best way to protect motor from mud

There really is no way to stop mud getting to all the engines beside not going into it. But I have found that when you do play, just given the engine bay a really good clean, as well as your brakes, the insides of your wheel rims, and suspension.
Also all the other nooks and cranny's under your car.

A wise man once told me:
Driving in mud is like drinking too much.
You know it's gonna hurt in the morning,
But you are having so much fun you just dont care.

Our 4WD club did 3 days of demo's and "Ride the course for a Gold Coin donation" at the 2005 YP Field Days. The course we used involved a mud puddle about 20 meters long. A few of us had to get our brake pads renewed after that, cos the mud and grit just stuffed em.

As siad above (previous response), there's not much you can do to avoid getting the mud in the motor and it's ancilliaries (alternator, air con etc), but all you can do is either avoid the mud in the 1st place, or wash it out thoroughly asap after you've finished.

I have never tried myself, but i have been told that spraying the engine, susp...etc with cooking oil spray prior to \the play will cause the mud to stick to the oil and it will come straight off with a gerni......worth a try....wonder how expensive cooking spray is....ill ask the missus!!

Avoid driving through any mud, if there is a diversion take it! Like has been said it WILL come back to bite you!

And the biggest thing with mud as I have found out is that it gets up between the radiator and air con condensor and sets like a brick reducing air flow which inturn as we know produces over heating problems. I had a play in some mud only last year and yes while its fun at the time the cleaning is a pain in the ar#e so unless I have to go through it to get where I'm going I usually take the way with least mud. Gernie is great to clean mud off but I wouldnt go blasting around cv boots etc as the pressure from the gernie will open up the rubber boots and shove mud into them not what you want. As said above brakes etc I ended up having to pull the drums off the back to clean out properly and the list goes on. The worst thing I have done is when playing around the nunes up lithgow way I had mud sprayed all over my windscreen by my mate yeah had a good laugh until I put the wipers on then the squirters and scratched the crap out of my windsrceen cause it was a sand stone quarry. Have fun just remember some of the points people have mentioned as to cause less cleaning hassles and mechaniclal problems. Another thing I have done when I have got home is park the lux on the back grass and whack the green soaker hose under it for a while, nice soft spray but loosens a hell of alot of mud from the under body. Just remember if going through deep water your diffs as well unless you have breathers nice and high. Go for it have fun but remember to do it in the write places as it is hard enough now to prove that we arnt doing damage to nature to the greenies. Steve M

Best way is to stay out of it :-)

Ivanhoe crossing is the best spot up here, drive accross acouple of times, do a bit of backwards and the underside is spotless!

I have also found that giving tha underside a fairly good soaking (if you have the water), then leave it for an hour or so, and most of the big hard chunks will fall off nder their own weight, the same chunks will take ages to hose off dry.

Cheers andrew

hi the cooking spray doesn't work the heat generated under the bonnet bakes the spay and mud to the most heat affected area ,what i have used with a reasonable degree of success is dry silicone lube while the engine bay is cold trying to avoid the exhaust manifold and turbo. This has the same effect as mud on polished paint work cheers steve

well it sounds like most of you say dont do it go around it avoid it like the plage and a cupple have good ideas and afew more things to be cautious about.

Well i like playing in mud the reason for this thred was to find out ways to minimise damage to my 4x4 i know im going to break things and replace others sooner than usual but for me its all a part of 4wdriving, sure down the track i might get sick of allwas having to fix my 4b but im not there yet

thanks for everyones opinion if you have any more keep em coming