The car wash undercarriage usually does a better job. Really hard to reach into the middle of the undercarriage with a power washer. The car wash I go to has spray nozzles directly underneath the vehicle you drive over.
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I have 32’ of extensions with 120 degree bend to nozzle and 8 nozzle types with various spray patterns. Getting under the middle of the car will not be a problem 
the convenience factor is the biggest driver for me. I maybe go through car wash once in the spring. After that it’s nature or at home if I’m motivated enough…
You might want to look into something like this…
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When I was stationed in Italy the early '80s, if we were shipping a vehicle back to the states, we had to provide proof that the underside of the vehicle had been cleaned out of all insect hiding dirt and debris… The Post Service Station has a stall set up specifically for this. Large diameter water hose hooked up to a pressure pump (their version of a “pressure washer” and the attendant dressed up like the “Gordon’s Fisherman” who went under the car and blasted out every nook and cranny…
Now a days, modern vehicles have all sorts of smooth underbody panels, also known as underbody shields or trays, on the bottom of vehicles to improve gas mileage. These panels reduce aerodynamic drag and turbulence underneath the car.
But they also cover all those normally exposed components: the lower engine bay, the unibody components, the suspensions parts, etc… making your idea of a standard pressure washers near useless as it sprays forward and not directly up into the bottom of the vehicle…
Is it necessary to clean above the underbody/splash shields? They protect the body from road splash, I usually find dust up there.
BTW; I believe he was planning to clean the frame under a truck.
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Every vehicle is different, I only have recent firsthand experience with underbody shields on my 2019 Toyota and my 2020 Honda Fit, since both cars have the underbody Shields.
And if you are not shooting the water upwards on these vehicles, you will not be able to blast clean water up into the weep holes and various openings to clean out what is covered…
The Toyota and its undercarriage Shields and Trays…
he Honda and its undercarriage Shield…
And there is my 2001 Dodge Ram, 2500, Diesel, 4x4, with its body on frame with it 20-inches of ground clearance makes it a snap to clean… (Does “clean as a whistle” come to mind – remember, it’s 25-years old…)
It’s already been used to spray off the underside, quite effectively. They do sell wand ends with wheels and nozzles specifically for this purpose but I am too frugal to buy something like that. I would fabricate my own before buying such a simple tool. But what I have now works fine.
Yeah, I’m talking about rinsing the inside of a boxed frame on a full sized truck. Regardless, my truck is a real work truck and doesn’t have anything besides a small skid plate for the engine/tranny.
The salt, sand etc still finds ways up into every orifice or pocket that exists under my vehicles. Pull down an underbody panel and there is sand on top. Frame rails are constantly sprayed with water and debris from the road. It makes it’s way into the frame. I bought a farm truck once, came from Iowa. Had straw remnants throughout the bed and interior. Dust everywhere. When I opened the door panel to fix a window, I found about 4" of accumulated dirt plugging the bottom of the door. Dust, road spray always seems to find a way to get inside of any area it is around…
Thanks for that! Looks like it could work quite well. Got me thinking of making a metal version of it so it can take the pressure washer directly versus a hose. Well water pressure is OK but cycles up and down with the pump. Pressure washer is fairly consistent regardless of the supply changes.
My initial thought was to make something similar to what they use for sewer drains. A buddy worked for a company that cleans city sewer pipes. They have a nozzle on a hose with jets facing backwards. The water pressure propels the nozzle forward into the pipe while the hose uncoils. Then they jack up the pressure even further and draw the hose back toward the reel. This forces all the debris backwards in the pipe where they vacuum it up. Something like that I can push up the frame tube and draw it backward, flushing the boxed frame tube to the drain holes…
Funny story- I guess the typical rookie mistake in the sewer cleaning business is when you’re done, forgetting to unplug the downstream pipe before opening the upstream plug. Then, “someone” has to go in to retrieve the downstream plug as the junction reservoir quickly fills up. That is a mistake you likely make only once…
That is my motivation for using a car wash, though the blow dryer is inadequate. I do dry it where the vacuums are located.
