My "ULTIMATE" Car Detailing plan

[sidewazegtsr]

Well I actually would have thought longer on the engine bay but 4hrs is'nt that bad. The results are sick and it's a great way to spend a Sat or Sun morning in the summer. I don't have access to a steamer but a buddy mine of mine uses something (can't remember the name of it) when he does his bay and it turns out really nice so I'll probabley do that. Ok it won't turn out AS nice but having the right tools for a job makes all the difference for sure.

Super work man and I can't wait to see what you do on the exterior. :wink:

[StarScream159]

Wow, I'm very impressed. I find this thread very interesting. Keep us posted... i can't wait to see the exterior!

[mcnab]

Well I finished the exterior detail this weekend. What a LONG process. But it came out well...

The marring and swirling were bad enough that I basically had to start with a compound (heavy cut polish) and work my way up.....It turned out AWESOME! Here are some before / afters pics.

BEFORES



AFTERS




I'll snap some better pics of it soon. It rained all day so I couldnt' get some proper pics of it after it went outside!!

What do I have planned next? I'm hoping to get the new rims/tires on soon. I need longer lug nuts tho :/ I'll update this again when I've got the new rims/tires on!

[Paradis]

what do you suggest for cleaning wheels, these advans i have now are major el grosso on the inside

I've got this super clean stuff i picked up from CTC, i think i'll try that

[mcnab]

DON'T use Superclean...That's WAY too harsh of a degreaser to be using on wheels. I only use that on the very harshest of conditions.

Go pick up a generic jug of "heavy duty degreaser" and start with a medium dilution of it (say 3:1) and if that's not doing it, then put on straight degreaser. Even the "heavy" degreasers from Canadian Tire or other similar places aren't as harsh as that Castrol Superclean. That stuff is just really harsh...ONLY use that in the last case if it's not working....

Also get a wheel brush (they have them available OTC @ Canadian Tire) and use that to aggitate the wheels as your putting on the degreaser as well. This should get most of the harsh stuff off..

Now, if you want to help brighten them up a little, you can try a few different things.

Get some "NeverDull" from a place like Candian Tire. It's basically prelubricated balls of polish. it's like VERY VERY fine steel wool. Test it in a small spot first to see how it looks. Rub it in the wheel, wait for it to haze slightly, then wipe it off. If it looks ok (not marring or hazing your wheels finish) then do the whole wheel.

THEN, get some dedicated metal polish (like eagle one metal polish at Canadian Tire) and then start using this stuff to REALLY brighten up the wheels.

That should give you enough to start with anyway Let me know how it works for you or if these dont' quite work.

Also pick up a little pack of those disposable gloves as well. The degreasers and polishes can leave your hands pretty raw. Your hands will thank you for it

[Paradis]

Hey, thanx for all the info!!

Yah, i second guessed myself before i started laying on the superclean. I did do a spot try first to see, and it did start to work. then i tried a pretty weak dilution of it and almost no effect.
The inside ring of these are gunked up good. I'll take a pic later tonight and post it.

[dl337j00]

very nice job. i am impressed.

what do you use for cleaning the engine bay?

[mcnab]

very nice job. i am impressed.

what do you use for cleaning the engine bay?

I use a couple different things.

Generic High Strength Degreaser
Castrol Superclean (sparingly, on some parts)
Shark Hi Temperature Steam Cleaner
303 Aerospace Protectant
Stoner Trim Dressing
Tons of towels and brushes.

There is no easy way to clean the engine bay. Tons of stuff is caked on there and the only way to get it off is to agitate it manually. I wish it were just as easy as spraying on some miracle degreaser and rinising it off ot see a new engine bay. I clean and steam everything (steamer really helps ) then dress all the hoses and plastics etc.

[Paradis]

still trying to alocate a digital cam to post pics of the inside of the wheels, they will exist eventually

[Paradis]

ok, finally here's some pics. So this is what i'm trying to clean, i did try and use some super clean before you said not too, but even that didn't exactly cut away everything. So you still think i should do what you were saying with the generic de-greaser?




the front isn't so bad

[mcnab]

Ouch man, those look pretty rough. Lets put it this way, if straight Superclean isnt' even touching it, then dont' bother trying a heavy duty degreaser. Superclean is much stronger than any OTC degreaser.

