REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

thumper · 09-21-2009, 06:57 AM

i may ramble a bit because i've never posted something like this before so excuse the lousy grammar/structure.

first off: i hate black

. never wanted black in the first place but i didn't have much of a choice back then. i swear just the rain falling on it will scratch the paint. after a year the car actually started to look grey. not having covered parking also dosen't help. oh and never, ever let a lot boy at the dealership touch your car

i've been to see everyone first... ken, terence, brendan... but driving as far out as pitt meadows, losing the car for two days, and having to rent something for that time didn't work out for me. i have a porter cable and some pads that i never used because of time/lack of covered space to work in, so i couldn't get anything done on my own. but when someone offered to lend me their garage for one day this last weekend i decided to give it a go. i had only 5 hours to do what everyone else says should have been a 9 hour job, but i tried to do my best with what little time i had.

ken had sold me some stuff:
4" and 5" LC orange and green pads
8oz Menzerna Power Finish
4oz Menzerna 106FA
BM clay bar
BM auto balm

on top of this i had my porter cable and some cookie monsters.

i only had a single halogen on a work stand. it's not enough. you need at least 2 halogens like the one brendan uses.

taping sucks. no one talks about taping. don't go cheap and use green painter's tape kids... only use the blue 3M stuff, second widest one if you can find it. and make sure you cover everything and it's well stuck in place. i didn't and now i have a shiny spot of plastic near the mirror that wasn't supposed to be shiny before... anyway, took me almost 30 minutes to do this and i used up 3/4's of a new roll:

BM clay bar is great (thank you ken!). you only need to use water as a lubricant. i had tried using mother's gold clay bar and their showtime lubricant in the past and that ended in tears... scratches and streaks everywhere, and i swore never to claybar again. but i had zero problems with the BM.

unfortunately 106FA was not enough. it only got about 80-90% of my scratches out. i have paint damage from said lot boy who used a california water blade on it. however it did get all the swirls out though and some scrapes from other people hitting my car with their doors, and it did clean up my poor touch up paint job covering scratches left behind by some paris hilton-wannabe who dragged her chanel bag across the roof as she was answering her cell phone. i had other cutting pads, but i just didn't have the time to be making so many passes.

just an overall shot. not sure if you can see anything because i don't have anything nice as an SLR:

after the 106FA and Power Finish. the stripe is from the tape (i was a little shaky with the porter cable so i kept overlapping the tape sorry), which shows what the paint was like:

i just kept on going after this nonstop. this was my first time and i'm not that fast, and watching the sun go up and down was causing me to panic. i ended up having to only BM the lowers sills and bumpers again because i didn't have enough time to polish them out. oh well, at least i got to claybar them...

... at this point my camera batteries died... fail. so i don't have any finished pics. this is an old pic from back when the paint was in better condition... will try and replace it later after work when i have a chance to take a current pic:

ilvtofu · 09-21-2009, 08:02 AM

where'd you pick up those tails?
Nice you can really tell the grey from the black where you taped
:thumpsup:

thumper · 09-21-2009, 08:22 AM

i bought them new/used online from someone in ontario who bought them from TM tuning in germany. they are the LED tails they use overseas. i'm not sure how legal they are here (they have VW/OEM stamps on them) but so far so good.

i wish i could have taken better, more organized pics. doing everything yesterday made me realize how organized and time-conscious you had to be doing this sort of thing...

and you need to have a strong back as well.

and turn your phone off. everyone loves to call at moments like this.

and earplugs! the porter cable isn't that loud, but after 5 continuous hours worth of it i started hearing it even after turning it off

!Yaminashi · 09-21-2009, 09:08 AM

Not gonna lie after my first detail my back and legs were so damn sore, and I was way too tired to take pics lol
You got more pics than I did

Nice job though, I found the single halogen to be adequate?
Although mine has double filaments so its basically 2 lights in one housing

!Aznboi128 · 09-21-2009, 09:21 AM

maybe you should roll around with the tape on.... looks SWEET!

nice detail tho, props for finding time

thumper · 09-21-2009, 10:05 AM

nvm see below

!Yaminashi · 09-21-2009, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thumper

i haven't hit anything yet (knock on wood).

some people are converting the reverse light using HID conversion kits meant for a motorcycle... but i question the legality of that, not to mention the huge canbus fit my ecu might have

I was talking about halogen work lights, not head/tail lights

You know its monday when..

thumper · 09-21-2009, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coach Hines

I was talking about halogen work lights, not head/tail lights

You know its monday when..

... i fail at reading comp

the one i had was definitely single filament.

Roach · 09-21-2009, 10:31 AM

I run a single 500W sometimes. It's usually good enough for the job. They key is to close the garage door and use only the light to check for defects. As well, you can just pull the car out in the sun. It's the most unforgiving light.

Kev

604_Snooze · 09-22-2009, 03:51 AM

the blue tape looks pretty good on your car.
how did you spend those 6 hours?
30 min for taping...

thumper · 09-22-2009, 06:15 AM

why does everyone think the tape looks cool?

total was 5 hours not six (wish i had six i could have at least finished the lower sills with that much)...

1 hour washing it (i hadn't washed it in about 2 months).

30 minutes taping. there is just too much unpainted stuff on this car. i was trying for long single strips because i didn't want to be pulling off little short strips all day afterwards?

the remaining 3.5 hours was claying/polishing/waxing.

