Diesel engine cleaner

What do you all use to clean your engines? What are the best results and what do I need to look out for?

http://picasaweb.google.com/m/viewer#photo/CSMckillip/5405606617022603825/5430887646435156530

Simple Green

Depending on the amount of grease and grunge either straight or diluted.

This is of course for the outside!


Guy

Guy Stevens said:

Depending on the amount of grease and grunge either straight or diluted.

This is of course for the outside!


Guy

Click to expand...

Reading the thread on bilge cleaner is simple green corosive to metal, aluminum? You can see in the photo it's covered with oil and grease.

I am going to try the bilge buddy in our bilge area.

Another question

Is your bilge pump and float connected directly to the main switch? Direct to battery with fuse, or on the panel?

Thanks in advance

CSMcKillip said:

Is your bilge pump and float connected directly to the main switch? Direct to battery with fuse, or on the panel?

Click to expand...

The factory setup in our boat is to have a dedicated breaker on the main DC distribution panel for the Bilge Pumps.
Since I do not like having any more wires direct to the battery bank than needed, I like this.
Each bilge pump then has the stock Rule switch plate with the indicator light and a bat handle switch for on-off-instant on.

Loren

Don't soak the engine in simple green

The long answer is on the simple green web site. The short answer is don't soak metal parts in it for long periods of time.

Wash the engine with simple green, rinse well with HOT water, Rinse again with HOT water, then run the engine until it reaches operating temperature. This will dry the engine.

Bilge Bully, is great, but it is emulsifier that requires soaking for a period of time. Not easy to accomplish on the engine! They cleaners are opposites, Simple green should not be left to soak on anything, and bilge bully must be left to soak.

You can also get aluminum safe Simple Green called extreme Simple Green which is made for aircraft aluminum cleaning. It does a good job, but not as good as regular simple green on boat engines.

From the Simple green Folks.
Emphasis mine

"Dear Lennard,
My name is Denise Dochnahl and I work for Simple Green. I’m writing because I recently read a posting about someone leaving his bike chain soaking in undiluted Simple Green for five months, and then having the chain disintegrate on them. I also read that something similar happened to someone else, after having left his chain in undiluted Simple Green for just two weeks.

I have received comments from other bicycle enthusiasts that have tried a new Simple Green product on their bikes and bike parts, and have had great success with it. The product is a little bit different – it was designed specifically for the aircraft industry, and has heightened non-corrosive properties. It has passed Pratt-Whitney specs and Boeing specs, as well as other testing protocols. This is very likely a much better product to use for the applications I read about on VeloNews.

While Original Simple Green is an excellent all-purpose cleaner/degreaser, it was not designed for long-term storage of bike chains or other parts. While we stand by the efficacy of the product, and believe it to be an excellent cleaner for bikes and bike parts, we feel we must stress the importance of using the product according to the label instructions. Under no circumstances should anything be stored in any formula of Simple Green.

The new product, called ExtremeSimple Green Aircraft & Precision Cleaner, has heightened non-corrosive qualities, making it perhaps more suitable for high-tech bike alloys, painted surfaces, rubber and plastic parts. To date we have only promoted this product in the aviation industry. If it turns out to be better for bicycles and bike parts as well, then we’d certainly like to let people know about that.
Denise Dochnahl
Marketing Specialist
Simple Green"

I can't see your photos, because the link does not link to them directly, but I have cleaned a number of really bad specimens this way without issue.

Guy

As an avid cyclist I was aware of the case where someone soaked their chain in Simple Green for months at a time, only to have the chain fall apart. Soaking even stainless steel for months in a non-agitated non-aerated aqueous solution would be a dumb idea, let alone the mild steel of a bike chain. I do use Simple Green to clean my bike chains, but I only soak them for 12 hours - not 5 months.

As for the engine, I too have just used full strength Simple Green Industrial, sprayed onto the surface, with very good results. I typically kept spraying for several minutes to keep wetting the areas that are really dirty, let it stand for 20 min, then wipe it down with clean rags. I would follow up with a fresh water spray, with another wipe down. In my case I did this every fall after about 100 hours of engine time.

What about this stuff Marine Clean? Seems like I read somewhere that this is good stuff, too:

http://www.por15.com/MARINE-CLEAN/productinfo/MCG/

Anyone here have any experience with it? I was thinking of using it on my engine sometime...

mherrcat said:

What about this stuff Marine Clean? Seems like I read somewhere that this is good stuff, too:

http://www.por15.com/MARINE-CLEAN/productinfo/MCG/

Anyone here have any experience with it? I was thinking of using it on my engine sometime...

Click to expand...

It is a very good cleaner, but it MUST be used as directed, which includes a thorough rinse, and it is something to handle with care - you really do need to wear goggles and gloves when working with it.

In general, I have found the POR-15 products to be very good and have used their metal prep and paint products regularly over the years.

Bilge cleaned

We were at the boat all day yesterday, Chris and I cleaned the hull and the girls were inside the boat cleaning the bilge. I have to take my hat off and give a huge thanks for all the work the girls did. They started off with the photo below.



as you can see the area under the floor is covered with dirt, oil, and god knows what else. They spent 3 hours cleaning and scrubbing this area of the floor. Here are more shots of what they had to clean.








here are some after shots, they first filled the bilge up with water and the Simple Green, they used a gallon of water to a cup of the cleaner, they then removed any wood that was from the bottom of the plywood floor out of the water and let everything soak for around 20 min. They then took the water out of the bilge by our handy wet dry vac.

We were having a broblem with the manual pump and Kim my wife hooked the vac. Up backwards and blew all kinds of stuff out the thru hull into a bucket, way to go Kim. Here is the after photo, we will be cleaning the motor next weekend as the floor will be installed in the next week.