Z71 muddin, now clean up time, any suggestions?

[TSi SS-R]

After work today was headed over to a buds house and noticed the new neighborhood under construction. Right off the main 2 lane 35mph road was an empty lot. Took the left into it over some gravel and then onto nice rutted orange clay mud. Thought "no problem" but thought "hmm" because two seconds onto it in 2wd I was not goin anywhere. Pushed 4wd hi and she dug in doing fine until I decided to turn across a couple ruts and was stopped.....Did some wheel rut digging she was in deep but got her rocking and pulled out of it after a couple minutes. Rocking I thought "thats real good for a truck with 800 miles on her NOT"

but she dug out in 4wd hi and pulled me around to get out of it.

 

I am very impressed ill have to go by with my digital camera and take pics of the ruts but it was funny how decieving the mud looked, as if it was not too deep....

 

Anyway im on a short break from cleaning it down. Took one wheel at a time out in the grass with the high pressure garden hose...Any suggestions for gettin her clean? I bet ill never get it all out! Oh well its gonna be muddy again soon anyway im sure that was too much fun!!

 

/

[MountaineerTom]

Set a sprinkler that fans back and forth under it. That will clean off a lot uf stuff from underneath.

[The SPEEDY]

 

I cut a rut in my yard today.

[k1500chevy97]

Every once in a while I crawl underneah my truck with a high pressure nozzel, my coveralls from the fd , and a pair of goggles and i just go nuts .

 

I dont know if you want to go that route but that works pretty good for me

[RyanbabZ71]

Every once in a while I crawl underneah my truck with a high pressure nozzel, my coveralls from the fd , and a pair of goggles and i just go nuts .

 

I wanna see pictures

[lrymal]

Nope, won't ever totally come out. Gets caught and DRIES LIKE A BRICK under your skid plates, your body mounts---no matter how often you crawl underneath and try to get it all out. Where I live, the clay is black---we call it black gumbo. That comes out pretty easy and the high pressure under-body wash at the local wash does very good in getting rid of that.

 

But, up country, we have that red-brick clay. Last time I got into that was February during a flood. I spent an entire day in washing that gooey clay out. The other day, as I was looking under the truck as the local tire shop was doing my annual free tire rotation, the kid looked out from underneathe and grinned at me, saying "You've been hawgin' haven't you?" I looked at what he was talking about, and there it was, some red hard-brick dry clay. That's been under there for five months, in spite of repeated cleanings.

 

So, all that was said to state that you'll never get it all out.

[k1500chevy97]

Every once in a while I crawl underneah my truck with a high pressure nozzel, my coveralls from the fd , and a pair of goggles and i just go nuts .

 

I wanna see pictures

no chance

[TSi SS-R]

Hahah cool thanks for the replies guys you all are great...

 

Well three hours later shes lookin brand new again, well she is, built 5/03 luckily I washed and put formula 2001 on her yesterday so the body cleaned up easily and I also put it on the fenderflare lips and those came clean real quick also. Got alot of mud off, the wheels, got behind the tires/rims with the high pressure garden hose mud was everywhere....

 

LOL I forgot to mention that when I got to Beau's place he's like, "why is your bumper hanging off"?

 

 

Turns out my front air dam had detached itself on both corners and was hanging down so I just pulled it off there. That helped cleaning under the front suspension etc it sure looks ah, tough without that air dam and that skid plate showing through! Can you all imagine just how deep I had dug myself in if that got torn off?? lol

 

So I got her washed, waxed with formula 2001 lightly and used "bleachwhite" tire/whitewall cleaner and a brush on the tires and they came all clean.

Put some of the "Endurance" by black magic tire dressing on there and it looks beautiful !! Time for a smoke!!

[The SPEEDY]

Nope, won't ever totally come out.  Gets caught and DRIES LIKE A BRICK under your skid plates, your body mounts---no matter how often you crawl underneath and try to get it all out.  Where I live, the clay is black---we call it black gumbo.  That comes out pretty easy and the high pressure under-body wash at the local wash does very good in getting rid of that.

 

But, up country, we have that red-brick clay.  Last time I got into that was February during a flood.  I spent an entire day in washing that gooey clay out.  The other day, as I was looking under the truck as the local tire shop was doing my annual free tire rotation, the kid looked out from underneathe and grinned at me, saying "You've been hawgin' haven't you?"  I looked at what he was talking about, and there it was, some red hard-brick dry clay.  That's been under there for five months, in spite of repeated cleanings.

 

So, all that was said to state that you'll never get it all out. 

Gumbo smells like *bleep* tho.

[lrymal]

Turns out my front air dam had detached itself on both corners and was hanging down so I just pulled it off there.

Also happened to me and it was hanging on by two remaining middle speed snaps. You'll notice that your fog lamps hang low. You may find that if mud-hawging occurs, you might want to not only temporarily remove the air dam (this is recommended by the manual, btw), but to remove the fog lamp assemblies which are really in harm's way. Only two bolts, easily accessible by a socket set.

 

If you have a lite-duty brush guard (not a Ranch Hand), you may want to try devising a way to put in a cosmetically-pleasing slit in the air dam's top side, where the brush guard attaches to the frame, so the air dam can be removed. I recently installed a Manik and am still trying to figure a way of doing this.

[TSi SS-R]

Turns out my front air dam had detached itself on both corners and was hanging down so I just pulled it off there.

Also happened to me and it was hanging on by two remaining middle speed snaps. You'll notice that your fog lamps hang low. You may find that if mud-hawging occurs, you might want to not only temporarily remove the air dam (this is recommended by the manual, btw), but to remove the fog lamp assemblies which are really in harm's way. Only two bolts, easily accessible by a socket set.

 

If you have a lite-duty brush guard (not a Ranch Hand), you may want to try devising a way to put in a cosmetically-pleasing slit in the air dam's top side, where the brush guard attaches to the frame, so the air dam can be removed. I recently installed a Manik and am still trying to figure a way of doing this.

That sounds great, the foglights do seem in a pretty vunerable position, wonder how strong they are...

 

The airdam seems to be pretty easy to get back on along with the foglights thanks for the heads up on those!! BTW nice truck thats the only option my truck didnt have and I wish it did was the Clearance lamps!! Too cool..

[kaspar139]

Agreed, there really is no way to keep your rig perfectly clean, especially underneath. My skidplates house about an inch solid brick of mud and twigs and crap from taking it here or there. I try to spray it off, but it gets pointless afer a while...

[lrymal]

BTW nice truck thats the only option my truck didnt have and I wish it did was the Clearance lamps!! Too cool..

Thanks!!!

Yeah, those lamps are something I wanted and they were cheap to add. Do a search around the board and you'll read about Pacer lamp install jobs that other members have done here. I learned how to do it here.

[TSi SS-R]

haha ok yea thats neat you did it by yourself. I was thinking they were ordered from the factory! I usually see the 2500 and 3500 trucks with them, im going to have to get some of those!

 

BTW took a vacation day from work today and washed the Z71 again today and put another coat of f2001 on her. Looks beautiful, underneath I spent about an hour getting more mud off, especially under skid plates etc. heh.

[99silveradoz71]

I don't know about mud, but I used a little POR 15 semi-gloss paint and did the frame and other underside areas the other day. I know I did one of the crossmembers last year about this time and it held up well. Some of the paint was starting to peel a little, but for the winter we had up here in Cleveland, I can't complain at all.