Weekend Detail

So now that the SHO is gone, I figured that I should spend some quality time with Snowball. I love this truck, but I must confess- other than a claybar when I bought her and a couple applications of Tech Wax, I've severely neglected poor Snowball. As many cars as I've worked on before, I've been slacking. I always wipe the jambs when I wash her and stuff like that, but I never gave her the attention that she deserved. So, my project this weekend was to start doing that.

I ordered some hew headlight and corner lights, and new weatherstripping for all of the doors as well. I'll be detailing the jambs in the coming weeks, but I ran out of time to do it this weekend, it was a time consuming job along with my lawn.

After 206,000 miles of dutiful service, this is what the 14+ year old paint had going for it...





And of course, rail dust from hell on the tailgate and rear 1/4 panels...



Procedure was:

Wash with Dawn to strip whatever shred of wax was left...
Blue compound claybar
Wash again, deuce pail method.
Snag my G110 and pads
#83 to work the rest of the raildust and scratches out
#83 again- scratches were NOT cooperating! :shifty_ey
Followed with UC just to try it
Then 2 coats of NXT 2.0

My arms were buzzing for a while after that! 11 hours of work Sat/Sun

Again- Hood before:



Hood after:



This is a comparison of how bad it was- Top half is one application of #83 coumpund with my G110. After this pic I pulled the emblem off, buffed out the rest and reinstalled a new emblem that I had sitting in the garage so I didn't have to work my chubby digits in those tiny crevices.

During:



Tailgate after:



General pics:







After that- I went Wheeling. I finally put Snowball in the woods on a trail with all sorts of twisty turns and stuff.

Well...








...as close as I could get to the dirt without actually touching it.





I think she came out amazing. Very pleased... Now I need to detail the door jambs and replace the weatherstripping, and detailing the interior again. I promise not to remove everything like this again...



She doesn't look too bad for nearly 1/4 million miles... Thanx Meguiars!

Very nice work. Snowball looks new again!!! I really need to attack mine like that and really give it a good going over. (and re-paint my roof)

Joe Dirt said:

Tailgate after:

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....Looks like your silohoutte had an accident.

No doubt...

I just looked at camera- dusty lens. I'm going to detail that tonight now... Ha ha!

Looking very nice.

Joe, I'm confused about something. I saw that you posted a clip from YouTube the other day showing how you were pouring something into the engine to kill it for the clunker program. Was that another vehicle or somebody's else's video of their vehicle?

BrooklynBay said:

Joe, I'm confused about something. I saw that you posted a clip from YouTube the other day showing how you were pouring something into the engine to kill it for the clunker program. Was that another vehicle or somebody's else's video of their vehicle?

Click to expand...

Nah- that was just to get a rise... I did consider having fun with Snowball, and a video of a white '95 Explorer with an OHV being killed for Cash for Clunkers, but I couldn't- Snowball would know and stuff would start going bad... :

I showed it to one of the guys at work, and he said "I would have never bought it, becasue your Explorer would never have been that dirty inthe first place.

Busted!

I notice that your drivers side running board has the same "ripple" in the rubber top that mine does. Exactly the same spot too. Is this common? Is there an easy way to fix it? I have been contemplating epoxying the thing down but doubt it would survive an Alberta winter.

Any thoughts?

You need to make a comprehensive How To about detailing. I have severely neglected my X's paint, save for the required wash, but want to change that....

Or Joe needs to fly to Explorer owners homes across the country to detail them ALL! Unreal. I take really good care of my Ex, remove the weather mats etc when doing the interior. But removing the interior all together... WoW. And he did it again with Shamrock! For the first time ever, I feel neglectful

GRNMACHINE said:

For the first time ever, I feel neglectful

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...as you should- why do you hate your Ex?








Trust me- it's as much a curse to need to do this!!! :

Nice!!! I need to get off my ars and do the same again... did it last year around this time - and havent washed it since.. So don't feel too bad about the neglect.. happens to most of us I'm sure

Happens to me too- I still haven't done paint correction- or even waxed- Shamrock yet and I've owned 'er since St. Partick's Day...!

Waxed the Ex yesterday. I need to claybar. The first time I tried to claybar I left alot of scratches on the hood (different truck). Used pleny of the Quick Detailer as the "lubrication" and still lots of scratches. Bought the Meg's claybar. Also picked up a cheap "Wen Brand" buffer at Menards for $17. I think I may need to practice on neighbors car before attacking the Ex to figure out what I did wrong with the clay and get familiar with the buffer.

Clay before wax... The claybar will remove the wax. The idea is to remove the contaminants from the paint before the wax seals them in and allows them to progress further down into the paint surface...

If you're getting scratches, you need to turn the clay more, use more lubrication (I just use water and some wash soap, myself) or wash the car better prior to claying...