what do we think of steam cleaning?

[chrisp]

i'm thinking underneath the car.

i noticed in brian's resto thread he'd had some done and under the arches looked spangly clean when finished.

is this a good idea - or does it provoke corrosion too much?

i only use the car in the dry and it's not filthy underneath, could just do with a freshen up.

Chris.

[arron]

Just done exactly that with mine Chris, up on stands, everything off underneath (gearbox, prop, back axle, springs etc.) all still with the car in the garage.

Then got a local lad who valets my everyday car to do a good steam clean job using some sort of powerful degreasing agent.

Car is now very very clean underneath, ready for stonechipping. As far as rust goes, I admit that I did think about this myself but chose a warmish day to do it and left the garage open all day to try and get rid of as much ambient moisture as possible. At the end of the day you are never going to stop moisture and I would not suggest that you do anything to encourage it, however I think on balance this was worth it.

[lathamescortmk2]

howd you get the car up in the air? im after a cheap way of doing this, as id like to get the underneath sorted befor eit goes into respray no 2

[Banishit]

Its the best thing to do, it gets all the crap out, but I would do it in nicer weather warm and windy to speeding drying mine was dry within minutes so less chance of the dreaded rust attacking from a wet car sitting about for days in todays weather

[chrisp]

would it be a really bad to have this kind of work done with axle, prop, gearbox still in place? i'm thinking of doing this and going for a new underseal.

[Banishit]

I did it with everything on first time then found more crap after taking the engine and G/B out so did it again

[GAZ W]

I did engine bay with one of those steam cleaners you see advertised on QVC , and it came up really well , but then i decided to have the bay painted anyway

[arron]

To do the job properly you really need to take all the undercarriage off, otherwise you'll have another job for later on ! I would veer away from using underseal, have you considered a matt back stone chip instead ?

Latham - I got my car 'up in the air' on 4 standard axle stands, I did it slowly bit by bit using a 2t trolley jack and using blocks of wood between the jack and the car when the jack did not give enough reach on its own. I've now got a good 2ft clearance underneath

[arron]

Here's the finished underside :

[Robb]

Looks mint to me

[arron]

Not bad when you consider it's done 112k miles and never been touched underneath