Engine cleanup without removing rotating assembly

[Nchristopherson]

So it's pretty well known to just not mess with the rotating assembly on these motors, but I want to do a thorough cleanup of my engine. It's torn down to the shortblock. I wanna degrease it and remove any grime, strip the old paint and give it a new fresh coat of paint. Does anyone have any tips for cleaning a short block without removing all the internals? I've seen a couple methods of covering the mating surfaces with newspaper or some sort of material to paint, but what about for possibly pressure washing it?

Thanks

 

[QUICKSILVER462]

For the outside of the engine, making sure all openings are covered or plugged to prevent dirt from getting inside the block, degreaser, scrapers, and nylon or brass wire brushes work well.
For the inside of the block, unless it is interfering with the normal operation of the engine like restricting oil drain back to the pan, personally I don't like to mess with it because whatever you loosen up can later get caught in the oil pump and oil passages and then into bearing surfaces.

 

[Scottydoggs]

best to have degreased it while it was a whole engine, but not to worry.

brake cleaner and a wire wheel on a drill will clean you up nice.

dont think its wired wheeled yet here, cleaning the 3mm of carbon off the pistons,

after the wire wheel, i laid the heads on and the lim no gaskets, or bolts, taped off the crank and primed it all as one.

then i went with yellow cause why not?

oil pan timing cover gasket and rear cover gasket were all replaced before painting. heads and lim got bolted up afterwards.

this is about a year later, its not perfect and clean no more, but still looks better then the stock old crap. i just washed it. tip i got for washing it was to use car wash soap, not degreaser. degreaser kills the finish and the shine.

 

[Nchristopherson]

Awesome, thanks for the info! One question, you mentioned cleaning the carbon off the pistons. Isn't there a risk associated with that? Something like a coating on top of the piston?

 

[Scottydoggs]

never heard that, i used a razor blade scrapper and a wire wheel then cleaned out the crap around the edges with brake cleaner and compressed air.

thats a na block i picked up, it was ran on 87 fuel its whole life and had a egr. the crud was thick, it had to come off.

this is my chipped piston l67 block with like 240,000 on it, pistons are pretty clean, that na engine only has 110.000 on it.

 

[Jdiding]

these pistons are not coated with anything that I know of, easy off oven cleaner will also clean the greese off the engine and eat the carbon off the pistons pretty easy

 

[Nchristopherson]

Awesome, good to know. Thanks for all the info

 

[coolone]

When I cleaned the carbon off the Pistons, I tilted the engine whereas the carbon would fall to the floor rather than into the space between the piston and cylinder wall. Maybe placebo effect, but I felt it didn't allow any dust, etc. Into the rings/walls. Honestly the only thing I would worry about is the deck, you don't want to use amything harsh that may scrape, scratch or damage block or head surface. I used as mentioned, scrapers, wire brushes, WD40 (great oil/grease remover) then simple green with lots of throw away rags. Just go slow and it'll get clean...