Caked grease is great fun to get off- I've used a wire wheel in a grinder and a gasket scraper with a mallet to get most of it. Were I to do it again I might make a trough out of some rain gutters to dip the frame in and use lye, which is the active ingredient in oven and drain cleaner. I've cleaned cast iron with it, and you can leave steel in there for weeks and it won't hurt it, but it might flash rust when you pull it out since it sucks all the oil right out of the pores of the metal. Whatever you do, I guarantee you will make a huge mess.
Even better than latex gloves are the nitrile/latex double thick gloves that Harbor Freight sells in 100 count boxes for $6. They do a good job of keeping the nasty chemicals off you. Lye and other degreasers tend to go right through plain latex.
