Heavy duty engine degreaser

[travis]

I’ve got a couple of seriously nasty engines here at home that I am preparing to go to the machine shop. Both look like had been leaking everywhere for a very long time and have huge amounts of baked on crud all over them. I’ve tried 3 different spray can degreasers but all they seem to do is clean only the lightest, thinnest crud. Any recommendations for something to help cut through the seriously nasty thick stuff? They don’t need to be perfect, but they need to be clean enough that the machine shop doesn’t open fire at me when I drop them off.

The car wash is out of the question right now since my trailer is tied up.

[BigBlockMopar]

I usually roll or hang those 'bay-fresh' engines over a cut-open cardbox and poke around with a large screwdriver and a steel wire-brush to get the thick and dry crud loose enough to fall off.
Terpentine or thinner will soften the crud, but gets messy real quick.
A few cans of Brake clean will usually wash a lot of the remains away.

[BillK]

Travis,
Call your machine shop and ask them how they want them. Some of the DIY chemicals can play havoc with hot tank and spray wash chemicals so you might be making a problem instead of helping them out. I would scrape as much off as you can and let them do the rest.

[emsvitil]

Drip pan

Oil Eater (It's concentrated, mix with water) in spray bottle.

Old tooth brush.

[travis]

Travis,
Call your machine shop and ask them how they want them. Some of the DIY chemicals can play havoc with hot tank and spray wash chemicals so you might be making a problem instead of helping them out. I would scrape as much off as you can and let them do the rest.

I didn’t think about that. I guess I better call them tomorrow

[Dave Koehler]

Travis,
Call your machine shop and ask them how they want them. Some of the DIY chemicals can play havoc with hot tank and spray wash chemicals so you might be making a problem instead of helping them out. I would scrape as much off as you can and let them do the rest.

I didn’t think about that. I guess I better call them tomorrow

I agree with this and wish to point out that you will be paying the shop to properly clean these parts anyway so why spend extra time and money?

[travis]

Travis,
Call your machine shop and ask them how they want them. Some of the DIY chemicals can play havoc with hot tank and spray wash chemicals so you might be making a problem instead of helping them out. I would scrape as much off as you can and let them do the rest.

I didn’t think about that. I guess I better call them tomorrow

I agree with this and wish to point out that you will be paying the shop to properly clean these parts anyway so why spend extra time and money?

I’ve been doing business with this shop for a few years now and they have been pretty good to me...their work is good, prices are reasonable, and they have went above and beyond for me more than once, so I try to make things easier for them when I can.

When I called this morning they told me pretty much the same thing...knock the big chunks off and bring it it. He said they prefer to clean everything themselves because then they know what’s going in their parts washers.

[Dave Koehler]

A story on how the best intentions and the goal of making money can cost a small fortune.
I had a restaurant owner bring by some grease trap filters for cleaning.
Seemed like easy money.

Not so much.
A few minutes later one of my employees yelled.
The jet cleaner, to which just got cleaned and fresh chemical the day before was now foaming like a raging volcano up, out and all over the floor.
AND it was not stopping.
All we could do it squeegee it like mad toward the drain.
It turns out animal grease is not compatible with the jet cleaner soap we used.
Who knew?

It gets better.
I call the guy and tell him we failed to clean the filters.
He came by to pick them up and proceeded to berate me in a not nice manner for misleading him about our capabilities.
I calmly walked him back by the cleaner where the guys were still moping up...
explained the problem and the overall non profit cost I just incurred
and THEN I went up on the tire!

Sometimes you just have to vent and fire a customer.

[Kevin Johnson]

The animal fat is saponified with the high pH cleaner, et voilà !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponification

[GRTfast]

Sometimes you just have to vent and fire a customer.

That is the truth. I used to manage a motorcycle dealership in my former career. Fired a few customers. You always know when it's time. Rare, but necessary.

[Walter R. Malik]

I’ve got a couple of seriously nasty engines here at home that I am preparing to go to the machine shop. Both look like had been leaking everywhere for a very long time and have huge amounts of baked on crud all over them. I’ve tried 3 different spray can degreasers but all they seem to do is clean only the lightest, thinnest crud. Any recommendations for something to help cut through the seriously nasty thick stuff? They don’t need to be perfect, but they need to be clean enough that the machine shop doesn’t open fire at me when I drop them off.

The car wash is out of the question right now since my trailer is tied up.

Way back a long time ago, I bought a small home pressure washer from Harbor Freight just for that purpose

[zico]

Sometimes you just have to vent and fire a customer.

That is the truth. I used to manage a motorcycle dealership in my former career. Fired a few customers. You always know when it's time. Rare, but necessary.

Agree!

[dwilliams]

A cheap Harbor Freight pressure washer does wonders for removing general crud. For $79, it doesn't take long before it pays for itself.

[pdq67]

Since Methylene Chloride had been banned, I would try a gallon or so sized can of Berrymann's carb cleaner with basket in it for starters.

Rubber gloves, a good stiff brush, putty knife and a wire brush and go.

I used a used bucket of the stuff when I was a kid to degrease the old junkyard 232" Stude. V-8 I put in my '52 Willys Areo Eagle car back then and didn't use rubber gloves and three days later lost all the outer skin on both hands!

Nasty crap to say the least!

pdq67

[Kevin Johnson]

I sold specialty chemicals to automotive products compounders across the western United States for a number of years. One of my fellow salesmen was a compounder before he was hired and he knew of plenty of unadvertised accidents where people without a practical chemistry AND compounding background came near to or did result in fatalities.

BEFORE you start playing around, ask a _KNOWLEDGEABLE_ chemist what could go wrong. If you don't, your lifetime could be a period of acute intense pain and death or you could live out the balance with intense chronic pain. It really does happen.