herisites

But it says Spike's Ghia in mid 90's purple :wink: Well even if it is black its still gorgeous!

Wow i just love this one!! Stunning, and in a similar colour to mine as well :D

Haha thats fcuking brilliant!! :lol: Looks like a mustang got squashed between 2 lorries :lol:

Yeah he wet sanded it down and then machine polished it. I dont think he needed to touch up any of yours though did he as it was only clear coat scratches?

:shock: thats a lot of cars!

You such a Pikey! ;) Should have gone to Aldi! I get my APC from Aldi, but there's a Lidl round the corner from me and knew they were doing them so

Definately cant do it by hand mate, you would need arms like Arnie just to make a slight difference, it needs to be done proeprly else the finish is left worse than before because you dont cut it back far enough. It can even be done wrong by machine polishing, for example a Porter Cable (very popular with beginners as its an orbital/dual action polisher therefore doesnt generate as much heat as a rotary and so is safer to use, but takes longer than a rotary) isnt good enough to remove sanding marks fully so you need a rotary, and even then you still need to use a highly abrasive polish with a high cutting pad (wool pads are most cut without generating too much heat) Here are some very good videos from the guy at Meguiars in America, there are 5 parts but these 3 show what i mean. - This starts off showing basic tehcniques on how to use a rotary polisher and other basic stuff but towards the end he starts going into wet sanding, he explains how to do it and whats best to use. - This one actually shows him wet sanding it and then start to machine polish it out, he explains the use of a wool pad and compound polish etc. Then he starts talking about moving on to polishing it to bring up the shine. - In this one he actually starts polishing it to bring the finish up, but mainly in this one he shows that a PC is not up to the task of removing sanding scratches as it doesnt generate enough heat like a rotary does (about 7 minutes in). And thats using an abrasive polish (more abrasive than Scratch-X but not very abrasive in machine polishing standards) and by machine and it doesnt do enough so working by hand you will never get a good finish. Like said really, by all means if you want to tackle it yourself and you have a polisher then go for it, but i would get a scrap panel and practice first before tackling your own car. Otherwise i would just get quotes to get it done properly. And like i said before, there are guys on Editon 38 who do this as part of their detailing business and travel all over the country so they might do you a good deal being fellow dubbers. Hope this helps. Rob.

Yes mate thats a good idea. I use one of them with some fairly low concentrated APC in, i use mine just to spray round the lower half of the doors, wheels, arches, door shuts etc. So as a pre-soak with some shampoo in would be a good idea as it would mist the shampoo on which means it would hold to the paint to soak the dirt as apposed to just chucking a bucket of soapy water over it which wouldnt give time to soak into the dirt much. I got mine from Lidl for a fiver.

No worries mate. It might not turn out perfect but it will certainly improve and i have seen examples of touch up wet sanding that look as close to perfect as you could get, most commonly with stone chips but scratches have been done. One advisory though is if you are not experienced with machine polishing with highly abrasive compounds etc then you may want to get someone else to do it as you could very easily burn through the paint and foobar it up. There are a few guys on edition 38 that can do it if you go on there much and you may get lucky and have someone near you who are willing to do it for a few pints or atleast fairly cheap. Also you may need to take into consideration that if you were to do that you may need to keep polishing as otherwise you will have a really shiny patch and the rest dull. Wet sanding actually flattens the orange peel effect in the paint from factory, so that area is always going to look better than the rest of the panel/car when done. Only other option rather than respraying is to get it smart repaired of course but again looking qite expensive and as a guy who spends time looking at my own paint :roll: i have seen smart repair work and where they spray it its very dull compared to the rest of the panel so wont look too great really. A lot of detailers actually correct smart repair work by wet sanding it back and polishing up.

If you want a very good finish then you would need to touch it up, wet sand it then polish it. Basically what you do is touch it up with a paint/lacquer mix until the paint is raised above the original paint. Leave it over night to set. Then using about 2500-3000 grit wet sand paper (soaked for about an hour in soapy water) and a flat backing plate, gently sand it down flat. Then once you have a flat finish you need to machine polish the sanding scratches out using a compound polish on usually a wool pad or at least a cutting pad, followed by a finishing polish on a finishing/polishing pad and that will do it. There are guides and videos showing how to wet sand on detailing world. HERE for example

Yeah just shampoo is all you need, tbh i wouldnt use a 'Wash n Wax' shampoo anyway as its not really concentrated on safely washing the car and the 'wax' in it wont last 5 minutes. IMO you should always wash the car in a safe shampoo and then add a layer of wax yourself after with the occassional polish as well to restore the paint.

