Touchless Cleaning Method
Article by, Jason Macklin
I’ve been searching for the best, easiest and cheapest way to clean my off-road toys after getting them dirty. I’ve tried plenty of products from different car wash soaps, Facebook gimmicks (certainly not pointing fingers at total wash), foam cannons, with results that were less than ideal. All products I tried still left mud residue that had to be cleaned off with either a brush or left the towel dirty as I dried. I happened across yet another online claim about a product, but this article wasn’t selling anything, instead it just offered a simple DIY formula. The internet calls it Booty Juice and despite the odd name, it flat out works even on the dirtiest of machines. One part purple Zep degreaser, one part tide laundry detergent, two parts water. It seemed too easy and cheap to work but I gave it a try and will never turn back. I did the following demonstration on my dirty trailer tire because I wasn’t going to rearrange my shop to get the Jeep out and my side by sides were too clean for an accurate write up. Here is the before picture.
Step 1:
Mix one part Zep purple degreaser (32 oz), one part Tide laundry detergent (32 oz), two parts water (64 oz) in a weed sprayer. I used a cheap 1 gallon weed sprayer.
Step 2:
Pressure-wash off the big chunks of mud and grime. Here is a picture of what my trailer tire looked like after pressure washing and drying.
Step 3:
Spray cleaner onto body, frame, wheels, tires and anything else that needs cleaning using the sprayer. You can see in the below photos the amount of grime that the cleaner removes by the dark puddle under the tire.
Step 4:
Let items being washed sit for 5 minutes then pressure wash. I had to repeat steps 3 and 4 twice with this tire due to years of mud and grime accumulation but the finished product shows how well this works with no scrubbing and minimal work. Unlike other products I have used, you can see the grime coming off with the pressure washer.
Finished Product vs Original
Still not perfect, but for the minimal amount of time, effort, and cost of the solution, it’s the best thing I have found. Additionally, using this process seems to make future cleaning easier as well. I couldn’t use my side by side for pictures because after cleaning it with solution, pressure washing the tires made it look completely clean again.
