Engine cleaning kicking my ***

[Zylo]

Alright, I consider my self a fairly good amatuer detailer. However.. I suck at engine detailing.



My constant attempts at cleaning my 03` F150`s engine (4.6L) has resulted in nothing more than a permanent belt squeal. Tensioner or Idler pulley is toast, and it only does it when wet. Didn`t happen till I started detailing the engine.



Ok, so that`s an easy fix... aluminum foil.



But.. what can I do to clean the grime? I use Citrus Engine Brite from Autozone, and it doesn`t seem to do much.. my hoses have this "baked" on dirt spotting, and no amount of scrubbing is taking it off! :angry



Someone please school me on engine detailing or throw some hints out please!



I tried to reference my old copy of the Autopia Detailing Guide I bought a while back, and I get an error when entering the activation code :( :doh :(



Thanks all!

[imported_sydster]

Your F150 may not have this problem, but on many modern cars, there are a lot of sensors wired to the engine and moisture introduced by some cleaning techniques wreaks havoc, so proceed with caution!



Because of this issue, my car`s engine bay is the dirtiest part of my car, but it`s a real nightmare if moisture gets in the wrong place, so I live with it.

[imported_truzoom]

I have a similar setup as you, (`02 4.2 V6) and I had no problems cleaning my engine. All I did was lightly hose down the major components, avoiding the area where the spark plugs and belts are, and then I sprayed 50:50 simple green, scrubbed, and rinsed, and here`s where I took the extra caution: I used my shop vac`s blow function to basically blast all the water out of crevices. This didn`t get it totally clean, but I`m not entering into any shows either. I dressed all the black plastic with Meguiar`s GC Vinyl/Rubber, and used some detail spray to clean up any spots where I missed. Went over the engine bay one last time with the shop vac and let it dry for an hour before starting it again.



As for your hoses, I think 303 should do the trick since it cleans while adding protection/gloss.

[zippymbr]

Get a EX Detail brush. It has made engine detailing a breeze for me. I like to use greased lightining to pretreat and then simple green in a bucket with the brush and a cheap MF towel. Auto Geek has the brush for $19.95.

http://www.autogeek.net/ezbrush.html

[holland_patrick]

I have always detailed my cars with out covering things up and never had a problem. As long as you start with a warm car and work quickly not letting stuff dry out. andprotect afterwards things work out fine. And on my 10year old jeep you can eat out of the engine bay.

[GearHead_1]

Unless the tensioner pulley bearing is toast (and it may be) I would think you would do well to put a GoodYear Gatorback belt on your truck. Your tensioner pulley bearing is sealed and in theory you shouldn`t have been able to harm it, though you may have a bad one. Ford has had a belt problem on both the 4.6 and 5.4 engines, supercharged and non supercharged. The Gatorback will cure this type of squeal. I ran into it a few years ago on my 5.4 after I had chipped it and put a set of headers and exhaust on it. When it shifted gears I would get a squeal. I`ve seen a number of people with the same problem and a $28 belt fixed the complaint.