Your Own Car Wash

[Industrial Toys]

I was just reading a thread about this evil brine they use for snow and ice abatement. It is destroying my truck!

I have a commercial pressure washer. None of this 2, 3 or 4 thousand PSI garbage, but about 1500 LBS with a good amount of volume. That's what matters!

But cleaning the underside of a vehicle is a very difficult matter.

What would it take to make a unit, that you drive over, slowly, to get this nasty brine off of the underside of your vehicle? My pressure washer is impressive compared to a box store unit, but would it have enough power and volume to drive, say, half a dozen nozzles?

A friend, once ran a car wash, and I was blown away at the power and water req

 

[bcp]

I wonder how a tractor, or traveling sprinkler would work, traveling slowly from one end to the other. You would need clearance for it underneath.

Nelson Rain Train Traveling Sprinkler, Model# 1865 | Sprinklers| Northern Tool + Equipment

Bruce

 

[Sysop]

You can actually contact the makers of car washes and buy the various rotating nozzles and sprayers. Local transit authority I do work for has a "bus wash" they created in house out of parts sourced from such places and just putting together what worked. It's only plumbing... They did have the city install a larger water line (2") to the facility to feed the wash an adequate supply of water, and they roll through slowly rather than the machine moving around and whatnot. Just hit a button when they pull in the garage to start the cycle, drive through slow, hit a button on the other end to stop it, go park.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I don't see that as the problem, as you can slowly move the vehicle. But can you get enough oomph to make the idea feasable? It would be a very cheap project. Some pipe and fittings, and some wood or steel cut on angles so you could drive over the pipe. Turn on your pressure washer and drive over this thing a few times.

 

[Sysop]

Considering the bus wash they built has something like 60 or so nozzles spraying from all around and you're just looking mainly to do the undercarriage, I think you could get adequate pressures and volume to do it well.

 

[NewfieDan]

When I worked in oil and gas they had a large ramp built. You could drive the whole truck on to the ramp. This would raise the front of the truck high enough to stand under the front bumper. Then you could use the pressure washer the way you bought it and direct the spray precisely where you need it.

With a little modification you could probably design a system into it to use it for repairs as well.

What about just placing a sprinkler underneath for a period of time? There should be little pressure driving the brine into the nooks and crannies. What you are trying to do is remove it, by flushing out right?

What you are doing is using volume to remove it, not pressure.

 

[chim]

I bet most undercarriage washing systems only wet the salt deposits rather than remove them. The spray is directed up, so any deposits that aren't in a direct line of pressurized spray only get wet. With all the nooks and crannies, holes in frames, etc. there can't be a lot of washing going on where it counts. Seems like more of a feel-good exercise than an effective one.

 

[Bird]

Way back in 1956, my Dad bought a Texaco service station that only had one service bay, and that bay had a lift and in the floor was a pit in which mud, grease, etc. accumulated. And there was the first pressure washer I'd ever seen. There was no "spray" nozzle, just a single straight line, pencil sized stream with enough pressure that you DID NOT want to get hit by it.

Some of you may be old enough to remember when cars and pickup trucks had grease zerks on ball joints, king pins & bushings, tie rod ends, universal joints, spring shackles, etc. So we thoroughly washed the bottom side of vehicles, then greased them.

Of course this was south central Oklahoma, so we didn't have much road salt, but a good many of our customers were farmers and the bottom side of their vehicles usually had lots of caked on mud and dirt.

 

[BHD]

I seen on northern tools,NorthStar Pressure Washer Surface Cleaner — 32in. Dia., 5000 PSI, 6 GPM, Model# FC AGRAR 32" | Pressure Washer Surface Cleaners| Northern Tool + Equipment sells a floor washer, and how it works is there is a spinning arm that has two nozzles on it, If properly counter balanced one may be able to use one nozzle, and thus covers a larger area, even if one had to drive over or pull it under twice. to cover the width of the truck/car. Pressure Washer Surface Cleaners
Pressure-Washer-Parts.com,

the way I see it one could drive over it, or one could flip it up side down and put wheels on it and a longer handle and push it under the vehicle. really would not need that long if when in from the sides,

could consider a under coating, basically a rubberized tar that coats and helps prevent corrosion, and some sound deading as well,

 

[motoman3b]

Living in Michigan we enjoy the lovely salted roads every winter, I've found the best protection is a good undercoating, I bought our jeep 6 years ago with minimal rust (think it came from out of state or was driven very little in the winter) wire brushed the whole frame and coated it with por15 paint, just touched it up again this year so I should be good for another 5 years or so

 

[PapaPerk]

Living in Michigan we enjoy the lovely salted roads every winter, I've found the best protection is a good undercoating, I bought our jeep 6 years ago with minimal rust (think it came from out of state or was driven very little in the winter) wire brushed the whole frame and coated it with por15 paint, just touched it up again this year so I should be good for another 5 years or so

How do you apply POR15?

