[Chaparralman1974]

1/14/2023
Cleaning day!!
Today’s main goal was to clean the rolling chassis, new engine, and new front axle. Years of grease, dirt, and neglect were caked onto everything. I started by rolling the chassis out into the driveway and put a large piece of cardboard under it, and went to town scraping the old caked on grease with a putty knife. I ended up moving over to my cheap harbor freight pry bars, and they actually worked better. I was able to scrape off at least 15-20 pounds of caked on grime. After doing some research online, I decided to go up to the local DollarTree and pick up a bunch of cheap oven cleaner. As it turned out, the oven cleaner worked great! I sprayed it on and allowed it to soak for 15-20 minutes and then hit it with the pressure washer. I got at least 90% of all the grime off and anything that remained will be easy work with a wire wheel. More importantly though, now I won’t have all the dirt and crap falling off of the frame and getting all over the garage.
As the frame began to get cleaner, the original frame color came out along with the transfercase and bellhousing! I was shocked to see just how clean this frame really is! There is only surface rust, and I think that all of the bolts should come out nicely.
As for the axle and new engine, they cleaned up nicely as well and will look great after getting refreshed and repainted.