My "ULTIMATE" Car Detailing plan

[Paradis]

Ok so i picked up some 600 paper, and went to work on a small spot. Results? uhh, i dunno, haha. There is a distinct difference in the brilliance of the spot, but i can't tell if i'm doing damage to the coat, or if i'm actually getting rid of the stuff i'm trying to. I used it in conjunction with some neverdull. i'll get some pics later hopefully

[Paradis]

Also another suggestion. Do your arms a favor and use powertools to do this. I did part of my wheels by hand and it took forever. I used a buffer to apply the compounds and eagle one polish. I used the mothers powerball for the eagle one polish etc. I used a crappy hand buffer with several terry cloth applicator attachements to put on the compounds (as they'll dirty up pretty quickly). I did all the sanding by hand, but there are tons of tools you could use for the sanding.[/quote]

Also, where would one find this type of equipment to use and not own it. Some of those tools sound fairly expensive and i'm not going to buy them just to do my wheels this one time

[mcnab]

Ok so i picked up some 600 paper, and went to work on a small spot. Results? uhh, i dunno, haha. There is a distinct difference in the brilliance of the spot, but i can't tell if i'm doing damage to the coat, or if i'm actually getting rid of the stuff i'm trying to. I used it in conjunction with some neverdull. i'll get some pics later hopefully

I hoped you tested from 1000 grit DOWN instead of just starting at 600 (I mentioned to do this in my above thread). Starting at the higher grits and seeing which one you needed to remove the imperfections (IE not using a lower grit paper than you needed to). Anyway, you need many different grades of WETSAND paper (like I mentioned above, use from 600-1000grit wetsand). The wohle point of the 600 grit wetsand is to remove the imperfections and give you a rejuvenated surface to work with. After using 600 grit sandpaper you shouldn't have any brilliance to it. The 800 grit removes the marks left from the 600, the 1000 gritt removes marks left by the 800. Then the 1000 grit should have left your finish smooth enough now that you can start polishing it. The heavy / lite compounds are meant to remove the sanding marks left from the 1000grit wetsand. Then after the compounding you use the final metal polish to bring out the final lustre. Things won't start looking good until you're into the compounding part.


The whole point is to work your way up in grits (one removing the marks from the previous), it's a time consuming process, but any metal polishing is.

I've got pics from a valve cover I did a long time ago using thei method as well...Let me see if I can dig them up.

The tools I used were drills with polishing attachments that were available from CT or other stores. Nothign really that wouldn't be around a normal shop.

[Paradis]

well jeez, i dunno what to say, i went to store, and they didn't have anything higher than 600, so thats what i got to start. Used it, noticed some of the imperfections i was talking about were gone, but there was a distinctly different shade/appearence, so i took out some neverdull to cleanit up and see what it looked like and it was like a totally different reflective surface. Hope i didn't get too carried away. if you do have any pics that would help

[mcnab]

Here's the before / afters of the wheels I did not to long ago.

AFTER is on the left, BEFORE is on the right



Here's some of the pics I've got of that valve cover. Sry some of them aren't that good.

BEFORE (with all the crinkple paint on, stripped it useing aircraft stripper)


Here it is after using 220 grit on it.



After I went through all the grits. Sry I didn't have more pics inbetween.


Here it is in the car after. Again sry I didn't have more progess pics throughout.

[Paradis]

okay so this is the spot i did (on the inside of the outer rim), look at and tell if;

a-i screwed myself
b-keep doing that
c-i've just created more for myself

[JZ]

Moved to FAQ.

Great thread guys!

[mcnab]

It's hard to tell from that pic....Is the inner "3 spokes" painted? and then the outter part of the rim is a polished metal?

From looking at it, it seems you're doing ok. It's going to look worse before it looks better. After you wetsand, you're going to need the compounds to remove the "sanding marks". that's what the heavy compounds are for. You can use a drill with a polishing attachement if you want. That's all I used when compounding.

If hope you're not trying to wetsand any "painted" areas. The above techniques were meant for polishing metal, not a painted rim. If you wanted to paint the rim, you could simply prep the rim, and then re-spray it. That's actaully pretty easy

But from the looks if it you seem to be doing ok. The neverdull isn't a compound. It's sort of a fine polish. It's not going to remove the marks left from wetsanding. Try getting one of the compounds I mentioned above and doing it that way. Again it's sort of hard to tell from that picture, but it does seem to look ok.

