Clean Rally Car
by brian @ 12:33:25 - [perma-link]After the almost constant ribbing we get from the Rally America
scrutineers about our dirty engine bay, I finally cleaned. The last
time I cleaned it (I believe it was August 2007, right before the
Astoria rallycross), water leaked down past the spark plug wires and
caused some misfires. After we fixed the problem, I vowed to never
intentionally wet the engine compartment again. (I've also previously
screwed up the electrical system on my Defender using a high-pressure
water spray to clean out some caked-on mud, so I'm sort of paranoid
about wetting the engine). Last month at the Worker Sprints, the scrutineers pointed out all
sorts of things that they couldn't really see because of the dirt. I
mentioned the spark issues, and one of them offered a solution: put a
towel over the wires to keep water out of the holes. Brilliant! This morning I went to the carwash. I popped the hood, covered the
plug holes, and sprayed the whole engine bay with the engine cleaning
solution. Then I closed the hood and washed the rest of the car as
usual. When I was done with the outside of the car, I raised the hood
again and rinsed everything with LOW PRESSURE water (ie. don't squeeze
the handle). Then I wiped the top of the valve covers with the
towels. The engine is super clean now. When I got back home I wiped the dash with Armor All, making it
cleaner than its ever been since I've had it. On the outside, I
touched up some of the bigger scratches (and hammer marks from the
Idaho repairs) with red spray paint. Finally I replaced the damaged
stickers on the rear bumper (because stickers make ti faster ;). Now I just need to load up the tool bag and its all set to go on the
trailer. We leave for the Wild
West Rally in the morning.
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