Engine degreasing options?

We finally finishing tearing down the engine in my wife's Hawk this weekend. Now we're ordering parts and cleaning stuff up so we can re-assemble.

The engine, being 20yo, with a couple oil leaks, and with it being kept outside before she bought it, is filthy. The area in the V between the two cylinders is downright disgusting.

What's the best way to remove the built-up oil+dirt?

We've done a fair bit of scrubbing by hand with dry rags, and then switch over to Simple-Green for the final clean-up, but that's a lot of work.

I have a small amount of Energine, but Triclorethane is very potent, and somewhat dangerous stuff to work with.

 

Simple green came up with a new cleaner/degreaser for vehicle applications. I had a recent situation like yours with an old CB900F and I saturated the thing with this new simple green variant, let it sit, hosed it down. Repeated a few times and used a pretty strong jet of water. It was pretty clean after. I then used meguiars soap and hand washed and it was about as good as it would get.

 

I'm leery about hosing anything down, as we've got it fully apart, and bearings are exposed. I plan on lubing everything with oil as we put it back together, but I'd rather not flush stuff out of bearings and off bushings with water if I can help it.

I plan on going through a lot of red rags, though...

 

I'm stupid. I failed to recognize that the engine was in pieces!

On the aforementioned CB900F, I used plenty of shop towels to wipe most of the surface gunk off but didn't do much else until things were reassembled.

I have thought about buying a parts cleaner station but have never got around to it.

 

only things i can think of is a mechanic that would let you use his solvent tank for a small fee. or kerosene and old paint brush might be ok then a good air down with an air compressor

 

Cleaning Your Dirty Girl

If you have a shop, go to that auto store and buy an open top drain pan; the bigger the better. Get your self a half gallon of Kerosene and a stiff but narrow brush that will fit in your V- valley. Plop the engine in the pan and start scrubbing. You will end up with what equates to an environmental disaster no matter what cleaning agent you use, so be prepared to dispose of the waste in a reasonable matter. I usually mix it in with my used motor oil and slowly add it to the Quicky Lube disposal system.
Q.L.: "Is it just used oil?"
SS: "Of yeah, just plain oil that I bought just to give you for free"

(My grandpappy used to pour it over the stream bank but the streams aren't what they used to be and they can't handle it anymore. I guess they don't build them the way they used to.)
WEAR GLOVES! CHANGE THEM OFTEN! Go to the drug store and buy a big pack of vinyl gloves that fit all hand sizes. You will love eating your cheeseburger and not having it taste like Saudi Arabia. Kerosene will soften the gloves slowly so if you change them often you won't get any solvent on you dainty hands. The Kerosene will loosen anything that is oil based so it does a good job. Remember to smoke as many cigarettes as possible while you do the job and of course have an open flame close by just in case. I love to do my de-greasing by candlelight.

 

degreasing

Simple Green concentrate in the pump bottle and a dish brush will do it. Spray, scrub, wash and dry.

Did it, worked.

Larry

 

Having a shop do it is best option, I think. they'll let it soak and absolutely every speck of grease will be gone. trust me when I say it is easier for them to clean up their mess than it is for you to clean up your own......

 

engines should be thoroughly cleaned and degreased BEFORE disassembly

i often use Go-Joe handcleaner and toothbrushes, then simple green, then water to flush all off.....

 

We did the crankcase halves today (this a Hawk GT, with Left and Right crankcase halves).

Simple green, paper towels, q-tips and a soft wire brush.

Simple green + towels did most of the work, with the SG loosening up stuff, and the q-tips for the corners in the webbing of the castings. The soft wire brush was for the front of the case, where it's picked up a lot of road debris over it's 20 year and 70K+ mile life.

A solvent bath would definitely have been easier, but it took about an hour to do each. My wife and I sat down on a makeshift extra bench in the garage, and swapped between cleaning and scraping off the old hondabond and gasket material.

It took us about 4-5 hours today to clean up the halves, and get the transmission re-assembled. Clamshell is such a stupid design vs. top/bottom halves. At least when it comes to working on them. I'd have much rather pulled the bottom end off, and then had bearing caps like the V4 has vs. the "stack the mainshaft, countershaft, shift-forks and shift drum and drop all 4 shafts into the left case as a unit, without dislodging any of them" method the hawk requires.

Unfortunately, as we went to test-assemble the cases, we noticed that the mainshaft and counter-shaft bearings in the right case have debris in them (crunchy when spun by hand), so those are getting replaced. No idea if we introduced it cleaning them, or if it's been in there for a while. There was a lot of crap down in the sump when we popped this poor thing open.