Bought a 1997 sr5 4runner v6 5speed. Love it. I took the running boards off, now took the big shield and knew I'd have to clean it but it's dirty and I have no idea how to clean it back to normal. Oh and I found 2 cool things under my hood today too

 

Oh. And I tried cleaning it with a wet rag and that was the result. I don't want to scratch it up, would buffing it work? Any ideas?

 

If you're talking about how to clean the plastic bug shield, you may not ever be able to get it back to "normal" if it's scratched or faded. It is, after all, just a piece of plastic.

If you've got something stuck on there, try some WD-40 or Goo-gone or some similar non-corrosive product to break that stuff up.

As far as the goodies under your hood, I can only see one, the throttle-body spacer. You can take that junk out. It's doing nothing for you. I don't know what the other "goodie" is, but if a TB spacer is one of them, you should probably remove the other one too, haha.