Morris Minor Owners Club

Word of warning for anyone who uses a commercial jet washer place - and worse if someone offers you a loan of an industrial steam cleaner - you'll be lucky to do your engine bay and not find every potential electrical connection weakness and sometimes will hole body panels too.
Those beasties will even cripple a modern car quite often if not used carefully.

Well said Orkney. We had 4 years of faultless service out of a 120K mile Passat except for one 'small' incident. The engine control module went do-lally - the diagnosis being water ingress from a steam clean under the bonnet by the previous owner.

Posted that as a warning for a couple of reasons.

Some years back a DIY steam cleaning bay opened south where i used to live, a lot of people caused damage using it, subsequently it got a bad reputation and didnt last very long.

Used to know someone worked in a car supermarket type lot. They had a huge turnover of motors, 2 full time and several casual/part times on valeting alone. The thing that kept thier mechanics busiest was over zealousness with the steam cleaner in the engine compartment.

My traveller was in a mess I had the engine compartment and under side steam cleaned. You'll find one in yellow pages. Came up like new. But wrap up the distributor and coil well and tape the plastic on or it'll never start! Cost about £25.

bmcecosse wrote:Trouble with doing it at home - no matter which method - is the mess on the ground. This tends to cause Domestic Unrest.

I've got a big galv tray approx 30" x 30" x 4" that is perfect for putting under a car when cleaning the engine.
It it it an old garden item used for repotting etc.
I've been after one for ages when a friend said he had one lying around the bottom of his garden. Proper galv finish so no deteriation from years of being outside. Very heavy due to thickness of metal but this allows me to stand items like engines , gearboxes etc in in when dismantling and avoid the little drips / leaks of oil you normally get on the workbench.
Yesterday I was at a garden centre and see you can still get them, albeit, in plastic.

Paul Humphries

Good idea- although I doubt the plastic version will be happy with an engine standing in it!

bmcecosse wrote:Good idea- although I doubt the plastic version will be happy with an engine standing in it!

The beauty is you can make the excuse it's actually a garden item and therefore you aren't cluttering up the place with even more car related stuff .
I use the tray myself for repotting so it can live in corner of the greenhouse when not under a car.
I've never seen such a heavy galv tray for sale though.
I reckon an old galv water tank cut down to just a few inches high would be just as good.

Paul Humphries