How to use a Discussion Forum to Detail an Engine

Mike Phillips · 08-31-2009, 03:09 PM

How to use a Discussion Forum to Detail an Engine

Yeah, the title sound a little strange because when you think about detailing an engine your mind first goes to the chemical side of the equation, that is degreasers or all purpose cleaners, after that maybe brushes and pressure washers, you're certainly not looking at your thinking about your computer monitor and keyboard.

Discussion forums are powerful tools and there’s pretty much a specific discussion forum for just about every make, model and year or series of cars ever made. On these forums you’ll find the resident experts, or Gurus if you will, that will either have the answer to your questions or will know where to find it on their forum.

To find a forum for your car it’s pretty much as easy as going to Google, typing in the make, model and year of your car and then add the words discussion forum and hit the Enter key. After you find one that matches the vehicle you’re working on, go through the normal registration process and then read their Forum Rules.

It’s a good idea to do a little searching of the forum using some key words or read any Stickies in the relevant topical groups. If after you’ve invested some time searching and still haven’t come up with the answers you’re looking for then click to the appropriate topical group and start a new thread. Be sure to include the relevant information in both the title and the body of your message.

For tips on how to write a good title, see this thread,

How to write a good title for your thread

The reason you want to do this when you’re detailing engines is because engines and their related components change often and what was the norm for previous models might not be the same for new models. And as the old saying goes, better safe than sorry as some components if broken from a strong blast of water or harmed from a cleaning chemical can be very expensive to repair or replace. It doesn't take too many things to go wrong before you end up paying more to have something fixed or replaced and you lose any profit from the job.

Remember, discussion forums are your friends.

**the_invisible** · 09-26-2009, 12:13 AM

YES, thank you for pointing that out, Mike!

One has to keep in mind on older, higher mileage engines, their seals have shrunk and deteriorated to the point where they do not effectively seal the engine from oil. Instead the cruds and dirt on the engine act as a seal to prevent the engine from leaking. When people scrub off these dirt and crud from the engine, they remove the only barrier that is preventing oil from spewing out of places like the valve cover, oil pans, front engine covers, etc.

Also, there have been discussions that certain products used on door seals on certain a certain make and models of cars would lead to premature rubber deterioration. This was reported on the forum dedicated to that certain make and models of cars. When mentioning this on another forum, I got a couple of not-so-friendly responses.

The point here is... it is important to do a research on the type of cars being worked on before proceeding. Different makes or models of cars have different material compositions used in parts that respond differently to different products. A practical example would be the use of silica-based coolant in imported cars that have rubber seals that are guaranteed to fail prematurely if silica-based coolant is used.