I watched a guy hose off his motorcycle engine while it was still at operating temperature. He ignored all the warnings from those around and said he’s done it before. Likened it to steam cleaning…HA! We all heard the loud crack from the lower casting…
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I definitely wouldn’t hose off an air cooled engine. A water cooled engine that’s full of coolant and not overheating might be ok, but I wouldn’t do that either with any of my cars. 20 years ago I did pressure-wash my truck’s engine at the diy’er car wash, but not if it was overheating. I stopped doing that when it occurred to me it really wasn’t necessary, and had some risks.
Huge differential in temperature is never a good thing and carries significant risk. Consider too that in the “old days” blocks were quite robust for the most part. These days, they are made with the least amount of metal possible and that creates some relatively thin sections that would be prone to damage from a thermal mass with almost limitless cooling capacity (e.g. a flowing garden hose).
Many motorcycle engines have water cooling- two of mine do. I wouldn’t consider hosing off any engine with water that is significantly different in temperature than the item being subjected to it.
I agree, not worth the risk…
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