Best way to Clean (exterior) a 914 Transmission, I am about to have it Evil rebuilt (third one is a charm) and want to Options

[Cupomeat]

Any tips/advice for cleaning the exterior of a transmission?

I scraped and got most of the obvious road dirt off it last night, but I'd love to paint this one after it gets back from Doc. Evil's GearBox Summer camp. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/351.gif)

I am afraid to use a pressure washer for fear of water ingress, and obviously, the least amount of chemicals the better.

Thanks

[Dr Evil]

I wish I had pics of some of the shit boxes I have seen on the East Coast. There is definite exfoliating corrosion that goes on in the rust belt. I have seen tail cones that have no flat surfaces for the washers and nuts to seat against. When in CA, I NEVER saw anything like this. Salt, is the big contributor. Transmissions that I have received from FL from TC that have had sand and rust in side of them actually looked just fine on the outside. There is no way that the amounts of rust I have seen could be possible without the whole gear box being subjected to water over a very long period of time. There are pics of these gear boxes in their own threads as they were terrible enough to mention. The last one looked very clean on the outside, so much so that I was very surprised to find the insides completely rusted solid and rust flakes falling out of the case like sand.