Roach · 09-22-2009, 07:44 AM

To be honest, if you had limited time with a garage, I think you could have washed and clayed the vehicle the day before. Just take it to a wand wash place and use some QD for clay.

That way, you come to the location where you have limited time and get straight into polishing.

And yes, the GTI has a lot of textured plastic surfaces on it. However, from looking at your pictures, I wouldn't be taping off the headlights and tail-lights. Especially since you are using a PC. In fact, I like to go over the lenses with some polish if I have time.

Kev

thumper · 09-22-2009, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roach

To be honest, if you had limited time with a garage, I think you could have washed and clayed the vehicle the day before. Just take it to a wand wash place and use some QD for clay.

That way, you come to the location where you have limited time and get straight into polishing.

And yes, the GTI has a lot of textured plastic surfaces on it. However, from looking at your pictures, I wouldn't be taping off the headlights and tail-lights. Especially since you are using a PC. In fact, I like to go over the lenses with some polish if I have time.

Kev

yeah i know kev but i only had permission to use the garage the night before so i didn't really have much time to prep... hence my comments about being organized (which i was not).

is it safe to do the lights that way? someone warned me that i could burn through the UV coating and i should just hand polish them instead if they look fine... if they are faded/cloudy then that's another story.

sorry for the newbie questions... really didn't want to f*ck up big time on my first attempt

604_Snooze · 09-22-2009, 07:59 AM

in 3 hours, you did 1 pass of power finish, 1 pass of final finish, then apply autobalm?
pretty fast

thumper · 09-22-2009, 08:18 AM

something i need to ask... i couldn't see much difference between the power finish and the final finish, other than it was smoother to the touch after the final finish. is this right?

also, how much is too much? i don't know how much of the paint is being removed using either polish? being black, i'm realizing i have to do this a lot, but i worry about making the paint too thin.

thumper · 09-22-2009, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 604_Snooze

in 3 hours, you did 1 pass of power finish, 1 pass of final finish, then apply autobalm?
pretty fast

not fast. remember, i only did 2/3rds of the car (ie. missed the bumpers and lower sills).

and as i had mentioned i didn't get all the scratches out. i had to leave them there because i was running out of time.

claying didn't take me very long. there wasn't much showing up on the clay bar and because i could just use regular water i found that i didn't have to waste time dealing with a detailer spray.

the autobalm goes on and off very quickly using ken's water method

the first time i tried using it with autobalm's instructions took me hours to get it off again

!Yaminashi · 09-22-2009, 09:31 AM

Did you do 2'x2' sections at a time? Or did you do one door/panel at a time?
Also how fast were you moving your pc?
When I did mine I was moving it really slowly

thumper · 09-22-2009, 09:48 AM

i was doing the 2x2 sections as ken instructed. i tried to keep my speed in accordance to all the youtube demonstration videos online i tried to watch, after trying it the first time, i just don't see how people can do entire panels at a time with the small amount of polish i was told to use on the pad

!Yaminashi · 09-22-2009, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thumper

i was doing the 2x2 sections as ken instructed. i tried to keep my speed in accordance to all the youtube demonstration videos online i tried to watch, after trying it the first time, i just don't see how people can do entire panels at a time with the small amount of polish i was told to use on the pad

Thats the thing, you're not supposed to do entire panels at a time

Maybe the scratches you didnt get out were just too deep to remove

thumper · 09-22-2009, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coach Hines

Thats the thing, you're not supposed to do entire panels at a time

Maybe the scratches you didnt get out were just too deep to remove

that's the thing... there were videos of "professionals" doing entire panels, like a whole trunk lid, in one shot

i forget which video i was watching. it had a guy working on a big black SUV. it was either a wolfgang or mezerma training video... i mentioned it to ken and he said it was okay.

i know if i used a pad with more cutting power i could get those scratches out, but i was just too limited with time to work on them. maybe some other time i can just focus on the problem areas instead of worrying about finishing the entire car... i still have the bumpers and sills to do, as they still look grey and are contrasting with the rest of the car.

chollas · 09-22-2009, 01:01 PM

From one BMP GTI owner to another Well Done !!!

and if you ever want to sell those wheels lemme know

thumper · 09-22-2009, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chollas

From one BMP GTI owner to another Well Done !!!

and if you ever want to sell those wheels lemme know

thanks... you probably know that the wheels are rare/irreplaceable... i may end up taking them to my grave

as a fellow BMP, any tips on how to wash without scratching?

!Yaminashi · 09-22-2009, 02:59 PM

Two bucket method w/ grit guard, wash dirtiest parts last?
The way I see it no matter what you do you'll end up with some sort of swirls from washing

But the two bucket method really helps alot. After I'm done washing my car, my rinse bucket has tons of sediment
on the bottom. I cant imagine what my car would look like if all of that were in my wash bucket

604_Snooze · 09-22-2009, 03:59 PM

I see a lot of people use pressure washer and foam gun to soak up the car with detergent...maybe that will work too

!Yaminashi · 09-22-2009, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 604_Snooze

I see a lot of people use pressure washer and foam gun to soak up the car with detergent...maybe that will work too

I think this loosens alot of the grime off the car, that'll definitely help.
I wish I had all of this stuff