How do you clean your engine?

Very Nice!

 

Wow, wish my engine to looked like that. How much something like that cost?

I have a lift and a small McCulloch steam cleaner so may be will try going over the engine this weekend. Right now it's pretty filthy and got a bunch of grease from when the old CV joint boot tore up.

 

I have a way that (to me) works very well. Get a bottle of P21s. Made in Germany. To me the best stuff ever. Aggressive but gentle. I use it on many things. Brake calipers, inside (and outside) of rims, tires. I always have some on hand. I use a garden hose set to a very fine mist. I sling it over my shoulder so I do not touch my car with the hose. Hint: I have bought a few of the XHoses. They are soft and flexible. Do not get the import version. Junk. Only the original from Dap. Wet the area you want to clean lightly with water and spray on some P21s. Use different brushes (I use paint brushes, they are soft and flexible). Work the dirty area and once clean open the sprayer slightly and float the dirt and used P21s away. Unless you have nasty hard old oil, grease this method works very well.

Rodney
1990 348 TS

 

Same with my F355 Challenge but the major is done every three years...
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I get up under mine with what amounts to a toothbrush and some simple green and scrub away.

The steam cleaning ended up looking really nice.

 

Do you know if they had a real steam cleaner, or a hot water power-washer? I'm trying to find info on steam cleaning for engines, and can't find much, mostly pressure washing (hot or cold).

 

What brand do you recommend for tornado gun?

 

Did you try this yet?

 

I think tornador is the actual name of the brand.

 

Yes, steam cleaner was a waste of time - spent 3 hours porking with it and barely made any progress, had to break out a power washer, was a huge mess but at least the underbody and the engine are now clean.

 

Got my tornador today, can't wait to try it out.

 

Thanks tree, just received my Tornador gun today and look forward to breaking it in on my cars.

 

Did a little research, and looks like Tornador gun is made by Hangzhou Lantan Technology Co. of China.

Here's Lantan's whole Tornandor lineup, including some interesting specialty guns that I haven't seen in the US
Lantan Technology Co., Ltd.

For those adventurous enough to order from China, I found they are selling on AliExperss (consumer version of B2B Alibaba):
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Z-020-Black-tornador-cleaning-gun-for-cars-Air-Opearted-Car-Wash-Equipment-Tornado-gun/838978022.html

$40+$22 shipping - for the updated (Z-020/black) version was inciting enough for me to put an order, so I should have some feedback on dealing with them in a few weeks. Haven't tride Ali express before, so will be interesting how this turns out.

Also found that there is another product - Autosmart Vortex Cleaning Gun that claims to be superior to Tornador:

Introducing Tornador Gun Successor, The Autosmart Vortex Cleaning Gun

However it doesn't seem to be available outside of the UK, and feedback so far is minimal.

 

........been washing the engine bay of my 348ts for the last 4 years with a Gerni pressure cleaner and never once had a problem. The only thing the Ferrari dealership (who does the same thing) told me was to have the engine running at the time and don't do anything stupid like try to hammer the dizzi's etc close up with the pressure nozzle.

 

On a related subject - Is there a point in NOT cleaning/degreasing engine during major?

For the last 10 year my F355 was serviced by the previous owner at a well known independent Ferrari shop. Last major was done back in May.

Top of the engine looked clean, but the underside of the engine / chassis / suspension was covered in baked-on sludge, grease and oil. Don't think it's ever been cleaned.

The car had close to $50K in service bills in the last few years - yet I checked all the itemized bills and not once did I see a charge for cleaning/degreasing.

The car was serviced by a mechanic that seemed to know what he was doing, so I wonder if there is a good reason why he never cleaned the underside?

 

Received Tornador gun last week. It was shipped promptly, took about 10 days to arrive from China and ordering from AliExpress saved about $100.