Car care
 

So, living in the north country my whole life (upstate ny), I have seen some amazing damage to cars from salt/sand that gets put down during our wonderful snow season. This spring I opened my hood to find about 1" of sand/salt and other crap caked on the littlest areas of my engine bay/braces/EVERYTHING.. I covered my intake filter, battery, and some other electrical stuff and took a hose to it... but it didn't seem to get it out as much as I hoped.. Other than powerwashing it out, any suggestions about how to get the wintery mix of crap out of my engine bay?

Also, seeing it there, I have a good guess that there is a bunch in my underbody that's just eating away at my car.. Actually, when I was under my car changing my oil and looking at the exhaust and mounting hardware for the exhaust (getting a used magnaflow this weekend to replace it, and was wondering how the mounting hardware was), i noticed much of it was rusted and almost falling apart.. any suggestions for that area too? Thanks..