They have dedicated wheel acids, you might want to give one of those a try. There's also Meguiers Wheel Brightner, this is very stronger stuff as well. You may have to just bite the bullet and get the wheels refinished. Sometimes that's the only course.

Have you tried sanding them and seeing if that works? There's not gonna be any easy way to get those clean though im afraid.

If the metal has got really bad watering spots and etching than wetsanding may bring that back out. Start by trying a 1000Grit wetsand. If that doesnt work then slowly go down grits until it starts removing the defects. Then work your way up after that. Then get a compound (they've got turtle wax compounds OTC and they work pretty good). That'll get any marks out left over from wetsanding. Then bring out the finish again with a megs powerball and some metal polish (try eagleone metal finsih or mothers chrome and meg polish).

[Paradis]

woah, looks like this is a project cleaning for sure. Good thing i got these a few weeks before the car, gonna need that extra time

i'll try some of these suggestions, and let ya know what kind of progress i'm experiencing.

[mcnab]

I did some more work to the car this weekend, so I thought I'd post the results. When I initially polished the car (back in the few pics I posted) I wasn't that happy with the results. Different products work better on different colors and on different cars. So what might make one paint colour and type really look perfect, might not work on another vehicles paint. I found that the combo I had used before didnt' quite make the flake "pop" like I was looking for....Anyway, I found the perfect combo for our Nissan black and red cars

It had also been a month or so since I polished the car and there was a little bit of washed inducced micro marring. Not much, but enough to bother me

Anyway, so this weekend I went at it again with some Optimum Polish w/ a light cutting pad, followed by some ClearKote Red Moose Machine Glaze topped with S100 Wax. This combo was exactly what I was looking for. It gave the paint some more depth, and really made the flake POP right out.

Take a look at the pics below, NO swirls or marring here just clean beutiful paint looking like it should

[Paradis]

Ok, so i went ahead and spent about 6 hours of scrubbing with both Super clean and meguire's and got a fair amount of that gunk off. Even picked up some never dull and eagle one polish. But i can't quite get it to that level of shine, i got most of the grime off, but there's these "tracks" or looks like petrified cloth shearings stuck in the metal, and i can't get that last of the grime off either. Its like i spent all this time to get the thick crap off and can't get the job done now.
Any suggestions?


BEFORE






AFTER






Sorry dude, i'm not trying to take over your thread, just looking for some help.

[mcnab]

Hehe no worries, the point of this thread was to get some discussion going regarding detailing. It doesn't matter to me if it's on my car or not.

Anyway, back on to the task at hand. You've done one hell of a job cleaning those up so far!

I can't tell from the pics wheather the wheels are clearcoated or not. Some are, some aren't, although my guess is that they aren;t.

It looks to me like the wheels are coated in hard water spots, etching and oxidation. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, you're gonna need to put some more time into polishing these to bring out that shine.....

Here's what I suggest. Pick up some finer grade wetsand paper. Start with say 600, and work your way up in 200 grit increments until 1000grit wetsand. After you've finished sanding out the imperfections(oxidation, pitting etc), it's time to start bringing out the shine.

Get some generic rubbing compounds. I know CT sells "Turtle Wax" heavy duty rubbing compounds and light compounds.

Heavy Rubbing Compound:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396670114&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474396670271&bmUID=1152117280644&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441890039&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true

Light Rubbing Compound:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/product_detail.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396670114&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474396670271&bmUID=1152117280614&PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441890043&assortment=primary&fromSearch=true

After going through the sanding + compounding, then switch back to your eagle one polish to bring out that FINAL gloss. I've done this to a pair of polished aluminum rims I had on a previous car. It took awhile, but was WELL worth it.

If you've got any other questions let me know. A note about the wetsand paper. Obviously you use it with water for lubrication. But also use the highest grit that will get out the defects you're looking for. IE there's no point in using 400 grit wetsand paper to remove the defects when using 800grit would have removed them teh same. So see which grade sandpaper you should use so you're not sanding off more than you need to be.

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.