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My C6 Kissing & Telling Question + A Bonus Inquiry
I bought my C6 used with 30K miles. I'm maybe the 3rd or 4th owner. She spent most of her time in Texas before landing in my garage here in Cali. I took off one of her engine covers only to discover she's a very dirty girl. (See attached photo.) My question is:
What could account for/what sort of environment must she have been dwelling in to accumulate such a shovel-load of dirt all over her coils, wires, & valve covers?
I can't imagine such an environment even existing locally.
So I cleaned her up a bit. First with compressed air, then brush + compressed air, then distilled water & compressed air, then Simple Green rinsed with distilled water and dried out with compressed air & concentrated leaf-blower-like-contraption air blown.
My bonus question is:
Am I on the right track here cleaning her the way I did, or should I leave well enough alone in the future? (See attached photo.)
Any & all responses welcome!!!
Thanks for the response. Good question. What kind of overly fastidious weirdo would use distilled water on the brutal filth under the hood?
Our tap water, which I use to rinse, is pretty hard. TDS > 650ppm, and I don't have a deionized water supply, so for final rinse, or something as small as engine bay cleaning, I rinse with distilled water to try and avoid water spots. In this case, an additional motivation is I don't want all sorts of calcium, or whatever, to accumulate in some hidden crevice, contributing to the overall detritus ensconcing the engine.
Do you have any idea what sort of environment could produce such a layer of caked on dirt? I mean, was this car buried to the top of her fenders in a mound of soft loam for years on end? Are Texas roads so covered in wind-blown dust from lack of rain that merely driving on regular roads for a few months causes dirt to adhere to every surface? Static electricity? Space alien influence? Witchcraft? I have an SUV with 160K miles, and a sedan with 185K miles on it, & both are cleaner than my C6.
Yeah, that's what I meant. "So I don't short nothin' out." I'm THAT clever. Thank you for helping provide some lucidity to my quasi-quixotic washing regimen!!! ;-)
Yup. You nailed it. Astute! Our water be so hard we use it instead of cement in construction. At least I've been told our 650-750ppm TDS is on the "hard" side and I'm trying to make my C6 cleaner rather than dirtier. Thanks!!!
And in answer to why all the crud under the covers it’s not surprising if it’s never been detailed under there before. Out of sight - out of mind. A surprising amount of grit accumulates under the hood in various places just in a days worth of driving on a highway. The only reason I would keep that area detailed would be if the covers were left off and some bling added in there. I’ll bet there’s a bunch of daily drivers out there that look worse than yours did. Nice cleanup job though
Oh, and to stir the pot a little for the OCD crowd, here’s some info: Despite its benefits, distilled water is particularly corrosive. With no minerals to give the water pH balance, distilled water acts like a magnet, absorbing chemicals (phthalates and bisphenols) from plastics, nickel from stainless steel, aluminum from aluminum containers, and carbon dioxide from the air. Seems counterintuitive, but a fact nonetheless.
To throw a theory out regarding your original question, I would say that the car was driven on a dirt road/driveway. If the person owned a ranch in Texas perhaps they had to leave the paved road to get to their house.
You being from SoCal, at least you know that it won't get that dirty again......with all those incredible CA regulations, taxes and fees you pay to keep your air a little bit cleaner than the rest of the country.
I don't like getting water on my engine, but in your case, it was really needed in order to get it clean.
Tip ... After washing the engine with soap and water, blow off all the excess water with a gas or powerful electric leaf blower ... it will blow 98% of the left over water off the engine and electrical components.
Leave the covers off.....its like a blanket over the engine....It will run five degrees cooler with them off and you can see the engine to help you keep her clean...
Drought heavy areas dry up the surface of the ground - this dried up area hardens - loses vegetation and becomes like concrete. In Nevada; it's known as Kalichi. When this Kalichi is broken up by whatever means - it comes apart as "poof" dirt; which is as fine as baby powder and will float and with desert winds find its way into every crevice, nook and cranny. This coverage is expected and par for the course for anything that lives in the desert (add in dust attracting plastics, oils and fluids and it becomes even worse).
The annual SHOT (shooting, hunting, outdoor trades) show is held in Las Vegas and uses a local outdoor range to demonstrate new firearms and ammunition to the attending press corp - they fight constantly with this fine dirt getting into the firearms over the few press days - now imagine a car underhood subject to that 24/7/365.
I bought my C6 used with 30K miles. I'm maybe the 3rd or 4th owner. She spent most of her time in Texas before landing in my garage here in Cali. I took off one of her engine covers only to discover she's a very dirty girl. (See attached photo.) My question is:
What could account for/what sort of environment must she have been dwelling in to accumulate such a shovel-load of dirt all over her coils, wires, & valve covers?
It looks like rodents built a nest under that cover and lived there for a wile. The prevoius owner probably discovered the nest and loosened and vacuumed out the debris but didn't go as far as you in cleaning the mess left behind as you did. At least there are no chewed wires. Was there any odor? Great job you did removing every bit of the evidence and making it spotless and like new again.
That looks like it’s been on the beach, sand gets everywhere. I need to clean up my engine bay and still deciding how to go about it. Appreciate your step by step clean up process.
I found 'pit run' (a mix of sand & red clay) under the hood of my, then, 1-1/2 yr old '13 GS. The woman that had owned it lived in Alabama.
You'd think that the Porsche dealer would have cleaned it better.
But the dirt had no effect on the car. It was a great GS. Kinda wish I'd never traded it.
12-25-2022, 08:27 PM
My C6 Kissing & Telling Question + A Bonus Inquiry
