Awesome pictures.
This is timely stuff for me. I'm not going to be painting anytime soon, but need to do some serious de-gunking of engine, transmission, etc.
I was thinking first pass would be a putty knife or similar (unless someone has a better suggestion).
Then some kind of solvent, scrub, solvent, scrub process.
Has anyone tried to use steam to de-grease/ de-gunk? I was wondering if that might work once you get the rough cleaning done.