HOW D YA MAKE AN 84 COROLLA LOOK GOOD UNDER THE HOOD?

[ris4ray]

i want my Ol-Rola look good n "fancy" under the hood and if it runns better thats all good 2 what do i do? remember were talking from scratch here lol

[Ae92typeX]

Really depends how far you want to/is worth going.
To begin with make sure it is spottless- no oil, grease or anything anywhere. Then decide if you want to paint it/ the engine & maybe get some parts chromed or what ever.
If your going hard nuts either go to some car shows or get some car mags to get a few ideas.

[Lloyd]

Spray the living crap out of the engine bay with degreaser or carefully steam clean it or something to get rid of any oily bits, then take off bits you want to paint/chrome/whatever and go for it. Or if you want to start spending money on it, coloured hoses and things

[GOLDAE86]

The worst thing u could possibly do is spray degreaser and steam clean the living crap out of your engine bay.The degreaser and steam will get in to all the wiring, terminals, etc, etc and cause bad connections from here to kingdom come. U can degrease the areas required and then spray brakeleen over it, thats the best way.

[Inane]

safest method is a small toothbrush, and some hot -de-mineralised- water

start scrubbing, then polish.

[Lloyd]

Sorry, I should have said that clearer. Thats why I said steam cleaning carefully Any water near the distributor and plugs and it can take a fair while to get the car started again if the water doesn't go away. For areas with no electrics and things steamcleaning and degreaser shouldn't be an issue, even with electrics it shouldn't really do any harm if you're careful and blow it out afterwards

[Zak]

Well my 4age is horible with water, even going through decent sized puddles kills it.

Oh well, I'll get around to fixing it, the motors coming out soon to get front end fixed so I'll do it all then

[kingcorolla]

ye when i stem cleand my 2t-b (no efi) water stayed in my dizzy cap, leads plugs etc for ages. Its embarrasing driving when thers water in the ignition..
vrrrr--r-r-r--rrrrr-r-r-rrrrrrr---rr---rrr.


But u can steam clean it if you do it carefully, the boys at toyota do it all the time

[snwtoy]

Meh, take it to wash world, leave the engine running, hose it with degreaser. Let it soak while you wash the rest of the car, then high pressure rinse the degreaser off.

Take a can of crc with you, and some rags just in case you get water in the ignition lead holes/dizzy.

Works like a charm every time. I've done this to every car I own without a problem.

You can also take your rocker cover off and strip it with paint stripper, then paint it with one of the high temp spray paints from repco. That's always good. Then colour code other small parts the same.

Some nice gold battery terminals from dick smith are good.

A big shiny K+N filter or similar works wonders too.

[jeremiahnz]

You can also take your rocker cover off and strip it with paint stripper, then paint it with one of the high temp spray paints from repco. That's always good. Then colour code other small parts the same.

Do you need high temp spray paint for the rocker cover? I was told by car colours that you only needed it for exhaust or headers as the rocker cover doesn't get hot enough.

They also said that some of the high temp paint won't set properly unless the heat gets high enough.

[Ae92typeX]

Dont bother about the heat paint for the rocker cover. As long as the surface is all preped Properly it Should be fine. Ive only ever used the heat stuff for exhaust manifolds.
Like said above, if you do use spray degreeser then just have a can of crc and some rags for if it goes down the plug holes or into the distributor. Most of the engines I have done with the engine out the car but I have done several with it in. In these cases I used to use spray degreeser but found it took up too many cans- I switched and since then have used the 4l containers of drgreeser and applied with a pump spray bottle. Lots of scrubbing with an assortment of brushes.
If you are too cheap, mix a coupple of table spoons of laundry powder and sunlight into a bucket of hot water and scrubb with that. When built my mini up from scratch I scrubbed every part in that way and it came up mint- also when dry was sweet as to paint.

[kingcorolla]

ive got my own patented 5 step parts cleaning method
It works great, dont like to tell people much but here it is..

- first remove part and aply some good industrial paint stripper

- let paint stripper set, rub it in a bit, DONT RINSE OFF and add sum CRC to the thin layer of stripper

-then rinse, then a few good straight strokes of a wire brush

-then upgrade from a brush, to a cheap wire wheel from mitre 10, make sure its not too course.

-lastly rub in some good de-oxidizing metal polish, this REALLY makes the finish

the pic below is without the polish..and thers a few dirty fingerprints its hard to keep a good finish!
And the flash wasent to flattering on the finish

[snwtoy]

This with the help of procoat and numerous hours with degreaser, hot water and a toothbrush


kingcorolla: that looks mint! Where do you get the deoxidising polish from?

[ee904age]

Hehe I got the same car, but not brown. I made engine bay look better by sticking 4AGE in it.

[ris4ray]

snwtow thats almost exactly what i want!!!!

[snwtoy]

k, well the jazz breather tank is from cardwell racing supplies in Avondale, the yellow hose and brass fittings are from a hydraulic fittings place (enzed in manukau if I can remember right), rocker cover and intercooler pipe painted by procoat, battery terminals from dick smith, leads you can get just about anywhere..

Plus a lot of hardout elbowgrease