Thinking of cleaning the truck up good. Help!
 

My experience in detail work is a wash, wax, vacum, and armorall.

I'm thinking of doing a good cleaning of the outside.

These wheels along with the Patman grille have been making me appreciate the looks of my truck more and more.

So I'm thinking about claying and waxing it up.

I'm also thinking about waxing the wheels. They are the cast black(flat black paint) 7005s.

Which claybar and wax should I use?

Sorry for the newb post.:ll:

OH yea and I have NAPA, autozone, O'Rylies(SP), wally world, etc to work with

Thanks for all the help guy's (just kidding)

well I went to autozone and returned with this,

1) Megs smooth surface clay kit(contents 2 white bars, quick detailer, cleaner wax sample, and Megs suprememshine microfiber towel.

2) Megs deep crystal car wash

3) stoners invisible glass

4) autozone micorofiber applicator pads

5) megs gold class paste wax

Sorry about the slow response but.....
 

http://olddogg.homestead.com/F150/postpics.gif

If you post pics someone may be able to assess your finish and your vehicle in general. Assuming you are speaking of a 2003 vehicle and assuming it has been kept outside you may want to use a cleaner wax at the minimum after the claybar. You should also first do the finger swipe of your finish to determine how much work it may or may not need.

If you shoot the photos in direct sun and attempt to catch the sun in the finish many will jump in with suggestions. :thumbsup:

I have a feeling that these pics won't do you any good.

Yes it's my 03 and I bought it with 9950 miles on it in spring of 04.

I know that since then it's never been waxed or clayed. (I'm expecting some punishment for that statement:lol:)

https://www.f150online.com/forums/me...1-dsc02601.jpg
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Here's some more I just took with my cell.
Again with this quality they may not help at all.
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No worries I waited nearly 5 years and over 100k miles before my truck got a proper detail...but I did wax it on a regular basis... Just as black paint is unforgiving the opposite is true of white.

When you clay Make sure you give special attention to the paint around your wheel wells. Over sized tires throw up quite a bit of sticky crap on and around the fender flares. Also since you never waxed you will probably spend quite a bit of time on the leading edges also....

But all in all from what is show in the photos it doesn't look too bad and all your product choices will give you good results.
You will need microfiber towels (wally world will have the cheapest most here hate) to properly dry the truck. What have you been using so far? Cotton towels cause swirls...do you see them?

Since you did not mention it or swirls I guess you don't care about surface correction?

Anything is better than nothing and those photos tell quite a bit.
After the clay try the sample cleaner wax that came with clay kit. The cleaner wax has some abrasives and you may notice quite a bit of difference. Depending on how much shine and work you want to do you can just use the cleaner wax or you can step up to more serious correction and shine.
How far or deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

Yea I used to have a black chevy and I had to wax it all the time to keep it decent. This one I can just spray off at the car wash at it looks "pretty good". I can even drive it down a gravel road and it's not too bad.

I usually let it air dry after the car wash. But I have some of these at home that I used to use. I've used these on every car I had since high school.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA280_.jpg

I haven't noticed any swirls in the paint. But then again I haven't payed enough attention to the paint to get close and notice anything.

But there's nothing obvious in it.

Thanks for the help Old Dogg.!

That's going to need the cleaner wax. Don't put it on thick! It does its work rubbing it on, not removing it.

\

:lol:Not that far!

I just hear about how much claying helps, from people on this forum, so I thought I'd give it a try.

And like I said in my first post, I've made some appearance mods lately that have really made the truck look better so I should help it out more with a good cleaning.

The clay kit came with a small Megs cleaning wax bottle.

What about the Megs gold wax? Save that for a second wax down the road after this detail is done? Or take it back and always use a cleaner wax.

ergh wish my paint was that good. mine looks great but in sun or under street lights at night it looks horrible ful of swirls etc...it really needs to be detailed with a DA and professional products, but dont have the money for that. good luck with yours, efuehrin

hows it coming along?

I just bought the stuff at lunch break.

I'll be lucky to get some time this weekend.:rolleyes:

The color white lets you get away with air drying....Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so if you dont see anything "obvious in it" ok but once you peep down the rabbit hole you may fall in.:lol:

The cleaner wax that came with the clay kit is supposed to be a sample. You may get 1 complete cleaner wax job out of it. Just remember like glc said and follow the directions on the bottle.
If it was me I would immediately follow the cleaner wax with the Gold Class Wax or some NXT and/or wait a few days or maybe a week with the Gold Class Wax after the next wash job... but that may be a month in your case.:lol:
Cleaner wax will chemically deep clean and protect paint with emphasis on clean.
The Gold Class Wax only protects.

Hope I helped...Good Luck!:beers:

Yea your right about that.

And yes it helps. Thanks.

Well I stayed up pretty late tonight working on the front end.

