Engine Rebuild Cleaning Process, Need some advice please! Options

[Aayala]

Good evening y'all,

Making some progress on my 914 1975 1.8L project and I was wondering if anyone had some workflows or do's and don'ts of how to properly clean the engine case and parts? I work a full time job and only have some time at the end of the day or maybe on weekends (hopefully more soon been insanely busy with life) to get to working on this.

I think I am in a "analysis paralysis" stage where I do not want to do something to the engine where it will ruin it. My big concern is using a wrong cleaner, leaving it too long, not properly following steps that might cause some damage or rust to the engine case itself. And dealing with both steel parts and aluminum parts I want to make sure to get the proper products for both. I am planning on maybe sending this to a machine shop but need to get it pretty clean prior to that. I also was wondering if I should take all of the head studs out of the case from both sides to clean it? Any resources or if someone has done this would be greatly appreciated!

I was thinking of soaking it in a plastic tote with the simple green hd pro degreaser and then scrubbing to get most of the gunk off, rinsing off with water and possibly break clean, then drying either with a leaf blower or getting my hands on an air compressor and maybe applying some wd40 or engine oil to prevent any rust? I also do not know how long I will be working on this so if there is a proper way to store it while I do this work that would be great.

Appreciate any advice you might have! Pics of the current state of the engine case for reference.