Clean up

Hello,
I just finished putting a new valve cover gasket on my seca and I was wondering how to clean off all the dirt and dried oil that is all over the engine. I also have a bunch of stains on the concrete floor of my carport, any tips on getting that stuff up?
Thanks

 

Not too sure about the gagage floor other than a pressure washer would do fine. For the engine I suggest Simple Green in the concentrated strength. Spray on and rinse off. Degreasers also work well but can harm paint.

 

Get up as much of the oil as you can with kitty litter, grind it in with the heel of your shoe and sweep up the dust. You can use EasyOff oven cleaner on the driveway. Leave it on there about 6-8 hours and hose it off with a very sharp stream of water.
BTY, you up for this Saturday? Or would Sunday be better?

 

kerosene and a small brush for the engine, but it's a mess
waterless hand cleaner (go-joe type stuff) for the carport, works wonders

 

I do cleaning in two steps. The result gets the whole bike so clean it looks like new.

Using a Miracle-Gro Brass Siphon that hooks-up to the garden hose fitting; I hook it up at the house, between the spigot and hose. The siphon draws-up concentrate and mixes it with the garden hose spray at a 16:1 ratio.

I mix-up a strong concentrate of Dawn, grease-cutting, dish washing liquid, to put the siphon's hose into, and direct the garden hose nozzle on the nasty parts to clean. The concentrate takes a few moments to mix with the water; but when it does it you're squirting a nice stream of Dawn on the greasy stuff.

While the Spray is working on the engine; I cut-back the flow and wash the bike with "Athletic Sock" washing mitts. It gets soapy and gets the bike nice and clean. I spray the sock-scrubbed areas off with more of the Dawn added spray and go back to give the nasty engine cavities another blast of Dawn ... rinsing-off what sat there and putting-on more to work while I prepare the next batch of concentrate.

Concentrate Number-2 is whatever my wife bought for the dish washing machine. Once the "Sparkling Action" of the dish washer concentrate rinses off all the hard-working Dawn ... I just let the concentrate run-out and rinse with plain water.

I know its lazy, and a shameless waste of her dish washer powder; but it works good, and I promised not to use any if it means running-out before the regular grocery shopping day.

 

I'll tell you what I did. I'll probably do it again.
If anyone knows that it's a bad idea, let me know.
I used one of those small wands that hook to your air compresser.
I has a tubes that drops into a sollution and blasts out of the end with the air.
Now for the iffy part. I used low odor mineral spirits. It really cleans.
I then run soapy water through it to clean off the spirits.
Didn't seem to effect any of the finish. Only sprayed grimy area and didn't let it sit long.
Probably wouldn't do it regularly.

 

hey rick, I do the same thing with the socks I use palmolive. It works great for cutting engine grease. its cheap and also good for stripping wax if you want to start with a fresh wax job. As for the concrete floor; roll up some alluminum foil and mix 1/2 gallon of white vinager, with a couple of good healthy squirts of dawn or palmolive dish soap and shake it up well. Poor onto floor and scrub with alluminum foil.

 

oh yeah!! dont forget to rinse off

 

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm going to get the junk in my driveway spotless.