so its almost here, the good weather is beginning and the real spring is showing. Does anyone else usually spring clean there trucks? i.e pressure wash all the salt from the engine , undercarriage, wheel wells, etc

 

I normally give a good cleaning inside and out. But I normally wash it at least once a week anyway. This spring I'm going to put the lawn sprinkler under it and clean the underside that way.

 

That is a good one Zip,I have never thought of that. With all the winter highway miles I put on there has to be sand/salt in every nook and cranny. I am sure a blast with a pressure washer at the car wash isn't getting half of it.

 

yes of course i do the reg wash but i'm talking hours of cleaning, i don't think a sprinkler has enough pressure, and those car washes are only under your vehicle for about 5 -10 seconds i'm talking minutes of blasting the crevises

 

i normally find a good river and drive through it LOL MAYBE i spray it down with simple green first LOL

yeah i do a clean

 

simple green? is that a deegreaser?

 

yeah and its earth friendly LOL works good on the whole truck, rims, engine etc

 

well i will have to try it out when the good weather is gonna last for more than 3 days

 

yeah you should, my friend in Calgary runs a detailing shop and swears by the stuff, it works great, I used to use it on my last show car to get it all purty and stuff, and its pretty cheap too like 7-8 bucks at CT, Spray Nine is also a fav of mine as well, its great though for really mucky rims just give em a spray hit em with a soft brush real quick then hose em off, and for the engine you can either just spray and then rinse or you can brush it as well,

spray nine will also get little marks off the plastic pretty good, like door sills, and trim you know the black boot scuffs.

hey maybe when the weather gets good we should have a spring clean day at someones house? maybe we could use my shop ill talk to the owner we got a hoist for cleaning under the trucks too!! nice 4 post!! woot! and then I can bring out my buffer and stuff and we can get all the truck done up!

 

that would be awesome dude! yeah i gotta get some of that cleaning stuff. What was do you use? and do you know of a good one to get out light scratches?

 

yeah on my show car i was using "Auto Glym" it is really nice stuff, but for regular daily use I use Meguiers as it is a little bit cheaper and works good.

What color is your truck? if it is black its a bitch to get nice and clean again and I would go for a 3 step cut polish, use a deeper cut polish like a professional grade they come in 1-10 ratings for lighter scratches i would go with like a 5 then something really fine, then clay bar the vehicle and wax it. and before you wax it use a prep/cleaner to get the crap left over from the cut polish out so it is a nice clean surface if not you wind up waxing in all the little crap left over. I use a porter cable random orbital polisher with a 6" pad for cars maybe an 8" pad would be better for a truck considering the surface area.

so the steps would be

1- wash truck good and clean
2- medium grit polish - makes it look bad but dont worry its a process this is a grit product so it does leave fine scratches kinda makes the paint look milky
3 - fine grit polish - now it is getting good and clear looking really nice and deep
4 - clay bar - removes setament in the paint
5- cleaner wax - just preps the surface for wax
6 - wax it! use a liquid wax not a paste much better end result

if the scratches are really deep you can add a step to the beginning by using a HEAVY grit polish and that will get everything except primer deep scratches out.

I can always help people do this as well over a case of beer and an afternoon, takes a good 3-4 hours to do this process with 2 people on it.

 

also that kinda of process will take out any swirl marks left by drive through car washes as well, it works good but takes time,

not a ford but an example from my show car - hope i dont get flamed to bad for this

 

good example but would look better as a ford LOL, my trucks two tone blue

thats what it looked like last year when i detailed it at the dealer i worked at at the time.

 

yeah it was fun, i had a good ford moment in it though lol


"yeah what are you pushing for power in that little thing? I got 300 hp thats 1 hp per cubic inch"
"umm i dunno about 425 at the motor 320 at the wheels... its a little over 3 1/2 hp per cubic inch, wanna race?"
"no iam go....."

i mean mustangs are fast and all, but why did he think we was THAT fast lol.... anyways no ford bashing just a funny story, i drive a mustang now LOL

 

LOL what year stang?