Cleaning products

[B.RAD]

Advice needed please - as I'm rebuilding my car, I need to clean away the 16 years of mighty crossflow chassis preservation that has occurred - it's a right state.

Bonnet area, tunnel, floor pan, rear bulkhead etc are all covered in oil and nefarious other nasties. A lot of it is hard to reach, what's the best cleaning products and approach to tackle this?

Engine, gearbox and rear axle are all currently out of the car.

Cheers!

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

I've found the Marine Clean, from POR15 suppliers, diluted into hot water really effective at large scale stuff, assisted by hose or jet wash if possible.

 

For smaller scale areas, brake cleaner works well.

[Stuart]

IIRC Gunk is pretty good - but I haven't used it for many years. 

[XTR2Turbo]

Paraffin

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Paraffin

 

Just don't merrily start dousing the car down with paraffin, (which is really effective), while parked on a Tarmac drive like one club member did years ago! Only to suddenly realise the paraffin was de solving the Tarmac....

[dombanks]

i used gunk on my engine and it came up a treat. brushed it on and then used a little hand held steam cleaner to blast it off.

[Lyonspride]

How about Muc-Off? It's marketed for bikes and motorbikes, but really only because typical tin-top drivers don't use much more than Fairy liquid on their cars.

[B.RAD]

Thanks for the replies so far, interesting stuff. I use muc-off on my mountain bikes and have done for many years, it's a good suggestion but I'm not sure it will be strong enough for the degree of filth that has accumulated on my chassis.

Unfortunately I'm restricted to a bucket, sponge and hand held pump as I have no power or water at the garage my car is in. I was kinda hoping for a 'spray on and leave' solution, but that may have just been wishful thinking!

[jedm]

Swafega Jizer might be worth a look.....used it before and very happy with the result.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Marine Clean is designed for spray on, soak in, wash off type use.

 

Though warm water helps, it's not vital. But the product really cuts into that mix of oil and dirt that builds up on leaky vehicles. Specially if you work it in with an old paint brush.

[Rory's Dad]

Dave both this thread and the one about polishing fibreglass could do with being FAQs in my opinion.  (More work I know!)

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

I was going to put the other one in there, but then it drifted, and to my mind there's just too many different answers in it. It no longer fulfils the original criterion that was set out for faq's. Yet each answer on the whole was perfectly valid and therefore seemed unfair to prune out.

 

I would say with a major re-write, to perhaps categorise the different products,and break it down into stages it might work though. Otherwise they simply contradict.

[SootySport]

Use Jizer, Gunk or Muc off.  They all need rinsing of with water, so use a bucket of water and one of these- Just an ordinary washing up brush, a stiff one.

[TAFKARM]

I use copious amounts of gunk foam which seems to work quite well. 

[B.RAD]

Your car is not a good advert for cleaning products mate!