hey .. i have an alpine white bmw ..
and i bought it used .. when i looked at the engine .. its REALLY dirty .. especially the strut towers ... they have this yellowish shit all over them .. i guess its from the heat .. is there any way to get this off .. so i can have white towers again >?:(

More than likely that is the "cosmoline" like stuff that is applied prior to shipping from the factory. During car prep all that crap is supposed to be cleaned off, and nowadays I think BMW does a better job at cleanup prior to the cars being sent to dealers. Some time ago (don't know how long) dealers were stuck with a lot more cleanup work. Anyway, it's probably baked on good by now.

Take it to a manual spray car wash, and on low pressure soak the whole engine good with soap. I would advise against using any engine cleaner spray except in small amounts on super greasy areas. Next go at it with high pressure soap then rinse well. Prior to doing this, use baggies and duct tape to seal off the brake fluid resevoir and any electrics that look susceptible (on my M30 engine that would be the distributor cap for example). You can hand wipe those later. Do not dwell on any areas with connectors or electronics, you can wipe those by hand. Hopefully it will start when you're done :-). You may want to go through this whole process again if it is really dirty.

After the engine compartment is dry, spray any throttle linkage, exposed throttle cable, and/or cruise control cable liberally with WD40 or equivalent.

Now if you can detach any mounted items in the shock tower area, you may want to try using something like mineral spirits and a thick terry towel with lots of rubbing to get off that yellow stuff. Keep switching to a clean part of the towel and fresh mineral spirits. If you're lucky to get the junk off, then use a cleaner wax to finish the cleanup job. Try the mineral spirits in a small area first to make sure that it's not too strong (I don't think it will be). Suggest that you wear rubber gloves and get plenty of ventilation too. My guess is that you may have a small chance of getting some of it off. On my 735, there was some of this stuff left on the valve cover when delivered, and it is baked on forever (will take bead blasting to get it off now) -- see yellowed area in pic below.

Now that the engine compartment is dry, take ArmorAll and spray it everywhere EXCEPT anywhere near the drive belt(s)! Keep WELL CLEAR of that area, perhaps using a large towel to shield the whole belt pulley area (that's what I do). I spray more ArmorAll liberally all over all of the rubber hoses and then towel rub them all. Then I spray it over everything else. Now I go back and wipe down any excess, and I also use a clean towel to shine the painted surfaces with ArmorAll. You may need to use two towels for this, one soaked in AA and one dry one. Don't worry about wiping it off in areas you can't reach, just spray them good and leave it. Especially soak any rubber grouments and let it soak in. When you're done it will look like this (this is a 1988 735i with 189,000 miles, the pic was taken last week):

http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/rdu/c/b/cbrans/pictures/735i/DSC00515.JPG

I don't profess to be any "sooth sayer" as to the above process. I am simply relating what I have done for over 20 years to my cars. I created this process myself, and it has worked for me. I'm sure there are many other methods for cleaning, detailing an engine compartment, so just take this as one person's experience that hasn't resulted in any problems and seems to work pretty good :wave: Let me know how it turns out!

Chuck

hmmm ... could i take it to a place and get the engine cleaned ... or no ?:rolleyes:

Sure there's a lot of detailers that use steam sprays.

do i have to be careful about them .. i dont wanna fuck up my engine ...

Of course. I'm sure they work on tons of cars every week.

But there's always a chance they mess up yours.

That's why most of us do things like this ourselves.:cool:

Originally posted by E\/O
they have this yellowish shit all over them .. i guess its from the heat .. is there any way to get this off

My car has this stuff all over the strut towers also. I scratched it with my fingernails and I was able to scrape some chips off but I would take a week to do it with your fingernails. I'm sure there is a better way to do it, ideally without scratching the paint beneath the coating.

I have the same problem on my car. I have taken it to a detail shop and the engine was steam cleaned. There is no problem with that process, if you take it to a reputable place they will not hurt your car. As for the yellow stuff, it won't come off even with a steam clean. My car is a 1990 and that yellow stuff is part of the car now. It actually seems more yellow afterwards because everything is shiny. I know a guy who has a 1994 3, also relatively old, but it has no yellow, so obviously it is not hopeless. I would however say that most of your efforst are going to be futile. Clean the engine, but be prepared to deal with the yellow because it probably will not come off. Sorry. I wish mine would come off too.

I have heard that the cosmoline yellow stuff can come off with I believe it is WD-40, however, I tried this, and had no luck. Who knows, maybe I mis-read what someone posted.... But that stuff was stuck on there damn good...