SOT: Washing engines in general, Not specific to teeners... Options

[dbgriffith75]

So I have a project day coming up on my pick up. Tappet cover gaskets need replaced as do the soft plugs (only 1 side leaking but if I'm gonna do one just as well do them both.) In order to replace the soft plugs the exhaust needs to be pulled from the manifold, and to do that I'm pretty sure will involve breaking and/or rounding off the nuts.

Anyway, there's a pretty good amount of grease/oil/dirt pile up on the engine. Not so much the topside as the bottom, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about removing it.

I have a few options-

First is the good old scraper method. It would probably be effective for the bulk of it, but not so good for the tighter spaces.

Then there's generic engine degreaser. Again probably effective for the bulk and would work better for tighter spaces, but there's something else I'm wondering about.

Years ago, when I rebuilt my first engine my older cousin was helping me pull it out of the car. It was an old 75 V8 with close to [no bullshit] 400,000 miles on it, so you can imagine how much dirt and grease was built up on the block and frame. After the job was done my cousin says [no expert mechanic but he knows his way around a car] "You know it doesn't hurt anything to pop the hood at the car wash and hit the engine with the power washer from time to time."

Now on an old V8 engine, I can see that- but how would a more modern engine react to that? Obviously they're built to withstand some water, but to take a power washer straight to it just kind of throws me. One reason I've never done it is because taking cold water to a hot engine makes me nervous about cracking an exhaust manifold or something else. But other than electrical shorts, if the engine was cold, what could result from straight power washing an engine?