thing is alot of the ones out dumped for the dustbin collections are usually Dysons, either because they are popular, or more inclined to break (I'd favour the later personally).
This one came with a 10 year warranty, maybe because earlier ones broke......
What I couldn't understand is that if I take stuff to the council dump, there's an area for small electrical items and they would quite happily take it yet leaving it out with the recycling bin, which goes to exactly the same place, and they didn't?
Got as much of the dust off under the bonnet as I can but I can safely say that brake cleaner doesn't work. It turns it into mud then evaporates so it's even harder to get off! All I need to find is a ford that hasn't dried up.
Confession time!
I power washed the engine compartment on mine with no ill effects. Done it on several other cars too. But my power washer is an industrial Karcher (ex hire company gone broke) with adjustable pressure and a maximum volume adjustment on the trigger. Turned right down it has little more oomph than a hosepipe but the actual wetting position is very controllable although swinging a 4 ft (ish) double lance with separate suds & water feeds can get cumbersome. But for £15 back in 1985 or there-abouts I wasn't complaining.
Didn't one of the detailing masters on here reckon a hand held steam cleaner worked well?
One day I shall make me a Haralson pressure multiplying hose end just to see how well they do.
Clive
PS Dyson. Over-rated, overhyped, badly engineered and, frankly, not very effective. Had one. Got fed-up with fixing it every couple of years and scored a cheap Kirby out of the local free ad paper. Also seriously overhyped and (way, way) overpriced but effective and built like a battleship. Fixing Dyson "Its just stopped" cleaners was easy money for a while but when one comes back for the fourth time 'cos James D can't design a cable clamp it got bit too old. James D is in the same category as Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar all mouth, no trousers and a convincing line of patter to cover up incompetence. Ball-barrow was the only good idea James ever had. Even then he couldn't get the centre of gravity right managing to produce a wheelbarrow that is almost impossible to tip for emptying. Which is pretty hard to do!
Gilbertd wrote:
This one came with a 10 year warranty, maybe because earlier ones broke......
What I couldn't understand is that if I take stuff to the council dump, there's an area for small electrical items and they would quite happily take it yet leaving it out with the recycling bin, which goes to exactly the same place, and they didn't?
Got as much of the dust off under the bonnet as I can but I can safely say that brake cleaner doesn't work. It turns it into mud then evaporates so it's even harder to get off! All I need to find is a ford that hasn't dried up.
They typically sell what can be sold from there, if its in the back of a refuse truck crushed up all they can do is dispose of it. I'd guess thats why. Plus they have to draw the line somewhere - presently down the road from me there are several boxes, a matress and divan bed. Which as you'd probabbly guess, they didn't take those either (some people would struggle with the meaning of small, and leave cookers/washing machines/fridges out).
Agree with Clive on the Dyson front - everything with that name on it seems excessively noisy to me, again maybe improved with the newer stuff. Wouldn't mind betting your 10 year guarantee is parts only though?
Plus cyclone filters were being used waaaay before Dyson put them on his hoovers.
Anyway, for the last word in hoovering - you want one of these!
https://www.myrobotcenter.co.uk/en_gb/neato-botvac-connected-d5
Can't do the stairs and you'll need (someone) to do the really tricky nooks and crannies every week/month/year depending on your requirements but bloody hell, it's fantastic :)
I've pressure washed mine a few times - just bagged fuse box and alternator, and avoided the coils, EAS box etc.
Also sprayed over with diluted Screwfix degreaser.before rinsing off.
Just use degreaser/detergent, depending on crap and wash off. Never bagged or covered anything.
Only ever had one tiny issue. Alternator said no for around two minutes.
Personally I would tend to avoid using a pressure washer under bonnets as seals to Control Units and waterproof connectors may be OK with rain etc but not with water under pressure.... If air got the dust there then a vac will move it too - particularly on 'blow' ! An 'artificial' feather duster (of the type that looks like a Candy Floss on a stick) works quite well too...
Agree on the gimmicky Dyson 'turbo' issue - the transparent dust box is what sells it most (I am told...);And I know AI is 'big' now but I will be avoiding the "BotVac" mentioned above and stay with toilet paper...
Use a paint brush to get most of the dust off, your trip should move the rest around.
That’s the one downside of not having an engine tray, but how long would it last off-road.