kaos
6-Speeder
<delurk mode ON>
*POOF!*
Well, after poking around a few other places on the web for detailing info, I seem to have come across "the place to be"!
Been lurking for the past few days, gleaning a bunch of useful info, so it's time to show myself.
I've always liked to keep my car (red '91 Chrysler LeBaron) looking good, and have pretty much done the best I could with its deteriorating paint condition. About 6 months ago, the clear finally started to peel from the last 2 good panels on the car, the roof and trunk lid. Hood has been peeling for years. Don't know the history of it before I bought it, whether it was factory or repainted at some point. I know that Chrysler around that time period had a lot of problems with clearcoats, since I've seen a ton of them around, and my '87 Daytona Shelby was starting to do the same thing when I lost her. Ah, that was a sad, sad day. I still miss going out and putting a nice mirror finish on her jet-black hide, taking out the T-tops and cruising around Daytona Beach. But I digress... :drunk
Really couldn't care less about that one now, I just wash it and sometimes hit it with something that was on sale cheap. My baby is now my 1999 Dodge Dakota 4x4.
Mine's the green one on the left. Not exactly a close-up, but still looks darn good after a Meguiars Deep Crystal 3-step detail and a roughly 800 mile drive from the Cincinnati area to a friend's cabin near Eau Claire, WI. Been using the Deep Crystal system for many years, but I just picked up a bottle of NXT to do the truck with for this winter. So many things I want to do to this truck, so little fundage... *sigh* After I took this picture though, I decided that at some point in the future I am definitely going to paint the bottom (gray plastic) part of the front bumper to match the silver trim. The newer Dak's come that way (the other one in the pic), and it looks good. Mine will still look better though, cuz I've got the chrome. :hah I've seen some pix from a guy on the Dakota forum who did that, and it looks sharp.
The other bonus this year is that I've got the two panels that had defects fixed. The previous owner used it as a work truck, and the roof was totally scraped up from a ladder rack. Two large spots were down to bare metal. Makes me wonder how someone could let it go that far... *shrug* When taking it around for estimates, one guy pointed out something I hadn't noticed before: a spot of corrosion underneath the paint that was bubbling it up near the passenger's side corner of the windshield. I thought that would be the death of me, adding probably $2-300 to the repair bill for pulling the windshield and fixing the rust. However, he also pointed out the fact that Chrysler has a 5-year/100,000 mile corrosion warranty. Did some research, found out the warranty was still in effect, and had the whole roof done on Chrysler's dime!
wned The body shop just charged me 4 hours of labor for filling and repairing the scratches and depressions from the ladder rack. Walked out with a roof in perfect shape for $150. W00t!
The driver's side door was a much more depressing story.
I was planning on doing that "sometime" soon, due to a paint chip that would eventually start to rust if I didn't take care of it, and a really (and I mean REALLY) poor repair of prior damage. However, I was recently taught the "don't pull out in front of old ladies that have their signal lights on, even if they're slowing down to make the turn" lesson the hard way, and was forced to get the door fixed a lot sooner than I was planning. :wall Looks great now, except for the orange peel being pretty bad (actually worse than the factory finish... but then again it's brand new and the factory finish has had 5 years of life to wear down a bit).
So she's ready for some serious shine and protection for this winter. Thanks to a bunch of info from this site, I've got a bunch of MF towels on the way, and picked up a Clay Magic claybar today, along with some decent quality wheel and detail brushes. I'd previously been going the cheapest possible route with a lot of my equipment (my wheel brush is a kitchen brush with bristles so thin that the wire can easily hit the wheel), but I've decided NO MORE. fyi, that brush has not and will not touch the wheels on the Dak In the spring, it'll be time for a PC and some higher end products (PB/4*), and we'll really see what that truck can look like!
Well, this was supposed to be just an intro, but it turned into a biography... So thanks in advance for all the great info that I'm sure I'll continue to pick up here. :dcrules
-Kaos!
