What did you do today Auto Detailing related?

CG6Lemon · Aug 14, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

Brad2274 said:
cleaned my brothers sedan, his wheels were sooo bad, he hasnt washed it in about 3 years. passenger headlights wont get any better because moisture gets in

Brad, Good job getting the heavier/bulk build up of dirt/brake dust off. Do you know if the lip is clear coated or bare aluminum? To test a rim, apply a light polish and rub on an inconspicuous area. If the wheels are painted you'll see the color of the paint coming off onto the towel. If the wheels are clearcoated you won't see any color transferring off the wheel and onto your cloth, but if you also don't see the cloth turning black you know the wheel is not bare aluminum. Bare aluminum will turn your cloth dark grayish or blackish.

cmgreensr said:
So after browsing this thread, I decided something must be done lol. My car originally came with vinyl seats and door inserts that were in very poor shape by the time I got this car. First thing I did to the car was replace the cracked front seats with coupe seats in "not bad" condition. Last week, I was able to score the rest of an ex interior including rear seat, door panels and all wood grain for a hefty $85.

This made me realize how dirty my front seats had gotten! I have driven over 30k in a year and tried to clean them a couple times but nothing really worked.

After reading your comments, I picked up some meguiars today and tried it out for about 30 seconds. I know what I plan on doing tomorrow now. This stuff is amazing.

As you can see, I just tested the corner but the difference is amazing. I've wasted plenty on inferior products that did nothing so thank you guys.

First, let me say great job on your leather seats. The test spot showed a huge improvement and I can tell you are happy with the results. May I ask which Meguiar product are you using on the seats?

cmgreensr · Aug 14, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

Thank you. It's meguiars gold class rich leather cleaner/conditioner. It's just a $7.50 product from Walmart but my front seats will eventually need to be replaced again due to some small rip action that I can't stand but that's further down the road. For now, I just needed them to at least match up to the rears and it appears that this product will do that. Btw, I had zero worthwhile cleaning products before reading this thread so this is only a baby step lol.

CG6Lemon · Aug 22, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

I recently completed my retrofit for my headlights, and upon closer inspection the lenses very severely oxidized, and the previous owner sanded them leaving me more problems to fix. The method I used to "restore" the headlights is only one out of many proven methods, but this will yield the best results with the right tools.

Our starting point

Judging the condition of the headlights, in order for me to tackle all of the problems I know I will have to sand these headlights to remove the defects. My goal for these headlights is to get a crystal clear look to it, but I'm not going to chase the pitting from rocks, and road debris.

I purchased some sanding disc to use on my DA to speed things up.

This is the disc attached to the DA

A tip. Tape up the surrounding headlight whenever sanding is necessary to avoid extra work of polishing out unnecessary sanding scratches.

Before I jump right in and starting sanding like crazy, I came up with a plan and decided to do a test spot first to determine my process. I started with a corner of the headlight which IMO was the worst area of the bunch.

This is what the sanding disc looked like after a couple passes. The gunk, dirt, oxidation, clearcoat, and residue coming off the headlight and being transferred onto the sanding disc.

A tip for this is to spray some water on it and wipe the surface with a towel to reveal a clean surface on the disc ready to start sanding again.

After using 800 grit, I refined it with 1500, and 3000. Ended up with a slight haze I need to polish out later on. From these pictures you can tell the low beam and high beam area was bad with severely yellowing showing.

Moving on to the rest of the headlight now.

Completed

Moving on to the other side now

Completed

Finished shots

Whenever you sand your headlights, you are removing the thin film of UV inhibitors that protects the headlights from the sun's UV rays. It is absolutely necessary to reapply a layer of protection back onto the headlight to prevent further oxidation. For this reason, I have chose to use a coating by Optimum. The coating will replace what was removed, and is durable enough to last for years to come without any chance of oxidation returning.

http://www.autogeek.net/optimum-opti-lens-headlight-coating.html

One thing I have learned from this ordeal is that refining 800 grit with 1500 grit is too time consuming. I needed 1000 or 1200 grit sandpaper to be more efficient. To those that have made it this far, thank you for viewing my work. As always I appreciate any comments, or questions. I am open for suggestions on any topics you would like to see.

Total hours: 3 hours.

cfox28 · Aug 22, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

nice write up. though the sanding is fairly typical, the sealant I feel like is often not mentioned, so props! i've also seen clear coat applied after sanding, thoughts?

f20bcg3 · Aug 23, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

A very good write up lemon, interested to now how much are we looking at total price for everything total. I will be doing this in the near future

truWarier02 · Aug 24, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

Had a mobile PDR (paintless dent repair) guy come to my house on Friday and he made my quarter panel damage look 99% better. Also talked me into repairing all the various door and fender dings. He noticed dents that I never knew I had lol. Then I started the process of detailing my car for the first time. Clay barred with Nanoskin sponge and I loved how smooth the paint was afterwards.