Dec-Mar when the weather is nice, I occasionally use my power washer at home.
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Yeah, maybe some how attaching some 3/8" aluminum rolled line to the pressure washer, hard part is getting it through an access hole in the side of the frame and being about to push it up in there, has to be hard enough so that you aren’t trying to shove a wet noodle up a Tigers ■■■ (backside), but soft enough to be pushed through the bend/entrance hole… Just hope it doesn’t get caught on any bolts and whatnots…
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Good thoughts.
I have about 150ft of very flexible, reinforced hose that I already have to reach 3 stories up on the house. Nothing like that garbage hose that comes with the machine that is so stiff it hardly wraps up. It does get fairly stiff when water pressure is applied but still can form it. To your point about getting it snagged, I’m thinking of a nozzle shaped like a bullet with jet holes facing backwards out the sides but smooth along the entire surface so it doesn’t have any protrusions to get caught on anything. Should be a fun machining exercise…
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I hope you keep us up to date with pictures (that don’t disappear like your "I spy with my little eye thread pics did) or at the very least PM me with it…
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Possible indication you need a new pressure tank, had that issue, new pressure tank fixed it.
+1
We had this problem 3 years ago. We replaced the tank with a better/upgrade tank from what the builder installed.
Well systems always have hysteresis. Typical systems are 20/40, 30/50 or 40/60. The older cold storage tanks had an air pocket or external bladder system to extend the duration of pressure. My 20 year old tank has an internal bladder set to 2 psi below the cut in pressure at 40 psi. That pressure is set with the tank more or less empty. As it fills, the water compresses the bladder providing sustained water pressure when the pump is not running.
Back in the day, if your pump short cycled, you would drain the water and re-introduce air into the tank (it gets absorbed into the water over time). With more modern external or internal bladders, this is no longer a problem unless they degrade and leak. Then you replace the tank.
My well system works fine as designed. But if you want sustained pressure for something like this flushing operation, when it drops to 40 psi, it will be less effective until the pump cycles on and starts building pressure again…
In the late '50s we lived in a log cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. I was 7-years old when the kerosene lanterns were replaced with a light switch and the privy was replaced with a toilet. We only had a 30-gallon water tank and a 10-gallon hot water tank. The water temperature to the shower was controlled by two faucets, so much hot water and so much cold water, there was no mixer valve…) The pump could not quite keep up with the open faucets and the pressure would drop off as you used water… And if someone flushed a toilet or turned on a faucet while you were in the shower, it was either a flash of hot or cold water… If our parents thought we were hogging the shower, they turned on a Hot water faucet, showering us with only cold water…
It was still better than our “Bucket Shower” of and having the water poured over us while standing in a pan to catch the rinse water.
Sweet memories of a bygone era…
Just my two cents. I bought a pressure washer a few years ago for about $300. I use it maybe twice a year for the deck and garage floor. I thought it was one of the least useful.
Even the local well-to-do in the Philippines use the bucket shower method. If you have a shower with am electric heater mounted to the head you are cosidered pretty d a r n well off!
(wells = no pun intended)
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When I was stationed in the Republic of Korea, stationed at Osan Air Base, while serving in the US Air Force. The young enlisted Korean Conscripts would be lined up outside their barracks in the morning, (no matter what season: Summer or Winter), and along the wall of the barracks were many cold water faucets… They stood (actually squatted…) next to these faucets, washing, shaving, etc…
When asked, about the reason for the cold water, they answer is simple, “When your country is on a War Footing with North Korea, you have to be prepared to go to war at any moment, and cold water would be the least of their worries…”
At least when we bucketed off, it was not outside in the cold of winter…
Depends on where you live and what you have to maintain. Around here, it is humid in the summer with moss, mold and algae growing on the house and walkways. A few times a year activity to pressure wash that off. Plus the boat hulls. A lot of tannins in the water that stains the hull. Backbreaking work without a pressure washer. My neighbor borrowed mine to blast the paint off his pool when he was getting ready to repaint it. It wasn’t until I owned one that I found many uses for it I hadn’t considered. Not for everyone though…