[DML] undercarriage cleaning

[saintern <saintern@xxxx>]

Last night I popped one of the front wheels off and saw that almost all
the stuff around the brakes(excuse the un-technical discription)
including the frame sections and arms that hold everything together was
covered....no caked with what had to be 18 years of grease and brake
dust.Since I wanted to start cleaning this up to start doing some brake
work on the car I started cleaning it off the best I could but the only
stuff that would loosen it up was engine degreaser. Did I make a big
mistake here by putting that on there?..can it be detrimental to the
frame and other metal pieces?.....I did find that some little areas need
some touching up to gaurd againt rust in the future but thankfully
nothing major....My neighbor stopped by to see what I was up to and
mentioned that I might want to leave all the grease on there to "gaurd"
against rust....could that be true? I know I'd much rather know what
under all that greast and fix it up then have it "guarding" the metal fo
sure.....So here's the big question....whats a good cleaner to get all
the grease and other stuff off all the pieces in the whell well (I'd
like to clean up the actual black under body too if possible).....maybe
a power washer?( I thought that might not be a good idea blowing water
into areas around the frame) Any ideas or suggestions would be hightly
appreciated......
Don Kazmark
http://www.geocities.com/dkazmark/