If you look at the pic I did of my rims, you can see they look totally different. One is completely clean, while the other is oxidized and ugly :S

Keep us posted!

PS: JZ did you get my PM the other day? Never heard back from you.

Also I thought I would post this up while we're on the topic. If you've got painted rims and want to "re-finish" them (ie respray them). Then here's a pretty good way of doing it. It's an article small DIY that my brother and I wrote when we repaired his hims. Note we used a putty because the "curbing" was SO minor that it didnt' require anything stronger. They were essentiall scratches, not gouges. If you need anything significant use something like JBweld, or something more permanent.

Here's the link

http://www.pinnacledetailing.com/lyle/tegtips/rim_repair/

[Paradis]

thats a great little article you put together.
Anyways i totally understand what you're saying about what they will look like before i polish them, dirty and cloudy. But i'll post a close up to make sure you're you know what part i'm exactly referring to, cause after i used the paper and wiped it off, it didn't look cloudy thats for sure. You see that area inside the outer rim that looks reflective, thats the area i applied the 600 to.

also, maybe a dumb question, but how can you tell if they're painted or polish, these "appear" to be polished

[mcnab]

To me it looks like you're right on track. Again judging as best I can from the pick it seems you're removed the imperfections and started to uncover what the rim SHOULD look like. I mean 10+ years of having road debree and brake dust on a rim will take it's toll on a polished part It's just how it is.

As for telling if a rim is polished or painted it's just one of those things you can "tell". When I look at the inner portion of the rim (where the centre cap is) it looks paitned to me. I can see little bites of flake in it and it looks like if I took sandpaper to it that it could just keep sanding through it until I hit metal. It's not shiney at all, it just has a "colour" to it.

A plolished part has a lustre to it and just doesn't look anything like a painted part. They look litterly like a bare metal (whether they're oxidized or not).

To me in that pic it looks as if the outside lip is a polished lip, and the inner spokes are painted some sort of silver. Am i right? You can't polish paint on rims (well you can't but there's really no point). You're best bet is to just keep them as CLEAN as possible.

Also may I suggest after you've done this that you apply a wax to the wheel. It'll help repel dirt and dust and ugly stuff. Also don't make all this hard work go down the drain either. Use that degreaser that you bought (or didn't) and cut it down to a 3-1 or even 5-1 dilution ratio. Use this to keep your wheels clean. I clean my wheels weekly using the above ration of degreaser...

Why do I use a degreaser instead of a dedicated wheel cleaner? Well lets put it this way, I go through A LOT of wheel cleaner (for both my cars and my clients car). At the prize of a decent bottle of rim wheel cleaner/brighter it would get very expensive. When I used to just do my car, I was going through atleast a bottle a week (which got pricey). I start looking for cheaper alternatives. Many of these wheel cleaners are essentiall just degreasers with optical brightners. Some are better than others. I do still keep a few wheel cleaners around as sometimes certain wheels can be very stubborn and need a dedicated wheel cleaner. What I do is have an 8 litre pesticide sprayer and use that as my wheel cleaner. I fill it up with the above dilution ration, get it pressurized with a few pumps and then just pull the trigger and spray it on. Works much easier than filling a spray bottle too Work smart, not hard

Newho let us know what kind of progress you make on your rims. Im in the same situation as you basically. I've got a pair of rims Im thinking about putting on my car. They're a 255 series tire on all 4's. Gonna try to fit em on my GTS-T, but not sure if they'll fit. Im gonna mock em up as soon as I get my car back on the road and see if they fit. If they fit then I'll take em off and restore them. They've got a polished lip and and gunmetal spokes. Some of the paint is chipping, and the polished lis heavily oxidized. So I'll be doing much teh same process to these rims. I'll make sure I document it well so that I can post this up as well. I'll also use the same technique for painting the rims I posted above to refinish the gunmetal portion of the rim to a newer condition (As some of it's peeling off).

Hope all goes well! Pick up those compounds as you'll be suprised how much they'll clean it up!!!

[Paradis]

Wow, you're just an endless supply of useful information! Thank God for you right now,

So yes, if i was a betting man, then i would defintely say that this look to be polished lips with a painted 3 spoke interior. What i think i'll do, is continue to work on the lip area going through the same process you suggested (paper, compound, polish), and try to clean the inner painted area as best i can. If it looks uneven or unsatisfying, then guess i'll look at repainting, though i really hope not, don't know if i have skill/confidence to pull that job off.

