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meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

Cozmosis posted:

http://imgur.com/n4yMoPY

What's the best way to tackle this? My passenger side mirror, a chunk of the paint taken off. I assume touch up paint over it but then what? Can I use some sort of kit for sanding it down? Clear coat?

A new part there is about $50 plus somewhere along the lines of $40 to have a bodyshop paint it. Wondered if I'd be able to do something for a good bit less to make it passable if not look OK. Thoughts?

My first reaction to just about anything like that -- Magic Eraser. That will let you see exactly what you're looking at. There's a good chance that those white stripes will come right off and you can smooth the scrapes out enough to polish and call it good. You'll always be able to see it, but you can knock the "noticeable" level down a ton with a simile ME/polish.

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Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

OK, so this is how you end up down this dark path, eh?



Since the hood was dull still after clay I figured I'd try some 205. That got it very clean. Too clean, now I can see everything that's wrong with it. So I went to 105 and it got better. Definitely not fixed...there are scratched all over the place, but it looks a LOT better.

Yeah, I know I really should be using Megs 80 instead of 105 on this one, but I'm using what I have on the truck I care least about.

You bastards. Now I have something else to obsess over.

blueblueblue
Mar 18, 2009

Motronic posted:

You bastards. Now I have something else to obsess over.

I know how you feel. Everytime I clean one of my cars and take all the wax and dirt off, I can see every little imperfection in the paint and I twitch just a little. My wife thinks I am crazy...I call it love.

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

Motronic posted:

You bastards. Now I have something else to obsess over.

Just be thankful it's white and not black. :colbert:

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

meatpimp posted:

Just be thankful it's white and not black. :colbert:

Yeah, seriously.

Here's the before (cleaned and clayed):



After being done with 105:



So, yeah...it's a huge difference so far. This seems to be a decent representative shot, so I'll just keep using this door as the before and after.

Edit: Now done with 205:



It didn't look like much of a difference until I looked at the older pictures. Definitely not as dramatic as the 105, but that's to be expected.

Last edit, after 2 coats of wax:



I hit half the hood with #7 on a white pad and couldn't tell the difference. So I hit the rest of the hood just in case and skipped the rest of the truck, moving on to wax. Two coats, letting the last one sit dry for a bit longer than normal per meatpimp and it does seem to make a difference. I know the photos aren't the best, and it's hard to really take accurate representations of stuff like that but I can tell you based on what I saw these are about right. It's quite a difference and totally worth the time.

Now that I've managed to pull this off I realize you have to be a complete moron (as in, leaving your pad in the dirt and then running it on the car) to damage paint with this buffer. Pushing too hard just makes it stop spinning and it sits in place vibrating. Sure, you could do damage like that but you're have to be trying really, really hard.

I'm going to move on to the other Rover, which will be more (actually less) of the same. The next interesting thing I'll be doing will be the wet sand and buff of the Porsche. I'm not sure when I'm going to get on that, but I'll post pictures as I go.

So thanks again for all the advice.

Motronic fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Jun 23, 2013

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

It's been a while since I've used Gold Class (I found Meguiar's #16 paste before they stopped selling it in the US because it's filled with baby spines or something (still sold in Canada, though, so it's still available)).

BUT what I found with Gold Class was that the first coat looks good, but if you immediately do a second coat and let that second coat harden for a while... it really makes the paint pop. Something to try.

General_Failure
Apr 17, 2005
Thought you'd all appreciate this. Like Motronic I'm only just learning about this whole cleaning cars thing and paint being more than a rust preventative.

What it was like when I got it.



How it is now, including dust, cat footprints and explosive purple bird diarrhoea.


The marks on the paint in the first picture were where it had been touched. The paint was like a dirty chalkboard.

einTier
Sep 25, 2003

Charming, friendly, and possessed by demons.
Approach with caution.

Cozmosis posted:

http://imgur.com/n4yMoPY

What's the best way to tackle this? My passenger side mirror, a chunk of the paint taken off. I assume touch up paint over it but then what? Can I use some sort of kit for sanding it down? Clear coat?

