I never covered anything. Just don't loiter with the nozzle aimed at the dizzy or the alternator. I never had a problem.

It's a lot easier to clean everything if you just pull out the engine...

Ok, but seriously, it is. We were doing an engine swap this past weekend, and while the engine was out, we just pushed the truck into the driveway and proceeded to powerwash the whole engine bay, along with the new engine before we put it in. Now everything is back together and squeaky clean, well, for the most part.

now that would be overkill but would work really good

The best part was getting the XJ back into the garage. Between my brother and I, we couldn't get enough momentum to get it over the bump and up the slope into the garage. So we got my dad's 88 Caravan and an extra tire, backed the Caravan up to the rear bumper of the XJ, put the tire in between, and shoved the XJ back into the garage that way.

heck yeah it would be. I've already determined that if I keep my beater and drop a new engine in it, I might spend an extra X-number of hours, pull everything, and repaint it while I was at it :P

Speaking of engines... where do you get new heat shields for the inside of the hood? random, I know :P

You mean that nasty black stuff? I have no idea. Does it really even need to be there?

mine came with nothing on the underside of the hood. i don't think any of the jeep did except maybe the grand for noise or some thing

If I think about it I'll try to take a picture of the underside of my hood. There's this black fiberish stuff on the bottom side of it. It's coming apart in some places and I wasn't sure if it was ok to pull it off. We didn't have the fan shroud on when we first shut the hood after we got the new engine running and some of it was hitting the fan making a funny noise. We just tore that part out. I'm thinking if most didn't have it it won't hurt anything to take it out.

It's more of a sound deadener than anything else.

oh. hmm, good to know. My only other reference was my old 3000GT that had a heat reflector mounted to the underside of the hood and I assumed that the Jeep's was the same thing. Didn't realize it was just a sound deadener.

Wonder if that's BAD for heat, in this case?

time for some hood vents maybe

Well, I had mine steam cleaned back in Jan (Feb, maybe?). Hasn't shifted on it's own in "D" since.

Looks really clean, though.

Was that because of the steam though? ugh, that must suck

oh, and hood vents... are they safe in rainy climates? I'd be worried about getting too much water in (it rains INCESSANTLY in western Washington State) and hydrolocking my engine.

get some of the vents from the junk yard with the drip rails and you will be ok plus they face backwards so when moving they don't allow any thing in only hot air out

If you're worried about it, pull your plug wires then stick a ziplock bag over the distributor.