Then spent all day Saturday polishing and sealing for the very first time with a DA. I skipped the compound step because it didn't make much a difference compared to the polish I was using so I went straight to the polishing step. The Menzerna PF2500 got rid of my water stains that plagued my whole driver side, gave the paint more depth and made my car buttery smooth. Topped it off with Menz Power Lock and it made the car feel like glass! My whole body is spent but it was well worth it. Car looks almost brand new. I wonder if I should put a second layer tomorrow or go with a wax...

cfox28 · Aug 24, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

Any before and after pics? Most likely phone pics won't do it justice, but just curious

CG6Lemon · Aug 24, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

cfox28 said:
nice write up. though the sanding is fairly typical, the sealant I feel like is often not mentioned, so props! i've also seen clear coat applied after sanding, thoughts?

Thank you. The last step protection is as equally important as the execution process. Applying clear coat is another method which also works as well, but it requires a little bit more tools and knowledge about using a spray gun.

f20bcg3 said:
A very good write up lemon, interested to now how much are we looking at total price for everything total. I will be doing this in the near future

Thank you. I would only consider this route if you're looking to do more headlight restorations as a side job to get your money back. It's pretty pricey after you add things up.

truWarier02 said:
Had a mobile PDR (paintless dent repair) guy come to my house on Friday and he made my quarter panel damage look 99% better. Also talked me into repairing all the various door and fender dings. He noticed dents that I never knew I had lol. Then I started the process of detailing my car for the first time. Clay barred with Nanoskin sponge and I loved how smooth the paint was afterwards.

Then spent all day Saturday polishing and sealing for the very first time with a DA. I skipped the compound step because it didn't make much a difference compared to the polish I was using so I went straight to the polishing step. The Menzerna PF2500 got rid of my water stains that plagued my whole driver side, gave the paint more depth and made my car buttery smooth. Topped it off with Menz Power Lock and it made the car feel like glass! My whole body is spent but it was well worth it. Car looks almost brand new. I wonder if I should put a second layer tomorrow or go with a wax...

Nice Davis. What are your thoughts on the sponge comparing it to a normal claybar if you have used one before. It looks like you got the hang of using the DA. It's not as intimidating as it seems, after a panel or two you will get the feel of it. Nice job taking out the water spots as well with only a polish. What that means is that it's not that deep etched into the clearcoat yet, and a mild polish was able to level it out without much hassle.

cfox28 said:
Any before and after pics? Most likely phone pics won't do it justice, but just curious

X2. Pics or Ban.

An update on the durability of the water based tire dressing. It's been about a month from last application and this is how it currently looks.

Before

After one month

CG6Lemon · Aug 24, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

The Pros and Cons of Polishing By Hand and Machine

I wanted to do a brief comparison between polishing paint by hand, and by machine. Most people start polishing by hand first to get a feel of what happens when you grab a bottle of polish with a towel and start wiping it onto your paint. Then as people progress with their experience, knowledge, and confidence of understanding the concept they transition to a machine which is the next step of the journey. Both methods will get the job done, which is the goal whenever you are trying to polish something out of your paint.

The pros of polishing by hand:

Less chance of going through the paint

More user confidence

Can get into different areas where a machine can't reach

The cons of polishing by hand:

A lot stress/fatigue on the body within a very short period of time

Very time consuming

Results will not be as good

The pros of polishing by machine:

Better correction rate

Less time consuming

Less stress/fatigue to the body

The cons of polishing by machine:

Chance of burning through the paint

Not user friendly. Need practice to control the machine

Need a understanding of how to use polish/pads in conjunction with different paint systems

These are just a couple examples that I was able to jot down from my head. But it is pretty clear that both can polish paint, but it will depend on the user to decide which method will be used. Below are some pictures to show as an example of what can be achieved by either methods.

Starting point

I decided to use a compound that anyone can purchase at a auto parts store.

I taped off two sections to show which side is which, and the results I was able to achieve. This section took 10 minutes doing it by hand, and there are a couple of deeper scratches left over. A huge improvement non the less.

Side by side shot

I tried to be as fair as possible so I used a polishing pad, instead of a compounding pad on this section. I got about a 90% correction rate within 2 minutes using a machine.

Both completed

Thanks for viewing. This was a fun demo for me because it's been a while since I polished by hand. It reminded me of the pain, and some areas only polishing by hand will reach so it will depend on different situations. Let me know of any topics you are interested in.

puzzlemaster94 · Aug 25, 2014

Re: What did you do today Detailing related?

So I just washed and waxed my car, and even after going over the surface twice with a microfiber towel, even used two different towels, and there are still wax marks/residue left. Any help onto how I can get these off? I can really only see them when I look really close and in the sun. I've buffed with a microfiber towel by hand, and can't seem to make them go away.

Washed with Meguiars Gold Class Shampoo.

Dried with a synthetic chamois

Waxed with Meguiars NXT 2.0 Wax.

What did you do today Auto Detailing related?

CG6Lemon

Detailing Enthusiast

cmgreensr

Well-Known Member

CG6Lemon

Detailing Enthusiast

cfox28

Well-Known Member

f20bcg3

Well-Known Member

truWarier02

Well-Known Member

cfox28

Well-Known Member

CG6Lemon

Detailing Enthusiast

CG6Lemon

Detailing Enthusiast

puzzlemaster94

6GA Connoisseur

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