A new part there is about $50 plus somewhere along the lines of $40 to have a bodyshop paint it. Wondered if I'd be able to do something for a good bit less to make it passable if not look OK. Thoughts?
Looks like a newish car and it's "just" a mirror. Plus, I can't tell exactly, but it looks like it might have actually gouged the material and deformed it.

What I would do is look for an exact duplicate on eBay or copartfinder. You should be able to get a perfect replacement off a crashed car for less than $50. You'll easily spend more than that trying to rescue this one. Even a real replacement at $90 isn't all that bad.

If you don't want to do that, hit it with some rubbing compound and see what you can pull out. You might be able to knock it down to something you can live with. A good rubbing compound like 3M's perfect-it II will run around $10. Use a towel or a hand pad and just keep rubbing with that stuff until it flakes off. Keep doing that until you don't see any more improvement.

Phone
Jul 30, 2005

親子丼をほしい。
Since I'm a terrible car owner, I finally got around to waxing my Mazda2 that I've owned since January 2012. The factory wax/sealant was long gone and I am too broke to go out and buy nice supplies. I'm kinda surprised at how much crap gets into the paint after 28k miles, but most of it came out.

Did a 2 bucket wash with Dawn dish detergent and went to the store to pick up stuff to properly wax it. Picked up the Meguiars clay kit and their Gold Class or whatever liquid wax. I had some Turtle Wax, but I opted to go for the "fancy" wax. I dropped the loving clay about 4 times, so I had to use both bars to do the car. I have some scratches/swirls on the roof, but I don't have an orbital. I think it came out alright, but I still need to wash the wheels so I'll do that tomorrow evening. Today was 4 hours, tomorrow will be about 1 hour to pull off all four wheels and just wash them down and rotate.

I still need to clean the interior. :negative:

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


I've been wondering, this may just be a crazy idea, but hear me out. Some of you guys use garden hose-powered foam guns for your cars. Unfortunately I don't have that option, as I live in an apartment. Well, technically I could drag a hose to the gas station across the street, but I think they'd disapprove.

Instead, what if I bought one of those pressurized weed sprayers, say a 5-6L model, filled it with hot water and soap, and used that to spray instead? Have any of you tried this?

They're extremely cheap at my local hardware store, ~$10 for a 5L model. It even says in the description that it can be used for cleaning products.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 5, 2013

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

KozmoNaut posted:

I've been wondering, this may just be a crazy idea, but hear me out. Some of you guys use garden hose-powered foam guns for your cars. Unfortunately I don't have that option, as I live in an apartment. Well, technically I could drag a hose to the gas station across the street, but I think they'd disapprove.

Instead, what if I bought one of those pressurized weed sprayers, say a 5-6L model, filled it with hot water and soap, and used that to spray instead? Have any of you tried this?

They're extremely cheap at my local hardware store, ~$10 for a 5L model. It even says in the description that it can be used for cleaning products.

Mine is full of liquid deer fence at the moment, but if you don't get an answer I'll try it out later tonight - need to spray once it cools off and that should empty it and I need to wash the car anyway. I doubt it would make much foam, but who knows....maybe it will.

InitialDave
Jun 14, 2007

I Want To Believe.
They can be ok for specific rinsing of wheels etc, but they don't really have the flowrate to do anything that's "hose" based, and I've always found that they tend to create a spray of droplets rather than a sheet of water when rinsing, which doesn't sluice its way off the surface as neatly.

If you can't get a hosepipe to where you are, I would wash by hand using the two-bucket method, and rinse with a watering can (without a rose on it) - you can easily grab a nice big ~25 gallon water container to decant the clean water from for the rinsing.

The 12v pump hose systems that run off a battery or cigarette lighter are a bit more convincing if you want portable hosing-down ability.

Tai-Pan
Feb 10, 2001
I posted before, but didn't get much of a response.

I have two spots of clear-coat failure about dollar size each. I am not going spend $2,000 on a respray for a car worth $4,000.

What is the best process to
1) Hide the failure as much as I can.
2) Prevent it from spreading.

