So I bought a used exhaust for my car and it is in very good shape except for a few small areas on the underside where it looks like the exhaust scraped going up a driveway or something. The scrapes are on the underside and won't be visible once installed. But I kow they are there and being the anal car cleaning freak I am I want them gone (preaching to the choir here, probably). So my question is how? I cleaned it up last night with p21s finish restore (the toothpaste tube looking stuff) but it didn't get the scrapes, obviously. Things I have at my disposal Menz SIP, 106, P085 ScratchX Home Depot (steel wool, sandpaper to allow wet sand) P21s metal restorer Porter Cable Other misc detailing supplies My questions:What should I use (in order) to get this off and then get the metal back to looking good? Do I need to worry about going thru a surface level of polished stainless steel? Or will it stay polished stainless steel as I go deeper into the metal? One note - this isn't a must do as it won't be visible when installed, but if it is somewhat doable I would like to get them polished out. Thanks for the help. Pics below.
my best guess is going to be that it will need to have a light wet sanding done to it. Im hoping that others will chime in but the scrapes don't looks so bad. I pictured more like gouges in the metal. I think if you lightly sanded with some very fine grit paper like 3000 grit and then polished it out that would do the trick. You can try steel wool as that works wonders on most stuff but not sure if that will really help you here. I'll check back to see if anyone else replies to confirm what i mentioned or not.
looks too deep for 3000 grit. even 1000 might not be enough. get 100 and maybe even 400 and try. it might not come out completely
If those are chrome tips, you might want to be careful about hitting it with sandpaper because it could be a different type of metal with chrome plating. If you sand off the chrome plating, it could make it look even worse than the scuffs you are trying to remove.
thanks both you guys for kind of stating some things i missed. Only reason i suggested such a high grit was to prevent any major damage being done. It's really hard to gauge how deep the scratch or scuff is from the photo but i figure if it was a high grit it would also take a lot less polishing.
Thanks...I'll get in touch with the manufacturer to see what the tips are made out of. I just installed it and since they are on the underside it is not noticeable. I'll give it a while and see if it is even worth messing with given the chance that I could make it worse. Appreciate the tips (I crack myself up).:thumb:
