If you play in the dirt your toys are going to get dirty. That is exactly what happened to our Project Desert RZR.
Keeping your toys clean not only makes them look better, but it also gives you time to find potential problems so your not stuck out on the trail the next time you go out.
Now this is what our Project Desert RZR looked like after only 4 times out to the desert. You will notice along with the dirt our custom cage started showing some flash rust. Our 4-pt harnesses did not look red anymore, kind of a pink color from all the silt. Where we ride there is a ton of silt or poof dirt as they call it out here. This crap gets everywhere. So the first step was to remove the seats and the 4-pt harnesses so we could wash it down.
With a soft car wash brush and some soapy water, or I should say with a ton of water from the hose for the initial rinse, we washed our RZR down. The other problem silt creates is no matter how much water you use or how strong your pressure washer is it wont come off with just water, you have to hit it with soap and something to scrub with. So we scrubbed it down then pushed it into the shade of the garage. The scrubbing also included the plastic on the interior. Everywhere my brush would fit got the scrub down. By the time I was done you would have thought our driveway was a sand dune.
Next it was time to tackle that flash rust on the cage. We have not had our cage powder coated yet because we kind of like the look of the raw steel, and keeping it looking nice is not hard work as we will describe.
All you need is some ScotchBright, WD-40, and some old rags. Start by spraying the WD-40 on the ScotchBright and wrap it around the tube. Scrub the tube in a length-wise direction. This keeps the lines of the metal the same. Scrub until you see the rust spots disappear and you should also see a black fill start to appear. This is the oxidation on the steel. Once you scrub down the whole cage, take that old rag and rub all the steel tubing down with the same motion. After we went over the whole cage we took a different rage and did it again. Now our RZRs cage looked brand new.
We went on to cleaning the 4-pt harnesses, well part of them. The parts of the harnesses that bolt onto the RZR stayed inside and got the soapy water scrub. I used a tie-down strap to hold them up, so they could be rinsed and not get in the way of cleaning the rest of the interior. The rest of the harnesses were on the tailgate of my truck where we used a shop-vac to get rid of all the poof dirt in them. I dont like washing them with water because I dont want the cushions of the shoulder harnesses getting hard. I can live with the little bit of dust left inside them.
The seats were next. Polaris did a good job of making them comfortable and cleanable at the same time. A simple scrubbing with the brush used to clean the outside made them look new again.
During the cleaning process I noticed the passenger rear tire had a nail it in. Before this I did notice that tire would go down after sitting for a week but not that much. Well now that I know what it causing it, it can be fixed.
So taking the time to clean and maintain your toys can keep them lasting a long time. Some people say to us, why wash it, I am just going to get it dirty again. Well as you can see without this washing I would have not seen that nail, or the flash rust that started under our vinyl top. Besides the best part about washing your toys is getting them dirty again.
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