Welp, I went ahead and cleaned everything out. Few comments:
I used simple green, which rocked. I reccommend this to everyone. I covered my airbox intake (since i am missing the 90 degree boot to the grille), my distributor, and any obviously exposed wires. I did NOT do this with the engine running. I probably should have. When i started the car up (after letting everything dry to the touch for about 4 hours) it ran like complete and utter crap. This was exacerbated by my faulty knock box (i have a new one coming in the mail thanks to Onepimpjetta). The exhaust sounded horrible, but I drove it around anyway. I drove about 20 miles, starting and stopping probably about 3 times and everything is about back to normal. I am about to go out again and see if any of my weird electrical problems have gone away. My alternator warning light and oil pressure warning light were going off the hook even though nothing was wrong, and after i restarted and drove around for a while it was cool. My temp. gauge in the center of the gas was reading 100% for a while, and that seems to be the only thing left wrong. Time to go check. ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Gabel To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2001 12:35 AM Subject: big mess under the hood - cleaning advice? Well, I'd ask you not to laugh but go ahead. When I was adding a half quart of oil to my 89 GTi 16v, I forgot to replace the cap. Well, I'd like to try to force myself to believe that it came loose on its own, but when I parked at the BART station in the morning and popped the hood to inspect the cause of some mysterious blue smoke the cap was sitting nicely on the manifold, mocking me. Anyway, as you have probably guessed, there is a huge oil mess in the lower side of my engine compartment. I'd like to assess the damage. * rubber hoses-- some have some oil on them. should I replace soon? * how should i go about cleaning this? is steam engine cleaning an option? Thanks, Mark
