I apologize, since I'm just doing this a weekend side gig I am limited in time and always forget to do proper before and afters, however I did get some and decided to make a thread. I had the car late saturday evening and had to get it back by 5 sunday. I guess the cold weather made me work slow...often stopped to go inside and thaw my fingers/toes. Thankfully I have this to help dry shoes. After every "session" of wearing a pair of shoes they go on this for at least a few hours or overnight. Anyone else use a similar product?: http://www.peetshoedryer.com/product_original.html On to the good stuff: Mom's friend's car...I thought it turned out so-so due to my time frame with the car and told her I would knock the price down since I wasn't completely happy with some things. Customer however was amazed how it turned out...and gave me a nice tip on top of the original price. I did a basic interior clean up and a wash/clay/wax. Didn't look too bad from the outside: Factory clear bra needs to be replaced...seems the dirt is under the edge, no luck removing it. Door jambs were terrible! Spent a while trying to clean these up but had to move on due to time...this is one of the things I wasn't happy with...but she was ecstatic about. Any tips from a more experienced person would be appreciated, cleaning around the hinges was the worst even with my pressure washer and the brushes I have. Forgot to get a after of the gas door but here's what the trunk jamb looked like after trying to scrub with diluted apc. still a bit dirty as many of the stains did not want to come out. Lift shocks were starting to rust. Window trim also had some crazy thick gunk all over it I had trouble removing: Front wheels in addition to being curbed to hell did not want to come clean. I tried wolf's decon and 1z wheel cleaner...agitated with brushes and this was the result...almost no difference at all. I need to get some better products for that I guess...but on the other hand she didn't pay for a full correction detail: I used wheel woolies with my soap bucket to try and get the barrels with minimum success. Rear wheels were easier to clean. I suck at cleaning headliner...I was too much of a wuss to experiment besides with some heavily diluted folex...for fear of damage. I vacuumed it lightly though to remove excess dust. Customer was happy with that as well...me not so much. No afters but all this cleaned up pretty easily with steam: Before I did all the pedals and the seat tracks/etc. CG pet hair removal brush worked well, and mats turned out good with some folex and scrubbing. I was almost ready to bite the bullet and drop a whole paychecks worth on an extractor...Bissell still makes me nervous that I won't be able to dry it. Spot treated the actual carpet with steam and they came out nice. Seats were cleaned and conditioned. Another facepalm for not getting after photos. Trunk had leaves EVERYWHERE...pulled the spare tire to get a better vacuum job done. decon spray worked great on the paint...tried to get a close up: Did a Dawn wash to help strip wax...Love this little Gilmour foam gun: I autoscrubbed the car, getting in between the badges with clay bar was difficult and time consuming..any tips for that..or is it just the nature of the beast? I then decided to try the AF Tripple I just got, and topped it with 1z glanz wax since the Tripple isn't very long lasting from what I read. I did both by hand with applicator sponges. Tires dressed with AF satin, and luckily for me all I had to do for the inside back window was fold the rear seats and slide in through the trunk. I forgot to take pictures of the sunroof area and exhaust tips that I wiped down of course...but here are 2 quick pics as the sun was setting. I did a quick inspection to check for missed wax, bolted her plates back on and made it to her house with just enough daylight to show my work. Thanks for looking and sharing any tips/comments/criticisms yal have. Looking forward to getting more experience. Next week I'll be trying to polish up the 93 GMC vandura conversion van.
Looks great! Any finished interior shots? That interior looked trashed! Sent from my iPhone using TapTalk 2000 Black DRW F-350 Gauges, DP tuner, ported housing, T-500:evil:, JW VB, 5in turbo back, hutch/harpoon mod, 6.0 IC, tru cool tranny cooler, etc
Unfortunately no! My usual plan is to work on the interior saturday night and exterior sunday...this time I couldn't get the car until late so I was pushing midnight by the time I finished...was too tired and just wanted to push and get done haha. Interior wasn't TOO bad...underneath the mats was near perfect...just small spots I easily spot treated after brushing out pet hair. The mats themselves came clean as the stains were not very heavily set. I really just need to get better at headliners...I'm very fearful of damaging the fabric.
Looks really great! You did a great job, especially with those door jambs. For really bad wheels I use Megs Wheel Brightener...I know there's more gentle acid-free products out there but when I've got someone's car and the wheels are trashed I want to know that my product will be able to take them on. For headliners I just use Optimum Power Clean, at 3:1 dilution. I either mist it on the headliner itself (for bad spots) or onto a microfiber, and lightly blot/rub at the the spot until it disappears. I'd test this on each car you do though, due to different materials used and whatnot If you don't have OPC I'm sure another APC would work but again do a test spot first Additionally, you mention being afraid to use a Bissell. I'm broke, so that's all I've got to use on carpets and cloth seats. It's worked wonders for me. To dry carpets after extraction I start the car and run the heat on the floor vent setting on full blast, with the windows slightly cracked. After about ~20 minutes or so it should be nice and dry P.S.--I'm no expert, most of this information is stuff I've picked up from guys on here, and I'd give them credit if I could remember where I read it.
good news she referred me to her business partner...trying to go look at his car this afternoon. yay for more practice!