*POOF!*
Well, after poking around a few other places on the web for detailing info, I seem to have come across "the place to be"!
Been lurking for the past few days, gleaning a bunch of useful info, so it's time to show myself.I've always liked to keep my car (red '91 Chrysler LeBaron) looking good, and have pretty much done the best I could with its deteriorating paint condition. About 6 months ago, the clear finally started to peel from the last 2 good panels on the car, the roof and trunk lid. Hood has been peeling for years. Don't know the history of it before I bought it, whether it was factory or repainted at some point. I know that Chrysler around that time period had a lot of problems with clearcoats, since I've seen a ton of them around, and my '87 Daytona Shelby was starting to do the same thing when I lost her. Ah, that was a sad, sad day. I still miss going out and putting a nice mirror finish on her jet-black hide, taking out the T-tops and cruising around Daytona Beach. But I digress... :drunk
Really couldn't care less about that one now, I just wash it and sometimes hit it with something that was on sale cheap. My baby is now my 1999 Dodge Dakota 4x4.
Mine's the green one on the left. Not exactly a close-up, but still looks darn good after a Meguiars Deep Crystal 3-step detail and a roughly 800 mile drive from the Cincinnati area to a friend's cabin near Eau Claire, WI. Been using the Deep Crystal system for many years, but I just picked up a bottle of NXT to do the truck with for this winter. So many things I want to do to this truck, so little fundage... *sigh* After I took this picture though, I decided that at some point in the future I am definitely going to paint the bottom (gray plastic) part of the front bumper to match the silver trim. The newer Dak's come that way (the other one in the pic), and it looks good. Mine will still look better though, cuz I've got the chrome. :hah I've seen some pix from a guy on the Dakota forum who did that, and it looks sharp.
The other bonus this year is that I've got the two panels that had defects fixed. The previous owner used it as a work truck, and the roof was totally scraped up from a ladder rack. Two large spots were down to bare metal. Makes me wonder how someone could let it go that far... *shrug* When taking it around for estimates, one guy pointed out something I hadn't noticed before: a spot of corrosion underneath the paint that was bubbling it up near the passenger's side corner of the windshield. I thought that would be the death of me, adding probably $2-300 to the repair bill for pulling the windshield and fixing the rust. However, he also pointed out the fact that Chrysler has a 5-year/100,000 mile corrosion warranty. Did some research, found out the warranty was still in effect, and had the whole roof done on Chrysler's dime!
wned The body shop just charged me 4 hours of labor for filling and repairing the scratches and depressions from the ladder rack. Walked out with a roof in perfect shape for $150. W00t!The driver's side door was a much more depressing story.
I was planning on doing that "sometime" soon, due to a paint chip that would eventually start to rust if I didn't take care of it, and a really (and I mean REALLY) poor repair of prior damage. However, I was recently taught the "don't pull out in front of old ladies that have their signal lights on, even if they're slowing down to make the turn" lesson the hard way, and was forced to get the door fixed a lot sooner than I was planning. :wall Looks great now, except for the orange peel being pretty bad (actually worse than the factory finish... but then again it's brand new and the factory finish has had 5 years of life to wear down a bit).So she's ready for some serious shine and protection for this winter. Thanks to a bunch of info from this site, I've got a bunch of MF towels on the way, and picked up a Clay Magic claybar today, along with some decent quality wheel and detail brushes. I'd previously been going the cheapest possible route with a lot of my equipment (my wheel brush is a kitchen brush with bristles so thin that the wire can easily hit the wheel), but I've decided NO MORE. fyi, that brush has not and will not touch the wheels on the Dak
In the spring, it'll be time for a PC and some higher end products (PB/4*), and we'll really see what that truck can look like!Well, this was supposed to be just an intro, but it turned into a biography... So thanks in advance for all the great info that I'm sure I'll continue to pick up here. :dcrules
-Kaos!
Plus, it just looks better than all the rest! :naughty :shift :cool 
