Hi! I have been reading the detailing article a lot lately that is on the front page and decided to degrease the engine and shine it up. I used grease lightning, soaked the engine with it, misted it off with a light rinse as described in the manual and now I have drip looking streaks marks on the intake manifold. Will a metal polish take that out and if so what should I use? Also the Honda V-tech plate lettering seems to be cloudy now as well, how do I fix that? The degreaser did not even have 2 minutes to sit. I rinsed it fairly quickly with great results except the streaks. Then I toped the engine off with Gunk brand engine dressing. Please help...

Thanks,

Jon

 

Hmmm . . . this could be caused by several things. Were the streaks there before or after you applied the Gunk?

The reason I ask is I'm not aware of an engine dressing made by Gunk. I've only ever seen Gunk degreaser. I think the Gunk degreaser is called "Engine Brite." So, I can understand your cunfusion. You may have sprayed your engine with more degreaser and then let it dry. This would explain the streaking and cloudiness.

 

and was the engine cool?
the symptoms are typical of a warm engine with engine cleaning products... (dried too quickly soundls like to me)

and as mikeyc mentioned, there are other things that can cause your symptoms- the warm engine is just my first guess.

 

The engine was cool. The car had been pulled out of the garage and had not been used that day. Yes, Gunk is the brand and it is called finishing touch. Safe for paint metal etc. The only engine dressing that I could find in stores. And it was very hard to find. I couldn't find meguiers, CD 2, nothing.

I really don't think that those streaks were there ahead of time, but not sure. I would have surely noticed though. I have detailed the engine before by hand vs. spray. I followed the directions exactly as stated in the Noreaster manual. The degreaser did not have time to dry because I almost immediately rinsed it off thouroughly. Then ran the engine for ten minutes then dried by hand.

So what can I use to polish this stuff out? Please tell me that it will come out. This will drive me nuts.

Thanks!

Jon

 

Hmmmm . . . I checked Gunk's website and couldn't find the product you mentioned. Let's move forward assuming the Gunk dressing did not cause the streaking.

So, am I correct in assuming the streaking was there after you sprayed the degreaser, rinsed, and dried the engine compartment?

Here's what I'm thinking . . . some cleaners like Simple Green have been known to stain metals. Greased lightning may be one of these cleaners as well. Alternatively you may not have rinsed all the cleaner off the engine before starting it up. This may have caused the streaking as well.

I recall a recent thread on one of the detailing forums I frequent where someone had a similar issue. I'll try to find it and see if he was able to correct the staining. If I can't find that thread I'll try to help you come up with a solution.

 

Well after looking at several pages of threads on multiple detailing forums, I was unable to find the thread I was referring to. So let's try to fix this ourselves . . .

First thing I would do is try some QD and a towel to see if that evens out the finish.

If that doesn't work, try washing the engine bay with car wash soap & water.

If that doesn't work, try some Gunk Engine Brite (engine degreaser).

If that doesn't work, try some paint polish. Most of your engine parts are not bare metal so don't use a metal polish.

Any time you put a cleaner on your engine make sure . . .

-The engine is 100% cool.
-You have wet down the engine compartment first to aid in cleaner dispersal.
-You agitate the cleaner either with a brush or towel. Just spraying on the cleaner and rinsing will often give you an uneven result.
-Make sure you have rinsed away all cleaner before starting the engine to dry the engine compartment.

Also, before you dress the engine compartment make sure it is as dry as possible. Dressings and water typically don't mix. So wherever there is water the dressing won't stick to the surface.

I've used the techniques in the book to clean many, many engines and others use the exact same technique. So, I know they're solid. I'm not really sure why you got a less than satisfactory result.