 

[Dr_Zinj]

You know, just a regular garden hose sprinkler would work. Either the rotating head kind, or the oscillating kinds. Just move them around under the vehicle every 10 or 15 minutes to get everywhere.

 

[Sysop]

How do you apply POR15?

Generally on your back. Using a brush. No fun at all...

 

[Capricious]

Use one of those "soaker" hoses; the ones with hundreds of holes in them.

Lay it out in rows on the ground, park vehicle over it, turn on water, grab a beer and watch "the game."

 

[Industrial Toys]

My 08 GMC is starting to rust under the doors. That multi layer rubber gasket designed to make the vehicle quiet traps all manner of crap! It's hard to clean. You must do it with the door open and I usually put a sheet of plywood in the way to keep from blasting the inside of the vehicle.

You guys mentioned sprinklers and I thought of something. But BHD has stolen my thinder and idea. I remembered I have one of those HP floor washers with the spinning nozzel. I had the same thought. Put it updise down on a dolley and with the vehicle parked on a nice smooth surface, roll the thing around underneith. I will try that.

How do you guys clean the inside of your fender wells? I tried one of those J extension wands for doing your gutters but it is too unstable. Maybe one needs a gun/wand just for that with a good bend in the end.

 

[Mace Canute]

My 08 GMC is starting to rust under the doors. That multi layer rubber gasket designed to make the vehicle quiet traps all manner of crap! It's hard to clean. You must do it with the door open and I usually put a sheet of plywood in the way to keep from blasting the inside of the vehicle.

You guys mentioned sprinklers and I thought of something. But BHD has stolen my thinder and idea. I remembered I have one of those HP floor washers with the spinning nozzel. I had the same thought. Put it updise down on a dolley and with the vehicle parked on a nice smooth surface, roll the thing around underneith. I will try that.

How do you guys clean the inside of your fender wells? I tried one of those J extension wands for doing your gutters but it is too unstable. Maybe one needs a gun/wand just for that with a good bend in the end.

Yes, I have a J extension that is attached with one of these:

I tighten it up fairly tight by hand and it holds the extension in a fixed position. I can see a QC style connector allowing it to swivel willy-nilly. It has a QC on the output end which is nice because I can change the nozzles to get the best spray pattern. I prefer the zero angle one for wheel wells.

A friend who is the local Rust Check dealer has seen vehicles cleaned by just the use of an ordinary water sprinkler underneath them on tap pressure and says it does a good job of cleaning. I expect it has to be moved around a bit to get to get the spray at everything. The only thing is, rust also starts from the inside of panels and that's where it's difficult or downright impossible to wash clean. Some auto manufactures could design their vehicles to be a lot less susceptible to rusting even with the same materials used and they could also make them a lot easier to clean to prevent the accumulation of mud.

 

[Scooby074]

Karcher makes one. Probably NAINA. Should be easy to duplicate though

 

[Scooby074]

I like the ramp idea on this one, but its would be much more expensive to build and it requires a ton of water flow, some 300gpm.

 

[dstig1]

Thought about this myself and wondered if a pipe with a few nozzles on a small truck with a simple set of rollers would work. Maybe 3-4' wide. It would need a long handle to push it under the car (and feed water). Park the car. Hook up the pressure washer to it, then run it back and forth under the car a few times from the front and the back. Pressure should be low with several nozzles on it so it shouldn't destroy stuff.

 

[Rustyiron]

https://www.kleen-ritecorp.com
I used to have a car wash, these folks have everyting you would ever need. If you took a piece of 3/4" pipe 6' wide and plumed up a quick connect at one end that fit your pres. washer and capped the other end, ordered 6-8 spray nozzels and drilled & tap the pipe every 8" or so….. You'd need to make a set of "legs" for the pipe so that it stayed vertical.
I made a floor washer about 3' wide this way ( with rollers & a handle) but the same idea. I'm sure that if you came up with some sch. 80 pvc pipe, that would work as well. It's a hard battle fighting that salt, unfortunatly more of a loosing battle. That mist coming off the wheels gets to places a normal "undercarrage" spray can not.