bean69

I just took my JK for its first off-road voyage to RC this pass weekend and had a blast. I noticed some guys working on there trucks at the end of the day and was wondering if there was anything that should be done after riding the trail to help maintain the truck?

JEEP THRILLS

drive it through a river thats about half way up the wheels to clean the mud off the brakes and out of the skid plates and axle joints. or go to a car wash and pay to get yourself dirty

bigbluejk

If you are Crash, then you need to rebuild your Jeep after a trip to the local mud hole :(

falconfixer

^^^^now that's funny ^^^^^^


What I usually do is pressure wash all underneath to get as much crud out of there. After that, crawl all underneath and get touchy-feely with your rig. Have a good flashlight, grab/yank/twist/touch anything and everything to see if something is loose, broke, etc. If you submerged the axles pretty deep it's a good idea to drain and clean the diffs in case there's any water in them. If you're not sure what you're looking at then offer up some beer to a buddy and have him point things out to you.

JEEP THRILLS

i think thats what he means by pretty deep you are right water can only enter at the breather

falconfixer

Yep. I guess I shoulda clarified that water comes in through the breather tubes so If you take your Jeep swimmin' check the diffs.

rubious

i do all the above, and take a can of spray paint to cover up all the places i may have scrapped paint off the frame, skids, axles, etc, just to keep surface rust from becoming a bigger issue.

also a good way to clean underneith if you don't have time is put a sprinkler underneith the jeep to get a lot of the stuff off before you to through and wash it

GoodysGotaCuda

i air up my tires again, thats about it..

kkuntz01

Yeah, but you don't have a whole lotta mud out in your neck of the woods.

Like others have mentioned, if you've been playing in mud it's a good idea to try and get most of it off as early as you can, driveing through a creek, stream, puddle, etc. Depending on how caked the mud is you'll want to make sure to do a good job getting mudd out from around the ends of the axel's and such. I've been told doing so will prolong the life somewhat and leave you with fewer headache's over time.

All in all though, regardless of the terrain you've been playing on it is a good idea to do a quick visual inspection to make sure you don't pick up any real trail damage which could cause you problems on your drive home.

bean69

Thanks. All great suggestions. I also noticed, when I'm maintaining my speed by hitting the gas slightly I get a slight grinding/vibrating it seems to be coming form the front. Any Ideas?