Engine Rebuild Cleaning Process, Need some advice please! Options

[Aayala]

Good evening y'all,

Making some progress on my 914 1975 1.8L project and I was wondering if anyone had some workflows or do's and don'ts of how to properly clean the engine case and parts? I work a full time job and only have some time at the end of the day or maybe on weekends (hopefully more soon been insanely busy with life) to get to working on this.

I think I am in a "analysis paralysis" stage where I do not want to do something to the engine where it will ruin it. My big concern is using a wrong cleaner, leaving it too long, not properly following steps that might cause some damage or rust to the engine case itself. And dealing with both steel parts and aluminum parts I want to make sure to get the proper products for both. I am planning on maybe sending this to a machine shop but need to get it pretty clean prior to that. I also was wondering if I should take all of the head studs out of the case from both sides to clean it? Any resources or if someone has done this would be greatly appreciated!

I was thinking of soaking it in a plastic tote with the simple green hd pro degreaser and then scrubbing to get most of the gunk off, rinsing off with water and possibly break clean, then drying either with a leaf blower or getting my hands on an air compressor and maybe applying some wd40 or engine oil to prevent any rust? I also do not know how long I will be working on this so if there is a proper way to store it while I do this work that would be great.

Appreciate any advice you might have! Pics of the current state of the engine case for reference.

[Ishley]

I’m not a fan of the soak. Some of those cleaners can be caustic and it’s an aluminum case. You don’t want anything that could damage the sealing surfaces.

[bdstone914]

I think Simple green will darken the case. Dawn dish detergent will cut most of the grease and crude. Case sealant will need a stronger solvent or gasket remover. Hope you plan to replace the oil galley plugs so the galleys can be cleaned. Still takes a lot of hand detailing. Dome shops have a big parts cleaner with aluminum compatible cleaners. I use a VW engine and trans rebuild shop to clean cases. Gets 95 % of the cleaning done.

[Aayala]

I think Simple green will darken the case. Dawn dish detergent will cut most of the grease and crude. Case sealant will need a stronger solvent or gasket remover. Hope you plan to replace the oil galley plugs so the galleys can be cleaned. Still takes a lot of hand detailing. Dome shops have a big parts cleaner with aluminum compatible cleaners. I use a VW engine and trans rebuild shop to clean cases. Gets 95 % of the cleaning done.

Understood. As far as rinsing it off afterwards simply drying it off really well should be fine? No rust or anything should come after cleaning it correct?

And I hope I can do that when I send it over to the machine shop so they are able to do that for me. I have not found any cleaners near the Austin TX area that have that. Or not that I have found anyway.

I did have a follow up question about the galley plugs... Do these look like factory? or do these look welded? I have a receipt from when the engine was rebuilt back in 1990 and they had a line item for "weld all oil galley plugs" Looking at these pictures below does this seem like it will be a problem?

[930cabman]

Welded oil galley plugs, that's a new one for me. After 1/2 century of mechanics wrenching on these things, just about anything goes.

[Superhawk996]

Welded oil galley plugs, that's a new one for me. After 1/2 century of mechanics wrenching on these things, just about anything goes.

And someone paid for that DAPO (IMG:style_emoticons/default/stromberg.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) So basically some hack decided that he was too lazy to properly plug them and decided to screw any future rebuilder down the road. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ar15.gif)

Always remember that “professional” doesn’t mean anything other than someone got paid to do it.

To OP - you’re probably better off finding another used case. Otherwise you’re going to have to drill and tap the galleys that are welded and that isn’t as easy now because it’s harder to locate the center of the galley bore now that they are welded. Not impossible but it’s a lot of added work.

Rebuilding without cleaning the galley is a risk I would not take.

[Puebloswatcop]

Wow, Thats a first, I've never seen them weded in like that. If you decide to utilize that case I would certainly talk to your machinist about removing those and tapping the holes for threaded plugs. If the case is a good solid case otherwise, it might be worth the cost, but it probably won't be cheap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welcome.png)