I tried to clean my engine bay this morning. I followed the instructions on the product, which said to avoid spraying onto wires and body painted panels. There wasn't enough of the spray left to clean it thoroughly, so let's just say that I didn't do a good job. The last part of the intructions said to rinse the engine bay with water and then turn on the car and let it idle for 15 minutes. I did so and right away I saw some white smoke coming out, which was presumably water vaporizing. About a minute later, a somewhat faint burning smell started coming out and I shut it off immediately. I drove the car about two hours later, and when I shut it off I got a hint of that burning smell. I didn't drive the car for the rest of the day until about an hour ago to come to work. When I got out of the car, I could still smell that faint burning smell. The car is running smoothly just as it always does and the temperature gauge stays at the center, just like it always does once the engine warms up. Is this a bad sign? Is there anything I should do? Please help me. I've never cleaned the engine bay so I don't know if that's a normal thing, but I'm not at ease knowing that that smell is coming out. I appreciate any and all help/tips/advice.

 

You're probably just smelling the cleaner burning off. The only real thing to worry about is the alternator, and they'll take quite a bit of abuse before giving it up. If it started and ran fine with no codes tossed... Drive it and enjoy it.

If you keep up with it, I simply use detailer to keep the engine bay clean. If real dirty, just soapy water and a rag and VERY light hosing off on the sheet metal. I rarely apply water to the engine (again, not really a problem except I don't wanna fill up the spark plug wells)

 

Cool, thanks. I hope it doesn't get anywhere past this. And yes, I'm definately interested in cleaning it up. I got the car on August 16, 2009, and this is barely my first time cleaning it (yes, I know, I'm horrible). Is there any specific brands you use?

 

Well I have a few comments to make, but before that, let me say that your car is almost definitely fine and like robs said, it's probably just the cleaner.

So now to my comments... The manual says to cover the intake, battery, and fuse box. Nothing else needs to be covered according to Ford, however, common sense says to also cover the alternator. I usually use old plastic shopping bags which seem to work well and fit well. As for cleaning the engine bay, you should use some kind of degreasing soap or cleaner. Make sure to let the car sit for around an hour until the engine is totally cooled off before spraying anything in the engine bay. Spray normal water at a medium pressure to rinse the engine off first, but be careful not to spray too hard. You could potentially force the water into a sealed component. Once the engine is rinsed out, spray your degreaser/soap/car shampoo and use a soft (boars hair) brush to clean just about everything that isn't covered. Be a bit more gentle around wiring harnesses, but otherwise, just go to town on everything you can reach. Once done brushing and cleaning, spray out engine bay again on a medium pressure. Try to make sure that all of the product you used to clean is washed away. Now it is time to dry out the engine bay. There are many different ways of doing it, you have to figure out which you like best. You could wipe it out with a towel first, which is what I do, or you could use some kind of blower (like a leaf blower) on a low setting to gently blow water out of nooks and crannies. Again, watch how hard it is spraying, you don't want to break any seals. You could also just start the engine and let it idle, but some people say that this could potentially warp some plastic under there. I don't know about that, but if you just let it idle, you will have alot of vapor coming off the engine. You will also likely have water spots on anything that doesn't get hot, like the radiator cover.

And by body painted panels, do you mean like the shock/strut towers and the firewall? Because those are absolutely ok to clean as well. Just like any other painted part on your car.

As for specific brands used, I like Adam's Polishes. I take the all purpose cleaner and spray down the engine bay with that, letting it sit for a minute (after rinsing the engine bay of course). Then I use my foam gun to soap up the rest of the engine bay, and get scrubbing with a brush.

 

Wow, thank you so much MustangFirstCar for taking the time to give me a clearly detailed way to clean the engine bay. I really appreciate that. And yes, by body painted panels I meant shock/strut towers and all those edges. Thank you so much.

 

Simplegreen is a great degreasing cleaner.

 

I'm gonna go to Target to see if they have any of those products. Thanks for the reccomendation!