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

Tai-Pan posted:

I posted before, but didn't get much of a response.

Damned people around here. Not giving you your :10bux: worth.


quote:

I have two spots of clear-coat failure about dollar size each. I am not going spend $2,000 on a respray for a car worth $4,000.

What is the best process to
1) Hide the failure as much as I can.
2) Prevent it from spreading.

Once the clearcoat fails, it often gets worse in a hurry. If it were me, I'd try the new 3M spray-on clear bra: http://www.amazon.com/3M-90000-Paint-Defender-Spray/dp/B00BSKYM82 It would probably stop the propagation and blend some of the gloss loss. For $25, it's worth a shot.

Tai-Pan
Feb 10, 2001

meatpimp posted:

Damned people around here. Not giving you your :10bux: worth.

I'm OG, son. I never paid no ten bux!
(Aside from titles..)

meatpimp posted:

Once the clearcoat fails, it often gets worse in a hurry. If it were me, I'd try the new 3M spray-on clear bra: http://www.amazon.com/3M-90000-Paint-Defender-Spray/dp/B00BSKYM82 It would probably stop the propagation and blend some of the gloss loss. For $25, it's worth a shot.

Interesting. I ordered some of that. Any tips for feathering the edges of the clearcoat damage? I assume if I can minimize that, the spray-bra will look better.

Scott808
Jul 11, 2001

KozmoNaut posted:

I've been wondering, this may just be a crazy idea, but hear me out. Some of you guys use garden hose-powered foam guns for your cars. Unfortunately I don't have that option, as I live in an apartment. Well, technically I could drag a hose to the gas station across the street, but I think they'd disapprove.

Instead, what if I bought one of those pressurized weed sprayers, say a 5-6L model, filled it with hot water and soap, and used that to spray instead? Have any of you tried this?

They're extremely cheap at my local hardware store, ~$10 for a 5L model. It even says in the description that it can be used for cleaning products.

At some point the guys on Detailing World were going nuts about buying hand pump pressure sprayers. I think they were using them to spray on pre-wash, but I don't know if they were using them without hoses to rinse. I'm quite sure some people use them to pre-treat when using ONR and the like.

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

Tai-Pan posted:

Interesting. I ordered some of that. Any tips for feathering the edges of the clearcoat damage? I assume if I can minimize that, the spray-bra will look better.

I don't know if feathering is possible, the failure usually comes from the clearcoat either not adhering or getting too thin. I've always had a goal to stop it from spreading. For that, a very light coat of clear nail polish at the edges works.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Scott808 posted:

At some point the guys on Detailing World were going nuts about buying hand pump pressure sprayers. I think they were using them to spray on pre-wash, but I don't know if they were using them without hoses to rinse. I'm quite sure some people use them to pre-treat when using ONR and the like.

My plan is to use it for pre-wash, to get a layer of foam on there to soften everything before I wash.

So foam->let sit for 2-3 minutes->rinse->foam->two-bucket wash->rinse, I guess.

Full Circle
Feb 20, 2008

meatpimp posted:

Damned people around here. Not giving you your :10bux: worth.


Once the clearcoat fails, it often gets worse in a hurry. If it were me, I'd try the new 3M spray-on clear bra: http://www.amazon.com/3M-90000-Paint-Defender-Spray/dp/B00BSKYM82 It would probably stop the propagation and blend some of the gloss loss. For $25, it's worth a shot.

drat that's an intriguing product. Does anyone have some firsthand testimony with it? My cars front was already chipped enough when I bought it that I didn't feel the need to drop $300 on a professional clear bra install. Is this stuff relatively invisible when applied correctly?

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




Seems like it's basically clear plastidip.

FlapYoJacks
Feb 12, 2009
Yeah, I have seen lots of people fix clearcoat with clear coat spray-cans, a lot of tape, and sanding. Which is what you would have to do, but it's a cheap 20$ solution that would look decent.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


RE: The hand pump pressure sprayer for foamin' up cars, this is pretty much what I was thinking of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS7yhtPfDjs

I don't know how different that nozzle is to the standard one, though.

bull3964
Nov 18, 2000

DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.


