After you guys go mudding how do you care for your rig. Do you have any tricks

Also what about befor you go mudding. Any cool mudding mods out there????????

 

I just wash mine and if I have submerged the diffs I pull the fill plugs to check for water in the oil. If you find any new seals are in order. Also repack the front wheel bearings often if you submerge them often.

Only trick I know of other than all the usual ones is that I pack my front wheel bearings with boat trailer grease. It's supposed to be better for parts that are submerged in water often. If you are a rock crawler then this wouldn't matter to you.

 

Boat trailer grease won't take disc brake temperatures, so don't use it if you drive on the highway. Use quality high-temperature wheel bearing grease.

I don't go to sleep with mud under my truck - never. I'll stay up until it's clean underneath because it only gets harder as it dries, and then it holds moisture against the metal, and causes rust. I've heard of spraying baby oil on the underside to keep the mud from sticking as well, but I've never done it.

 

Sure, put your radiator in your bed.

 

Since we are on the subject, do any of you ever lose belts while going through the mud? I lose my powersteering belt every time, and sometimes the alternator belt also. I'm talking about hitting the mud pit at the mud bogs - I usually don't lose belts when just screwing around. (Guess I don't have the adrenaline flowing when there is no crowd watching - thus a lighter foot.)

 

I throw a belt now and then. I think it is from massive amounts of mud getting in the belt when I have it buried at the end of the run.

I am going to close in the area from the radiator support to the front cross member to help keep out most of the mud.

Some people break alot of axles....but they are usually the ones who's u-joints are screaming and clunking as they pull up to the line. I have found that by chaging the axle u-joints as soon as they show any wear saves axle shafts, same goes for driveshafts. I am running 40" tires and 5:13 gears with 1/2 ton axles and a 429 engine, I haven't broken an axle or d-shaft yet (knock on wood).

Buy a pressure washer to clean it up with, a hose takes too long.

 

I'm replying about the wheel beariing packing, at the company i work at we have an assembly line for painting, this line goes through a high temp power washer and then the product gets painted, well after the painting stage, it goes through a bake oven, the temp of the power washer is about 300 degrees and the bake oven aswell, We use a waterproof high temp grease for the roller bearings on the line, the temp rating for the grease is 750 degrees F, so i thought to myself at work one day, hey i wonder if this stuff will work for whell bearings, for myself i also spend alot of time with the hubs under the mucky muck, all i have to say is get some of this stuff it works great, I've only had to repack my wheel bearings once a year for the 3 years ive been using this stuff ( althoght it doesnt really need it) but maintainence is key if you wanna keep on doin' whatcha been doin, if youre interested in this grease, let me know i can find the company from which it comes, and hook you up with a phone number to call and order yourself some

 

No, but I did manage to bend a fan blade last weekend. I guess it could be a combo of the fact that i hit the water doing about 20 and that i don't have a fan shroud....

Anyway, the blade bent back and started hitting the a/c condinsor (I have no idea how to spell that). I heard the *tick *tick *tick *tick and noticed that it sped up when i reved up the engine. I thought i blew up the engine....i'm glad i didn't I took a pair of vice-grips and bent it back away from the pullies, drove home and its fine now...

 

I got in some deep water and my flex fan "propellered" itself into the radiator, destroying it.

 

I thought one day last summer it'd be fun to try and drive across this old abandoned parking lot that floods all summer. Well the water got about 3 feet deep in the middle. Well when i hit it doing 30 it kinda destroyed my fan clutch......and when i came out the other side i had no brakes.....something about filling the drums and calipers with water...who knows....took about 2 minutes for the drums to drain.

 

i always at least power wash everything under the truck to clean it but mud all over the outside is cool so i just wash all the moving parts and stuff and wash the truck after showing it off a little.

 

Thats what I did, works great. Helps keep the dizzy dry too. But I also have the entire grill area blocked off so the front end is pretty much sealed which also helps allot. Another benefit of a rear mount radiator. If I get into water deep enough for it to propellor I've drowned anyways

 

I had a problem with the power steering belt getting wet and slipping in my '85 Bronco. Never off-road, just at one particular mud puddle that builds up at one corner I always have to drive around. I could splash water all over the place anywhere else and never have a problem. But if I went thtrough that one particular puddle that was no more the 3" or 4" deep at any more than about 5 miles an hour the PS belt would slip and I'd have to wrestle the Bronc around the rest of the corner. I don't know if the road was at just the right angle to splash the water right onto the belt or what.

 

I force grease through all the fittings until the water comes out followed by clean grease. Depending on the truck, on the hubs that seal with an O-Ring, I smear a layer of blue RTV over the O-ring and put the hub back on.

 

Some new questions

1) how hard is it to take the hub off of a dana 44 and grease the bearings

2) How do you keep your exhaust above the mud/water levels.

3) how do you run a rear fan in a bronco? Mine has a soft top so I could take the top off but what about having the roof on.