Quote:

Invest in a pressure washer and a parts washer with mineral spirits. Both are needed if your gonna rebuild cars.

Gasoline also works great for cleaning parts and is cheapest.



Good advice. They don't need to be expensive or fancy to help a lot. For many years I used a small inexpensive electric pressure washer... very helpful. A $70 parts washer from Harbor Freight works wonders. The 10 gallons of mineral spirit needed to fill it is a little expensive (don't use gasoline in this!).

For really nasty chassis parts with baked on grease and dirt, oven cleaner, ammonia or even paint stripper + pressure washer works well.

The way to use ammonia is to "gas it". Get a heavy trash bag, put the part(s) in it, add a pint or two of janitors strength ammonia, and seal. Let it work for a few hours or overnight, remove and pressure wash or scrub. Just don't do aluminum parts this way.