[Paradis]

Ok, so today some news. I went to see my old buddy who works at Kal Tire, just to get a second opinion on whether or not that shiny part was damage, or progress. Also b/c i wasn't able to find this "wetsand" so i've been using 600 grit waterproof sandpaper with water (which could be what you meant when you said wetsand) and i wanted to make sure that wasn't a problem.

He looks at it and says thats a machine finish (?) cause he can see these little lines or something, and that sanding that would be bad. then he looks closely at the area and says that it actually looks good. We both recognize though that due to the design of the spoke pattern that there will be very tuff areas to get. So he reccomends i look at this sandblasting and powercoating place and consider just getting them repainted all together.

So i go to this place and have them look. they say 400$ for all 4, but i'm gonna loose the label and the two tone effect b/w the lip and spoke. Ouch. Also, i don't like their candycoat, looks just like the painted spoke part, and i don't want the lip area looking like that.

So, i'm just gonna go ahead, and scrub the hell out of them, and see where i end up. if worse comes to worse, i can always go back to this power coating place and get them redone.

[mcnab]

Ok, so today some news. I went to see my old buddy who works at Kal Tire, just to get a second opinion on whether or not that shiny part was damage, or progress. Also b/c i wasn't able to find this "wetsand" so i've been using 600 grit waterproof sandpaper with water (which could be what you meant when you said wetsand) and i wanted to make sure that wasn't a problem.

He looks at it and says thats a machine finish (?) cause he can see these little lines or something, and that sanding that would be bad. then he looks closely at the area and says that it actually looks good. We both recognize though that due to the design of the spoke pattern that there will be very tuff areas to get. So he reccomends i look at this sandblasting and powercoating place and consider just getting them repainted all together.

So i go to this place and have them look. they say 400$ for all 4, but i'm gonna loose the label and the two tone effect b/w the lip and spoke. Ouch. Also, i don't like their candycoat, looks just like the painted spoke part, and i don't want the lip area looking like that.

So, i'm just gonna go ahead, and scrub the hell out of them, and see where i end up. if worse comes to worse, i can always go back to this power coating place and get them redone.

Yah that's what the lip looked like to me. I've got a "machined" lip on the rims as well. When they get as bad as your's was the only way to get it back to the way it was is by sanding it though. It's just how it is :/ If there was an easy way to "machine" it back the way it was I'd have recommended that.

Powdercoating is an option as you mentioned. I personally like them painted better, but you'll never get that polished lip back that you mentioned. I guess there' no way for them to mask that certain area? I know they have to bake it after and I guess any mask would simply just come off. Hmm oh well :/

Let us know how you make out. I've been saying that t wasnt' gonna be an easy job from the start and it seems others have confirmed it. Keep banging away at it!!!

[Paradis]

Sigh... So 22 hours of cleaning and sanding later, i've reached certain conclusions

One is that i'm never gonna restore these wheels to 100%. I mean its possible maybe to get them back to 95%, but it's take so many sanding and compounding hours that it simply exceeds the pay off. "the juice isn't worth the squeeze" so to speak.
I've got them at about 85% restored now and thats gonna have to do. The only imperfections left are deep etchings, as well as areas around the curve of the lip that are so difficult to match up with the rest. I tried an 800 grit after my 600 and difference was negligible.

I picked up some of that hard and light compounding (is it worth it to use both?) and rubbed the hell out of one section from one of the wheels, and then applied the eagle one polish, and the results were astonishing. At more than 4 feet, the wheel looks brilliant and near flawless. No seriously, the smoothness is strangely erotic.
So thats my gameplan now.

Oh yea, is there a stage i should be using my NeverDull that i bought? say after the compounding? or is it not worth it at that point?

I'll be back later with pictures

[Tango]

http://www.pinnacledetailing.com/lyle/tegtips/rim_repair/

thats a great little article you put together.

Greg, Greg, Greg...
Give credit where credit is due? :P

I am one of the co-founders of Pinnacle Detailing, Greg and I are actually twin brothers. We usually work together on most clients, however, as of late my schedule hasn't permitted it.

Tomorow Greg and I are tag-teaming a 91 Integra DA. We'll post up before and after pics. This integra has very bad marring from a cut polish that was done on it by someone before. We should be able to bring it back, like I said, we'll post up some before and afters.

Cheers