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Hello Chaps,
Well, today I had to wash and detail my old man's Saab, which I've borrowed from him for a week. Now, the car doesn't get washed very often (the last time would have been when I borrowed it last, a year ago), and spends its life parked under a pine tree, so as you can imagine it's a bit grubby by the time I get my hands on it. This time, however, there was a nice surprise waiting for me.
Some time ago, one of the rear callipers had been sticking, and the surface of the disc had rusted up impressively. My father had the calliper replaced recently, and it was now able to use the pad to grind all the rust off the disc - and it went straight onto the wheel, and all over the left side and rear of the car as it was spread about in the airflow around the vehicle. Dad, in his wisdom, used a wire brush (!) to clean up the alloy wheel (I've wetsanded the result to something almost respectable), but hadn't touched the bodywork. So, large amounts of ferrous oxide embedded in the paint, let's see what that looks like on the rear bumper, which was worst hit:
Hmm, that doesn't look too nasty, does it? Let's have a closer look...
Oooh dear, that's not good. Even wet, the surface felt like you could've struck matches on it (In Soviet Russia, paintwork wet sands you!
). I looked over my options, and decided to see if I could pull the stuff out of the paint. Get the clay bar!
After a fair old session of rubbing away, the embedded particles were, slowly, being pulled out, but it wasn't easy. Think that bug you gooshed with your front bumper at a hundred-plus was stubborn? Let me tell you, it's got nothing on this stuff. You could patent it and sell it as bedliner. The claying continued, with very, very frequent folding over of the bar to get a cleaner surface...
I paused when I had a patch done to get a photo showing the difference where the panel's been cleaned. There's a light at the end of the tunnel...
There we go! Finally, all done, and ready to be cleaned, polished and waxed! (DC1, DC2, NXT, UQD if you're interested)
Now, this may seem like a silly thing to create a thread about, but I was seriously impressed with how the SSC kit held up to this kind of abuse, especially considering that it's the kit I bought a year ago, and having done four or five full cars with it, it was only after this that I 1) ran out of the Quik Detailer that came in the pack, and 2) decided the clay bar should be retired, and opened up the second one the kit came with to do the "regular" claying on the rest of the body.
For an off-the shelf consumer product, being used by a fairly ham-fisted gorilla like me, that's not bad at all. Thanks Meguiar's!
Well, today I had to wash and detail my old man's Saab, which I've borrowed from him for a week. Now, the car doesn't get washed very often (the last time would have been when I borrowed it last, a year ago), and spends its life parked under a pine tree, so as you can imagine it's a bit grubby by the time I get my hands on it. This time, however, there was a nice surprise waiting for me.
Some time ago, one of the rear callipers had been sticking, and the surface of the disc had rusted up impressively. My father had the calliper replaced recently, and it was now able to use the pad to grind all the rust off the disc - and it went straight onto the wheel, and all over the left side and rear of the car as it was spread about in the airflow around the vehicle. Dad, in his wisdom, used a wire brush (!) to clean up the alloy wheel (I've wetsanded the result to something almost respectable), but hadn't touched the bodywork. So, large amounts of ferrous oxide embedded in the paint, let's see what that looks like on the rear bumper, which was worst hit:
Hmm, that doesn't look too nasty, does it? Let's have a closer look...
Oooh dear, that's not good. Even wet, the surface felt like you could've struck matches on it (In Soviet Russia, paintwork wet sands you!
). I looked over my options, and decided to see if I could pull the stuff out of the paint. Get the clay bar!After a fair old session of rubbing away, the embedded particles were, slowly, being pulled out, but it wasn't easy. Think that bug you gooshed with your front bumper at a hundred-plus was stubborn? Let me tell you, it's got nothing on this stuff. You could patent it and sell it as bedliner. The claying continued, with very, very frequent folding over of the bar to get a cleaner surface...
I paused when I had a patch done to get a photo showing the difference where the panel's been cleaned. There's a light at the end of the tunnel...
There we go! Finally, all done, and ready to be cleaned, polished and waxed! (DC1, DC2, NXT, UQD if you're interested)
Now, this may seem like a silly thing to create a thread about, but I was seriously impressed with how the SSC kit held up to this kind of abuse, especially considering that it's the kit I bought a year ago, and having done four or five full cars with it, it was only after this that I 1) ran out of the Quik Detailer that came in the pack, and 2) decided the clay bar should be retired, and opened up the second one the kit came with to do the "regular" claying on the rest of the body.
For an off-the shelf consumer product, being used by a fairly ham-fisted gorilla like me, that's not bad at all. Thanks Meguiar's!
That bumper had some of the nastiest stuff I've seen yet removed! Nice job bringing it back.
. cleaned up really good. 
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