Whilst lying in bed waiting for the next edition of scrapheap challenge, there was one of the dreadful infomercials for the X5 steam cleaner. Irritating advert but it did have a hand held option. Has anyone ever used one of these to clean up a block, sump etc?

I tried it to clean a block and it hardly touched it! Brushing on Gunk had a much quicker effect....

I borrowed a Morphy Richards one from my in-laws looks like a small pressure washer(see link), about as useful as a chocolate fire guard, used it on the BBQ ended up using a Brillo pad and hot soapy water! The intention was to use on an engine, may work with some kind of degreaser applied first


http://www.morphyrichards.co.uk/instruction-booklets/IB-floor-care/IB-steam-cleaners/70450-Vacuum-Cleaner.html


Aaron

I'll stick to soda blasting then.

I got a Little Yello Steam cleaner for cleaning up my block and wasn't that impressed.
Some engine degreaser and a bit of elbow grease gave much better results.

Scrapheap challenge offends my swimbo.

Steam cleaners are brilliant if you have a large industrial one. We have a large diesel and electric one at work. Its as big a shopping trolley and we have a maintainance contract with it. If you use an attachment that does detailing it will strip anything off.

I can't believe anything household would be up to much.

any basic degreaser applied for a while then aggitated with a brush or the likes to remove stubborn dirt, then rinse off, i always keep the hose well back so as to rinse the dirt off rather than blast it off, i also try my best to cover any electrical items i can with a plastic bag or the likes