What could I use to clean the engine so it doesnt have that corroded look to it? The metal looks blotchy and dirty but when I try to wipe it off with something nothing happens...the rest of the car still looks beautiful except the engine block. I did the hoses and lines so those are pretty clean I just dont know what to do about the block. Heres a pic of what I mean...

get a metal wire brush and clean it off with that.

S.O.S soap pads first, with verry little water around that area and rinse thouroughly then a metal cleaner/polish, comes out great look at my profile.

This post has been edited by zero07: Jun 30, 2008 - 7:36 PM

i took the valve cover off my 7afe put a bunch of simple green on it and let it sit for a bit and got some stuff off with that. Then i just did what tiga said and took a metal wire brush and went to town on the valve cover.

On my old Celica with a similar engine and I purchased a valve cover from a wrecker, a bottle of degreaser liquid from an auto parts store & a can of engine enamel spray paint from a hardware store & a dishwash brush from the supermarket, in total costing about 2 boxes of beer.

I filled a bucket with boiling water and half the bottle of degreaser liquid, dunked the valve cover in and scrubbed the front and back getting as much oil & crud off as possible.

I repeated this step two more times using the last two quarters of the degreaser bottle & leaving it to soak afterwards aswell. Those odd metal colours wont change but the oil sludge from the bottom was lifted and grease stains from messy mechanics were taken off the top aswell.

After this is all clean and dry I stuffed & masked the Oil Filler & Spark plug holes aswell as the PCV Valve & Vacuum Nipple. Over the course of 4 days I gave it 3 coats per day of engine enamel, here was the result:





This post has been edited by delusionz: Jul 1, 2008 - 6:16 AM

or pay 55 sent it to get it powder coated just like mine....


http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showto...80&start=80

Powder coat makes a nicer colour but yours looks very rough compared to mine

Looking at the pics on that page the powder coat doesn't appear to conceal scratches and inconsistencies in the metal, But the colour comes out awesome and also on the plus side powder coat & oven bake goes on stronger than paint and wont get chipped off

I used a product called Autosol on mine - you can get it from eBay and it works quite well, good on your exhaust too if you have burnt on stains. However in the end i used heat paint to cover my manifold cover and enamel paint to cover my block:





Still a work in progress mind you

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Nice! How did you paint the block? Did you remove it, or did you cover up everything around it and paint?

I took the butterfly valve cover off to be sprayed black, but the block i sprayed in place - which was a bitch to do simply because of trying to mask off all the other parts/areas... worth it though for the results. You'll need a brush for the smaller and more hidden parts as overspray can be your enemy Under-hood is up next!

Btw, i do actually think the powder coating shown above looks great - its just the photo picking up reflective highlights that makes it uneven or whatever - it would look the nuts up close in person

What tools did you use to remove your ACIS manifold? Did you Torque the nuts? And if so what Torque setting did you use? Or did you do it by guess with a ratchet?

Just hand torqued them with a ratchet mate, if you miss-torque them and allow air into the ACIS you will know about it - idle will go nuts! Be careful not to get any paint on the gasket too tho of course.

This was a few months ago, but iirc they were 10mm hexagon flange bolts so the correct torque would be 29NM / 21ft/lbs as they are Class 4T i believe - could be off tho

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Cheers for the info,

10mm is pretty standard, would a small hand rachet be suffice to tighten it back up?, I like red manifold. Anything I should know before I go unbolting? Or just to remember what hoses go where and not to lose the bolts?

You've got it really, just remember which hoses go where when you take them off, be fairly meticulous with your masking so that overspray doesnt get into the ACIS or just all over the place in general. Plastic bags are useful for large areas of course, and yeah you're average ratchet tool will do you no problem. Oh and undercoat/primer for metals too, otherwise you may find that your prepared and degreased metal surfaces do not adhere to the paint.

Good luck mate, have fun!

This post has been edited by Vince-Noir: Jul 2, 2008 - 11:23 AM

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WOW, that looks really nice!

So after I read this post I tried to get my engine clean since it looked just as dirty as that engine in the first post :




This is after a couple of rounds with the s.o.s pads thingy :




Still want it even cleaner (if possible), what would be next step to make it even more shiny cause right now it's just clean and smooth to the touch but still far from shiny.

get aluminum oxide sandpaper,fine grit,pop that valve cover off , sand it down and use high temp motor paint and clean coat...and BAM...looks sexy!

This is what I ended up with, posting beginning to end pictures just so I can see the difference, could probably make it better if I used the machine but I'm just happy it doesn't look like in the first picture anymore. The first picture is obviously starting point, no idea how it got that bad really, second picture is after a round with the S.O.S pads (called Svinto here) and third I went a couple of rounds with Autosol on it.

need I say more?