I'm thinking that clear 3M spray may be the perfect thing to spray in the lug holes of wheels. It should be extremely hard to spot, but it would prevent ham handed garage guys from marring the wheels when taking off lugnuts.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

KozmoNaut posted:

I don't know how different that nozzle is to the standard one, though.

Pretty different. I think you need a lot more aeration than the standard nozzle:



That being said, you can see it lifting the dirt anyway. It did a pretty decent job, but I'm sure it would do better wit more foam. Once I started running out and it was sucking up some air it got real foamy but of course the volume was cut immensely.

I dunno....works better than nothing if that's what you've got. I haven't looked around for a replacement nozzle and don't have one of the hose foam cannon things so I dont' know which one I'd rather use at this point.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Thanks for testing it out!

I wonder if a simply DIY mod could be made to make it aerate better. It's certainly cheap enough that I'd want to give it a shot.

E: Something like this.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jul 7, 2013

WARnold
Oct 30, 2004

You Lack Discipline!
Hey folks,

some tree sap sat on my car for a couple weeks, and left little bumps after washing thoroughly.
Neither rubbing, nor a magic eraser helped.

I read somewhere that a clay bar set should do the job - is that correct?
Or am I screwed?

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

WARnold posted:

Hey folks,

some tree sap sat on my car for a couple weeks, and left little bumps after washing thoroughly.
Neither rubbing, nor a magic eraser helped.

I read somewhere that a clay bar set should do the job - is that correct?
Or am I screwed?

While I'm quite the proponent of the Magical Erasers, that's the wrong application for them. With tree sap, letting some warm soapy water sit on the surface for a while often is enough to soften/remove the sap. If that doesn't work, clay bar is the trick -- make sure there's plenty of lubricating liquid.

Chinatown
Sep 11, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
Fun Shoe
WD-40. Really.

FlapYoJacks
Feb 12, 2009
Oh god a magic eraser on paint. :gonk:

meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

ratbert90 posted:

Oh god a magic eraser on paint. :gonk:

Nothing wrong with that. I've corrected many marks on many cars with them. They are less abrasive than some of the Meguiars liquid compounds. Properly used they are magic.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




meatpimp posted:

Nothing wrong with that. I've corrected many marks on many cars with them. They are less abrasive than some of the Meguiars liquid compounds. Properly used they are magic.

:rimshot:

I'd try clay first or possibly some goo gone.

FlapYoJacks
Feb 12, 2009

meatpimp posted:

Nothing wrong with that. I've corrected many marks on many cars with them. They are less abrasive than some of the Meguiars liquid compounds. Properly used they are magic.

They will swirl the poo poo out of your paint. They are great to remove marks + buffing/polishing.

But clay/cut/buff is still far better than a magic eraser.

McSpatula
Aug 5, 2006

WARnold posted:

Hey folks,

some tree sap sat on my car for a couple weeks, and left little bumps after washing thoroughly.
Neither rubbing, nor a magic eraser helped.

I read somewhere that a clay bar set should do the job - is that correct?
Or am I screwed?


For spot treating on a horizontal surface, fill a cup with warm water and a drop of dish soap, cover the opening of the cup with an index card or whatever you can find, flip the cup over, then place it onto the sap covered spot (card side first), pull the card out from under the cup and let it soak. If it's a vertical surface or just one of those tricky curved surfaces, you can kind of use clay around the rim to form a gasket to keep your fluids from spilling before a good soak sets.

You'll have to find a way to scale this to a larger size if you're doing more than a small spot treatment - a warm/hot soak and a grit sponge may do the trick, followed by the claying to get the rest out, then the usual glaze/seal/wax to make it easier to remove in the future.

Don't use melamine foam products on your paint, it's too abrasive and will marr the poo poo out of it.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


I decided to forgo buying the el-cheapo pump sprayer and buy an actual pump foam sprayer, I'm pretty satisfied with it so far. It's a Gloria Foam Master FM10, and it's actually a really nice piece of kit. Nice thick plastic, solid pump mechanism, feels like it could last years of frequent use, you can tell it was made for industrial use. There's a bigger FM50 model too, with 5-liter capacity, pressure indicator and a schrader valve so it can be charged using a tire pump. Kinda expensive and overkill for my use.