I don't know how the hood and fenders came out but look how good the clay kit worked on my supercharger!:banana::banana::banana::banana:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/me...6-dsc02497.jpg
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Ha ha just kidding.

I did the fenders, hood, grill surround, and top of bumper.

Honestly, I can feel the difference, but I'm not sure I can see the differnce between just a wax and a clay+wax.

I washed, clayed, used cleaning wax, then regular wax.

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what sucks is that I can really see the hail damage a lot more now.

Kinda makes me want to fix it.

First, rent a couple sections of scaffolding to work off of. :banana:

Second, you're never gonna touch the swirl marks w/o a Dual action buffer like a Porter Cable 7424.

You may get some decent results by hand by using Meguiars Ultimate Compound and Swirl X (both available at Wally World).

NXT 2.0 is a good LSP for the final shine.

Jim

Yea I had to get out the ladder to get the back center of the hood! Luckily I'm 6'6" so it's not as bad as it would be for most people.

I don't really have swirl marks so that's not a problem.

The hail damage is however.

It's gonna take a new hood and repar to the drivers fender.

I could care less about the top of the cab. No one can see that anyway!:thumbsup:

I've got a SMALL little engine modd that needs to get done before any body repair is done!!!!!!

Looks good! In the future if you use cleaner wax again, I suggest that you work it in a bit more than the Gold Class. Reason being is that the more you work it in, the more it cleans and removes minor defects, but keep in mind don't over-work it. Good job.

Is your hail damage beyond the ability of a paintless dent repair guy?

Well the hood is fiberglass. It's the worst.

The dents in the fender could probabaly be done by one of those guy's, but my father is a retired body man so I could fix those dents myself.

Since I would have to paint the hood anyway.

Either that or just go buy a new hood and fender from the junk yard and paint them up.

:eek:
You almost had me going...I was thinking how could this be.:confused:
Remember I warned you about the Rabbit Hole and you said you didnt want to go in very far....:lol:

Truck looks much better...even your last photos look much more like you know what you are doing. :thumbsup:

Next you need to get some Optimum No Rinse Wash.
It will make you wash more often as you fall down the rabbit hole.:wave:

:lol:

It's just so hard to keep it clean around here cause I'm always going down a gravel road. :rolleyes:

I'll bet claying really makes a difference on darker vehicles.:thumbsup:

I'll post up some more pics when I'm done.

Thanks again for the tips!

Oh....can I clay my chrome bumper?

You could and I have but its a waste waste of time and resources since you can be much more careless and use much harsher/cheaper/faster methods to clean contaminants off chrome versus clear coat.
Mild claying is the least aggressive way to mechanically surface clean clear coat.

The clay just seemed to get the little specks of bugs, that didn't come off with the wash mity, really well.

On the grille surround that is.

lookin good man! your paint looks like in pretty damn decent shape! hopefully we have nice weather this weekend so i can do mine, only if i had a garage that my truck fit in lol

Really? Me too :ll:

Factory hood 1998-2003 is Aluminum not fiberglass ;)

Fiberglass doesnt dent, it just cracks and flakes off. Aluminum is pretty soft and dents easily.
-Patrick

Use any brand of bug and tar remover to get the bugs off the bumper. I have a bottle, it's Turtle Wax. Another option is Seafoam's Bugs B Gone, I use that on my windshield. Either one of those products on paint will strip the wax, just be aware.

Yea I remember that from a "how tall are you" thread a long while back



Ah, I see. I just knew that the magnets the insurance adjuster was trying to put on all the dents wouldn't stick.

So I just assumed fiberglass. I did kinda wonder once how fiberglass would dent like that.:rolleyes: But then I lost my train of thought on the way to grab another beer.:beers:

:lol: right on :beers:

Your outer bed sides are fiberglass ;)

Don't kid yourself, you DO have swirl marks! You're just not catching the paint at the right angle.

Jim

OK:rolleyes:

Well if I don't see the swirl marks then I consider myself not to have any.

White is a relatively easy color to hide swirl marks. So is my Arizona Beige. It's all how OCD you are. I took mine to Lumadar for a detail back in February - I thought it looked fairly decent but he took one look and broke out the M105, his rotary, and purple wool pad........

He does INCREDIBLE work - he has my business once a year as long as he's still doing detailing.

Well I bought some Turtle wax "bug and tar remover" and went to work on that. Then I clayed the whole thing, used the meg's cleaning wax, then waxed over the whole thing again with Megs paste wax.

Oh and cleaned the windows with stoners invisible glass.

Here she is. Now I know how many paint chips I have in it so I guess soon enough I'll try to fix those. I bought some touch up paint also but didn't tackle that yet.

Oh yea I used a little cleaner wax on the wheels too. I need to put a coat of paste wax on them. I think I'll do that with them off. I need to rotate the tires anyway.

Thanks for the help guy's!

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSC02632.jpg
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My hood has more dents then yours :p

looks great tho! :beers:

Looks good man :thumbsup: Nice work :)