Having the Right Tools

I had a really nasty set of wheels to do this past weekend. After doing three of them I got to thinking how nice it is to have the right tools to do the job and how much easier it certainly makes it. The last wheel I was doing was nasty (not the worst one but a close second) and I decided to take some pics of what having the right tools and cleaning supplies can do for you. I used a variety of brushes. I used the new Raceglaze wheel brush and it is the best wheel brush I have (I will have a seperate review of it coming soon). It will get behind every caliper I have come across. I also used my usual aresenal of brushes. The Raceglaze brush was for the barrels, my Black Magic wheel brush bent to 90 degrees was for behind the spokes, lug nut brush, long handle Home Depot brush for wells, and Home Depot stiff bristle brush for tires. I used a green foam finger pocket for the wheel faces.

I used Majestic Solutions Super Green Stuff in a 1.5 gallon sprayer diluted to 2:1 for the wells and tires. I used Megs Wheel Brightener for the wheels. To show how well the Megs WB cleans the wheels I was able to clean these nasty wheel faces with just the foam finger pocket. Cleaning the wheel, tire, and wheel well took a total of 8 minutes.

Here are the wheels as they came to me:





Here is after rinsing with my pressure washer. You can see that it didn't do much for knocking much of the grime off.



Now with MS SGS and Megs WB applied and working:




Cleaning behind the caliper with the Raceglaze brush:



Cleaning the face:



All rinsed and clean:





The final product after dressing with a coat of Megs Hyper Dressing followed by a coat of Tropi Care Tire dressing and a coating of MS Enviroshield on the wheels:

 

Man are you ever right...I love the raceglaze brush!!!

*nice job on dem wheels!*

 

Great job and having the right tools for any job is the only way to go.

 

Holy Crap!! WB is the shizz...I need to get some of that!!

Thanks for taking the time to provide this writeup to us!

 

thanks for sharing. nice work on those wheels. came out nice. that tropi-care tire dressing is some nice stuff.

 

JL, I finally used that sample of Majestic Solutions Super Green Stuff you included with my purchase this past weekend on my gutters and it was FANTASTIC!! It took the black stains off my white gutters with ease. Thanx bro!

 

Awesome, one thing I need to start adding to my collection is more tools

 

You know it that RG brush is the best! A huge thanks to Ken at Autowerkes for getting those in.

Thanks Asphalt.

I would not want to detail without having the Megs WB just in case the wheels are nasty.

Yeah I love the Tropi Care tire dressing. Gives the exact same look as Swissvax Pneu at a fraction of the cost.

Glad you got to use it and I need to remember that tip when I clean my gutters in a few weeks.

 

I actually found a few calipers that the brush won't work with sadly enough that

 

Do the bristles lost their shape? I know a lot of the bristles that "look" like these end up laying down flat and the brush becomes next to useless. One thing i like about the EZ brush is that the bristles dont go flat against the stem of the brush.

 

What cars were they Michael? Thats crazy that the RG brush won't fit.

 

Thanks for sharing JL!

 

whats the home depot brush look like?

 

I've never used the RG brush (but after seeing this, I'm definately ordering some!), but just from seeing it in that pic, I know I've done a few cars where the caliper clearance would be way too small - one was a Lincoln...something or other (can't remember the model :sorry and the other was my fathers Cadillac SLS.

 

I'll post up some pics of it behind the calipers on my Jeep as I didn't think there were many cars with clearances smaller than that. I had yet to find a brush that would go behind those and the RG brush does easily.

And Jordan the brush has not shown any signs of the bristles laying down.

 

Meg's WB question. Only to be used in extreme cases, since it's acidic (IIRC)? I wanted to order a gallon yesterday, but held back since if I would only run across that situation every onc in a great while, it would be on my shelf forever. Also didn't know it was safe for painted wheels.

 

No this is a very common misconception advanced by those that portray WB to be the anti-christ of wheel cleaners. I use this on nearly every daily driver that I get for its first detail. As long as you don't let it sit on the wheel and dry you are fine. Personally if I need to let a wheel cleaner dwell for long periods of time to work then I don't need it. For extreme cases I actually use just a mild wheel acid diluted like 15:1 and you are correct that stuff lasts forever because you don't have that much call for it. I go through a good deal of WB though. You dilute WB 4:1 so a 32 oz container will make 160 oz of product. Don't use WB on uncoated aluminum because it won't be pretty. You can use it on chrome or painted wheels.

 

JL..

Can you post some pics of your Home Depot brushes?? I have seen you mention them on several details. I have seen several at HD and was wondering which you were referring to.

 

Thanks JL. I may have to add it to my order. I have a local source, with free shipping and delivery for all meg's stuff.

 

honestly bro i don't remember off the top of my head... there's only been a handful so far, next time i run into one, i'll message you on the BB