Thread: Engine cleanup without removing rotating assembly

best to have degreased it while it was a whole engine, but not to worry.

brake cleaner and a wire wheel on a drill will clean you up nice.

dont think its wired wheeled yet here, cleaning the 3mm of carbon off the pistons,



after the wire wheel, i laid the heads on and the lim no gaskets, or bolts, taped off the crank and primed it all as one.


then i went with yellow cause why not?



oil pan timing cover gasket and rear cover gasket were all replaced before painting. heads and lim got bolted up afterwards.

this is about a year later, its not perfect and clean no more, but still looks better then the stock old crap. i just washed it. tip i got for washing it was to use car wash soap, not degreaser. degreaser kills the finish and the shine.

never heard that, i used a razor blade scrapper and a wire wheel then cleaned out the crap around the edges with brake cleaner and compressed air.

thats a na block i picked up, it was ran on 87 fuel its whole life and had a egr. the crud was thick, it had to come off.

this is my chipped piston l67 block with like 240,000 on it, pistons are pretty clean, that na engine only has 110.000 on it.

When I cleaned the carbon off the Pistons, I tilted the engine whereas the carbon would fall to the floor rather than into the space between the piston and cylinder wall. Maybe placebo effect, but I felt it didn't allow any dust, etc. Into the rings/walls. Honestly the only thing I would worry about is the deck, you don't want to use amything harsh that may scrape, scratch or damage block or head surface. I used as mentioned, scrapers, wire brushes, WD40 (great oil/grease remover) then simple green with lots of throw away rags. Just go slow and it'll get clean...