Cleaning Undercarriage Suggestions (1 Viewer)

[twalker9480]

Like everyone else, after 24 years of leaks, mud, and Arizona dirt under my 80 there is a ridiculous amount of grime that makes it very hard to work down there and diagnose leaks. I've tried the do-it-yourself car wash many times with so many different degreasers and engine cleaners. After i realized i couldn't get it any cleaner that way i put on a pair of my snowboarding googles and crawled underneath with a scraper and a wire brush. I got a decent amount of crap off the bottom of the axle but i cant get any of the thick wet slime off of anything. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to get the cruiser really clean? I saw on other threads that some people take theirs older cruisers to diesel shops to get steam cleaned. Is this something you can do with the 80 series too? Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

 

[NV1971FJ40]

Yes! Find someone with a heated pressure washer. Or disassemble everything and clean and paint it.

 

[ZackR]

Take it somewhere for a steam cleaning.

 

[Tools R Us]

Engine cleaner (wally world cheap stuff works), spray, allow soak time, pressure washer. For low riders, ramps, stands whatever to make room.

 

[gummycarbs]

I got an amazing amount of buildup off using a Harbor Freight steam cleaner. I put some Super Clean (nasty purple stuff) in the tank with the water and spent hours using the scrubber tip, followed by a pressure washer rinse. I hit heavy buildup with a plastic paint scraper first.

If you have a local steam cleaner, it's definitely the way to go. They use a pressure washer that sprays extremely hot water. I wasn't able to find one in my area, so instead it was hours of gross labor. I'm pretty sure my driveway is going to be a Superfund site soon.

 

[twalker9480]

Engine cleaner (wally world cheap stuff works), spray, allow soak time, pressure washer. For low riders, ramps, stands whatever to make room.

I've tried that, it made it a lot better but a lot of it still wont come off. I think ill try to find someone to steam clean it.

 

[Willy beamin]

Some semi truck depots do this type of service for over the road haulers.
Worth calling around. An associate had this done a few weeks ago for $100

 

[Malleus]

For oil, try oven cleaner. Don't breathe it and plan on recoating afterwards.

Oil is an acid, so the only cleaner that will work is a base. Paint is also an acid, so strong bases, like lye (oven cleaner) will remove it too.

Lye will not remove salt, but you won't have that problem.

 

[Dirt Ferguson]

I spent some time researching engine/ undercarriage degreaser materials this weekend. I would like to take on this cleaning myself, but between the environmental nastiness of a lot of these products, and warnings that many of the most effective products will damage your paint, anything aluminum and possibly your tires, seeking out a professional steam cleaning seems to be the best path for large scale degreasing jobs.

For more site-specific jobs, getting in there with a can or bottle of one of these industrial degreasers would be the way to go.