Cleaning the engine..can it be pressure washed?

[Sniggle]

I would like to clean the engine on my G1900, as it has 1350 hours of dust and grime on it. Could I pressure wash it, or do I risk messing up the electrical et al?

 

[RalphVa]

Just washing with soap and water works fine. Use a spray nozzle on your water hose. I do it all the time. The main thing you have to worry about is leaving water to set inside spark plug wells. This (learned from experience) will rust out spark plugs.

Clean water inside your alternator will not short it out.

I WOULD NOT use a pressure washer. Gaskets on your engine aren't designed to withstand that kind of pressure. Pressure washers are often used as grown up toys. There are very few things that they do that cannot be done more safely with less (fuel) energy. Pressure washing a house, for instance, is more efficiently done with a plain pump up sprayer with Jomax solution in it. (Jomax is stuff that keeps the bleach in the solution from chalking the paint.)

If your engine is really grimey, either soak with kerosene first or wet and sprinkle dry or spritz wet detergent over the grimey areas and let sit. They rise off with a water nozzle.

 

[ray66v]

You can clean anything that can get wet, with a pressure washer. Some things require you to use care. Anything that has thin, or has soft materials can be damaged by the force of the water. In that case, use a wider nozzle, turn down the pressure, (if possible), and keep the nozzle further away than you would normally.

Almost anything can be damaged to some extent, with a pressure washer if used improperly. Always use caution on things you have not cleaned previously.

You will need some sort of degreaser to remove grease and oil first.

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

I've pressure-washed every engine - gas or diesel I've owned at one time or another. I even pressure-washed the pressure washer engine. If you have an adjustable nozzle, put it on the widest fan spray. Don't pressure-wash a hot engine. You could crack the block. You could also split the distributor cap if it is hot as well and cold water hits it. That happened to me once. Do it when it is not running. Put a plastic bag around the alternator and shove a bag in the air intake if needed.

Nowadays most engines have long ducted air intakes that make it almost impossible to get water in the induction plenum.

Use a degreaser first if necessary. You can mix kerosene with Gunk.

Careful with radiators or you may damage the core vanes. When done, use compressed air to dry off the engine.
Grab an oat soda, stand back and admire the clean engine.

 

[Egon]

I'm with Heywood only I use dish washing detergent and afterwards it's a barley malt for me!

 

[Bird]

For 30 or 40 years, I pressure washed the engines in my cars and pickups at coin operated car washes. In more recent times, I do it at home and I may use plain water, or I may apply Simple Green first and then rinse. And depending on how dirty it is, I may use only the spray nozzle on the garden hose, or I may use my Husky Powerwasher. And occasionally I've even used the special pressure washer detergent. When I was cleaning my tractors, I also had a spray gun to which I attached both the garden hose and the air hose from the compressor. I've never worried about the electrical stuff.

The only precautions I take are:
(1) I never hit a hot engine with cold water,
(2) I avoid spraying water into the air intake, and
(3) After washing I always run the engine long enough to get it hot enough to thoroughly dry it.

Of course, I'll never forget the one and only time an engine failed to start after washing. I washed the 350 cu. in. V-8 engine in my 1970 Olds 88 sedan at a coin operated car wash and then it didn't want to start. Some of you may be old enough to remember the little door on the side of the distributor that slid up to open and down to close. It was there to permit adjusting the dwell with the engine running. Well, I found that little door was open and I had filled the distributor with water. I used facial tissue we had in the car to dry it out and it started just fine, but I certainly made sure that door was closed from then on when I went to wash the engine.

 

[AndyMA]

I pressure wash all of my equipment from cars , lawn mowers up to my 44,000 lb excavator. Just remember that the pressure from a pressure washer drops of rapidly as you move it's nozzle away from what you're washing. It will definately cut out a gasket if you put it right up against one. Just apply a degreaser, (I also like simple green) and spray away.

Andy

 

[DK35vince]

I pressure wash the engine every time I wash the tractors.

 

[JayDavis]

I've washed an engine with nothing more than degreaser in an old water squirt bottle and a water hose. I had to clean out the rats nests and dirt buildup with my hands and water hose first.... I don't recommend this method, but it does work. If you knock off the big stuff, applying degreaser and washing repeatedly will work. Be sure to use an old squirt bottle.... that degreaser isn't very kind to the seals on them.