On Sunday I started cleaning the 14 years of muck out of my Vento's engine bay but I have a few questions:
1. Any de-greaser recommendations? A lot of surface dirt came off with water and some elbow grease but there is a layer leftover on most things that won't budge, plus some greasy spots in general.
2. What can I use to restore black plastics? The black plastics like the belt cover and airbox are very faded and scratched. After I got the mud and dirt off them they look more grey then black. I wanted to ask before using any normal back-to-black techniques like boiled linseed oil in case there would be problems with them and the heat of the engine bay.
3. How can you restore the black on rubber tubing? I wiped the dirt off some coolant hoses but like the plastics they are more grey than black now. Any way to get them darker other than replacing everything?
4. Any other tips?
I didn't make much progress with water+scrubbing other than the strut towers changing from brown-grey to a glorious metallic red
