Maintenance/improvements - 4.3/4.2

[CharlieFarlie]

My point is that there is a Great potential to cause damage/problems. Most Valeters will NOT power wash engines on any cars for fear of causing problems. All it takes is for one connection or sensor to take a little moisture and problems can rapidly occur.. My way is SAFE ok it may be a bit on the cautious side. Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

[jedi134]

Im sure modern engines can handle a bit of water.

All connectors are sealed, they have a rubber gromet that seals when fitted together. Like schm said these conectors are ip rated, just like your outside lights switches and plugs, as for any moisture left in the engine/connectors, I pretty sure that this will disperse in no time when on a run, these engine bays get very hot while the cars in use. Any water dropplets that are still hanging around will be quickly vaporised.

Even a Landrover Freelander can wade in rivers etc, and these have notoriously crap electrics. May not even be ip rated,?? I jet wash the ***** off my freelanders engine and it loves it.

Old cars with disbributors and points , then water may cause problems, but all you have to do is dry it out.

PCB circuit boards are cleaned in water, and as long as they as fully dried out before being powered up, does no harm at all.

[tatteam]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

[Davrav]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

Certainly no harm in 'belt and braces approach' though :D

[jedi134]

Absolutely. If your that worried about your pants falling down....:-)

No harm at all.

[CharlieFarlie]

Water if it gets onto connectors can percolate meaning it can stay moist within that connector and can cause problems !!

Guy if I'm honest I could not give a thruppeny F4ck if You choose to force water into Your engine bay and its delicate electronics Why should I . I wont be picking up the bill !!

My point and it seems its largely wasted is that it takes just a few minutes to take precautions that might and of course it is only a Might just save You a fair wedge of Your hard earned coin......

Good luck with Your engine cleaning and detailing I'm all for it !!!

Charlie.

[shcm]

Perhaps if we all calmed down a little and read back through the post, we can take a more measured view.

Anch's maintenance post has been on here a fair while. Over 3 years in fact. As far as I remember, there have never been any complaints in open forum about damage as a result of following what he described.

If you read carefully, Anchs does make the point of not dwelling on any of the things like ECUs and connectors, which is a reasonable approach to take.

However, as I've said further up the post, the under-bonnet ECUs and connectors are usually specified by most vehicle manufacturers to take this kind of short term "abuse", with a pressure washer, plus all the other moisture ingress associated with normal climatic change. (In fact, I was chatting to one of my colleagues, who is over seeing an ECU verification programme, a few days ago, about a suitable substitute for a detergent a certain French car maker had specified for the pressure washer test). It probably sounds big headed, but, I'm in a position to know - ECU design is my day job.

Yes, water can get sucked up a connector. It's one reason why the vent is there as I said earlier.

Yes, water in an ECU is not great. Particularly with the fine lead pitch of modern components - water across chip pins can be (but not always) troublesome. It's why very often a coating is applied to under-bonnet ECU PCBs and the components.

Yes, you can't apply a coating to everything. You have to take it on a case by case basis (that's part of Engineering after all). An active cruse control / auto emergency braking radar antenna, formed by an array of patch antennas for instance, would be severely compromised by the addition of a coating. At such a high frequency (24GHz or 76GHz for auto radar), the losses added by the coating would be too great for it to function properly.

Cleaning PCBs with water - Yes it does/did happen. "No Clean Flux" is preferred where possible these days, so that again, if possible, no cleaning has to take place.

Taking extra care by adding "water proofing" is probably fine. Not adding extra "water proofing" is probably also fine. The VMs and their component supplier slaves have however thought about such things at great length.

"Delicate Electronics" - anything delicate in auto electronics is usually well protected. Anything coming out to pins is certainly well protected, but mistakes can happen - the Engineers are only human (well, some are!).

[bluevortex]

I never felt the need to wrap connectors when engine cleaning. However, I don't pressure wash it. Like Charlie says warm engine slightly, apply degreaser, 101, APC whatever - agitate with brushes and hose off (low pressure). Leave running, apply aerospace 303. Done this for years, never had problem.

Blue

[jedi134]

Every things good in modderation!!

[anchorman]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

Here here!

CF - if you look right back to my original post you will see that I do state that you shouldn't dwell on connections and components so you seem only to be confirming what was already said. I make it quite clear that the connections are weather proof and not water proof.

[CharlieFarlie]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

Here here!

CF - if you look right back to my original post you will see that I do state that you shouldn't dwell on connections and components so you seem only to be confirming what was already said. I make it quite clear that the connections are weather proof and not water proof.

Mate I did read it !! All I was trying to do was hopefully prevent anyone from coming to grief . I have seen the damage that can be done when using high pressure power washers !!

At the end of the day and Im repeating Myself Here. You either take precautions or You don't. I have been into detailing for many many Years and have seen several People come greatly unstuck believing that the electrics on their car are waterproof. OK some cars will be more vulnerable than others. Me ?? Im not taking any chances...

[jedi134]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

Here here!

CF - if you look right back to my original post you will see that I do state that you shouldn't dwell on connections and components so you seem only to be confirming what was already said. I make it quite clear that the connections are weather proof and not water proof.

Mate I did read it !! All I was trying to do was hopefully prevent anyone from coming to grief . I have seen the damage that can be done when using high pressure power washers !!

At the end of the day and Im repeating Myself Here. You either take precautions or You don't. I have been into detailing for many many Years and have seen several People come greatly unstuck believing that the electrics on their car are waterproof. OK some cars will be more vulnerable than others. Me ?? Im not taking any chances...

I`d have to agree here.......................................

Especially with the engine you have installed in you rav..............I`d be frightened to take the oil filler cap off incase of engine failure, or even worse a rain drop my fall in there. ;)

[CharlieFarlie]

Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Charlie,

On this forum we are not legal advisors, but we ONLY share our opinion so to try and help others through our experiences. So everyone then takes his own risks and not to blame anyone if things go wrong.

My point is that if engine compartment and all of its connections are in good condition, it's quite safe to power wash.

Here here!

CF - if you look right back to my original post you will see that I do state that you shouldn't dwell on connections and components so you seem only to be confirming what was already said. I make it quite clear that the connections are weather proof and not water proof.

Mate I did read it !! All I was trying to do was hopefully prevent anyone from coming to grief . I have seen the damage that can be done when using high pressure power washers !!

At the end of the day and Im repeating Myself Here. You either take precautions or You don't. I have been into detailing for many many Years and have seen several People come greatly unstuck believing that the electrics on their car are waterproof. OK some cars will be more vulnerable than others. Me ?? Im not taking any chances...

I`d have to agree here.......................................

Especially with the engine you have installed in you rav..............I`d be frightened to take the oil filler cap off incase of engine failure, or even worse a rain drop my fall in there. ;)

Thats very good that is mate ! With a bit of practice You could learn sarcasm........................

[voyager t180]

My point is that there is a Great potential to cause damage/problems. Most Valeters will NOT power wash engines on any cars for fear of causing problems. All it takes is for one connection or sensor to take a little moisture and problems can rapidly occur.. My way is SAFE ok it may be a bit on the cautious side. Or are You going to guarantee to pay if someone takes Your advice ?? Play safe it only takes a few minutes extra.

Doing mine next week and just took a quick peek at this thread.

As said 95% of the time power washing should be ok..

But I might one of the 5% where it goes pearshaped..so why take the risk.

With you on this one charlie.