About half a liter of water and ~10ml shampoo is more than enough to do my bike. It's not the ridiculously thick foam that you see with a real foam lance, but I suspect that's partly down to the cheap auto shampoo I'm using and partly down to the mineral-heavy tap water where I live. However, it sticks pretty well and will sit for a couple of minutes, I suspect I'll get better results with a more foamy shampoo.

Can't argue with the results, the bike is so clean now, ready for my sales ad photos :)

E: Tried it on my car with a different brand of car shampoo and got thicker foam. I'll have to try with some actual foam shampoo and see what happens.

KozmoNaut fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 14, 2013

WARnold
Oct 30, 2004

You Lack Discipline!

McSpatula posted:

For spot treating on a horizontal surface, fill a cup with warm water and a drop of dish soap, cover the opening of the cup with an index card or whatever you can find, flip the cup over, then place it onto the sap covered spot (card side first), pull the card out from under the cup and let it soak. If it's a vertical surface or just one of those tricky curved surfaces, you can kind of use clay around the rim to form a gasket to keep your fluids from spilling before a good soak sets.

You'll have to find a way to scale this to a larger size if you're doing more than a small spot treatment - a warm/hot soak and a grit sponge may do the trick, followed by the claying to get the rest out, then the usual glaze/seal/wax to make it easier to remove in the future.

Don't use melamine foam products on your paint, it's too abrasive and will marr the poo poo out of it.

Thanks McSpatula and everyone that responded. I'll give these a go.

Root Bear
Nov 15, 2004

DARKEST SKETCH
While I had it apart for a tune-up, I started the long and tedious process of cleaning/detailing my engine compartment:

Left side, before and after:




Right side, before and after:





That was done only with Simple Green and a bunch of rags. I plan on power washing it soon but I'm already amazed at the difference! :psyduck:

Next on my list are to replace all the vacuum and coolant hoses and associated clamps. I'm still debating on whether or not to replace some of the crumbling plastic wire loom or just re-wrap everything with electrical tape. Oh man what am I getting myself into :cripes:

Scott808
Jul 11, 2001

Root Bear posted:



That was done only with Simple Green and a bunch of rags. I plan on power washing it soon but I'm already amazed at the difference! :psyduck:

Next on my list are to replace all the vacuum and coolant hoses and associated clamps. I'm still debating on whether or not to replace some of the crumbling plastic wire loom or just re-wrap everything with electrical tape. Oh man what am I getting myself into :cripes:

If you did this with the original green Simple Green, you need to make sure to rinse it extremely well if anything in there is aluminum - if left on too long it can damage aluminum pretty severely.

Root Bear
Nov 15, 2004

DARKEST SKETCH
It was diluted and wiped down with a clean damp rag, I wiped them down afterwards with a clean rag moist with WD-40 so they should be fine.

I thought about painting them and just leaving the plastic GTO coil covers off altogether, and then I found these:





Now I'm not sure what to do.. :saddowns:

Root Bear fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jul 17, 2013

atomicthumbs
Dec 26, 2010


We're in the business of extending man's senses.
Is there any sort of clear coating I could put on a rust spot after removing the rust to keep it from re-rusting? I'm not sure I want to put in the effort for touch-up paint for the rust spots on my car (it's white, so it won't look too awful), but I also don't want it to get any worse.

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meatpimp
May 15, 2004

Psst -- Wanna buy

:) EVERYWHERE :)
some high-quality thread's DESTROYED!

:kheldragar:

atomicthumbs posted:

Is there any sort of clear coating I could put on a rust spot after removing the rust to keep it from re-rusting? I'm not sure I want to put in the effort for touch-up paint for the rust spots on my car (it's white, so it won't look too awful), but I also don't want it to get any worse.

Touch up usually does a good job of protecting the paint by itself, but there's also touch-up-sized clearcoat, too. Is that what you were asking?

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