Thats Alan Carr on the end isnt it??? :lol:

Ooh goody, funds may allow quicker then i thought then :D

When funds allow im going to get a Neuspeed rear ARB definately, and if funds allow further then a strut brace as well.

I really hope that the car does get saved, would be a shame letting it go to waste. Crossing my fingers!!

No worries mate. Once you have done it you will realise its actually a very quick easy thing to do and will make life a lot easier for some jobs (like the oil switches for example, didnt fancy lying on my back trying to do it that way but from the top was piece of piss).

Rob, this jacking up the engine that you now appear to be pretty handy at :) How have you been doing this? Sticking a plank of wood between the jack & the sump, and loosening off the engine mounts? I'm a bit paranoid about crushing the sump using this method!! :? Yeah pretty much mate. I used a large flat piece of wood covered in old cloths on the sump to spread the weight, supported it with the jack. Then completely removed the bottom nut from the front mount (you can leave the one from the top which actually holds the mount to the engine, the bottom one accessed from underneath holds it to the actual crossmember, its an alan key bolt), then completely removed the rear mount (directly below the air intake pipe, i removed it to gain better access with a large socket and some extensions, there are 2 nuts for the rear mount as it has some sort of bracket on it, undo that one first which i believe is a 13mm bolt then you will see the actual mount bolt which is either 15 or 16mm cant remember which). No need to remove or even loosen the gearbox mount. Then just start slowly jacking it up. It should come up fairly level and sounds a bit dodgy once you get to a certain point as you get plastic pipes etc creaking a bit but it can go a fair way up, well high enough to remove the engine mount and gain access to the wishbone bolts etc anyway. I actually took some pictures of how i done it so could do a small guide really for those unsure like you and like i was.

Yeah cheers for that mate, got to me surprisingly quick! Havent got round to using the easi-bleed yet though! I need to find out what i need to do to the pressure regulator first i think as my car is lowered :?

I think with my next pay cheque im going to sort out my CV joint and wheel bearings and get a mk3 tdi gearbox mount. I think that might make all the difference you know as my gear change into 2nd is definately better now i have the vt mount on! Also how hard/easy (most likely hard!!) is it to change the track rods? Im thinkin they may need doing being 12 years old and they could be whats clunking with i turn the steering wheel perhaps? When i got the tracking done they said they could probably do with changing.

That explains it then. I changed the one that was leaking on mine but didnt change the other even though i got a new one as the new one is a different colour, the old one thats still on is black but the new one is blue. So does that mean its different or do they just make them blue now?

I think i also heard somewhere that too hot water doesnt allow the foam to dwell on the paint, so colder water or just warm water works best and then you can go quite warm for the actual wash.

In that case mate what i would do is get some snow foam or maxi suds (you can get snow foam in a gallon as well where as maxi suds is quite a small bottle) and really blast the water out the tap so its very foamy and then cover the car in it, let it soak for a few mins and then rinse off again and then start washing the car properly with some shampoo and 2 buckets etc. The pre-soak/rinse should budge most the visible dirt from the car, obviously it would work better with a hose and the likes of a superspray for example but buckets should still do the trick. For the hood you could use some All Purpose Cleaner on it. You can get a gallon for about £3 from Aldi, thats where i get mine from. Its a bit weak though so you might need a stronger dillution then indicated.

Jon, get yourself some Megs Hyper Wash or Shampoo Plus. The hyper wash is most popularly used as the dillution rate is something like 400:1 so lasts forever, and you buy it in a gallon bottle. AG Shampoo has never been a very foamy shampoo really, but at the end of the day when just washing a car you dont necessarily need foam as you are using the shampoo for the lubrication really. You only really want something foamy as a pre-soak in which case the best is Snow Foam but Chemical Guys Maxi Suds is also great stuff (and smells amazing!). I actually mix a bit of maxi suds in with my normal shampoo when washing and it seems to keep a nice amount of foam. All purchased from http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk :)

Must be a common problem then with the switch perhaps? Unlucky for you though mate, mine was a piece of piss to change lol, just jacked the engine up and robert is your mothers brother :lol: Yeah was going to ask if you had fitted your mount yet. I suppose you might notice it a bit more in yours as its got more power but i am pleased with it so far and like i said its mainly for when i fit the charger anyway!

Think i need to do this guys, my rear brakes squeek so im guessing are on slightly? Where am i looking then for this pressure regulator? Is there one each side or is there just one for both rears etc?? And what so i do once i have found it?