Protecting Emergency Vehicles

victory

New member
Specifically, my ambulances. I volunteer for a fire company in SE PA and i need a solution for protecting our ambulances from every possible form of abuse. They're 3 years old, and they a driven like they're stolen 90% of the time. When they're washed is with an industrial car wash detergent and a brush, then they're dried with hospital towels. They're occasionally driven through...everything you can think of, they've once or twice taken out a police car. Needless to say, they need a good coat of wax....



Now, i can't do anything fancy. layering on a bunch or layers of expensive product you use on your benz is overkill and will probably last 6 hours before someone drives it through something abrasive, corrosive and godawful



They need to be polished then covered with the heaviest duty industrial wax known to mankind. There's nothing i can do where the paint has been removed by things like road signs or other vehicles. I simply cannot spend that kind of time and have no experience doing touchups and whetsanding. So, we're just going to call those "character marks" and leave them there as evidence that these vehicles get some hard use.



I have some ideas.



First, as far as a last step for the exterior, i don't think there's another option besides collinite fleet wax.



Now, prior to that, i'm lost. I need the polish of the apocalypse. I do have a random orbital buffer which should probably help somewhat. Make it industrial stregnth and cheap. It's gonna be hard enough getting reembursed.



As for the interior, everything is plastic, vynil, and other such materials that blood whipes off easily. Should take about a gallon of 303. I have plexus for the lightbars and plexiglass cabinet doors and so-forth.
 
I'll be honest with you, I have yet to work with a wax that beaded longer than Zaino's Z2... That stuff is awesome.



Mothers mag polish for your metal. It'll turn brushed aluminum into chrome;)
 
Hmm....I can't really say much as far as product is concerned, as I always use the botique (spelling) products on my Intrepid. I am a member of our fire dept. here, and I definately know what you mean by overkill as far as these excessively large pieces of machinery are concerned! I would, however, like to voice my concern on wash method. Most of the guys at our station just wash the trucks with the nearest thing that looks half-way decent. If you plan on putting anything on the truck protection-wise, your wash method will end up bieng the thing that degrades the wax and/or sealant the most. Believe me I know, that a two-bucket, 5 mitt, foam-gun, backflip wash is impossible on these things. However, still bieng gentile is. What I would suggest to counter this, is to buy a boars hair wash brush on a telescoping pole, and a foam gun. If you can wet the panel down using the foam gun, and gentile wash solution. Then gently rub with the BHB, then rinse the brush with water in a bucket or something, your wash-induced marring will be kept to a minimum. Not to mention, the effects on your wax. I just wanted to offer my input, so that your time used waxing, wouldn't be thrown down the drain, because I know first hand, how people like to treat thier fire engines.
 
megs 66 with rotary on a polishing pad works wonders...

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also for the Plate and crome..

Poorboys propolish..
 
To be frank, there's probably nothing i can do about the washing method. The best i can do is pay down a sacraficial layer of wax and keep it up. They buy their carwash soap in drums by the lowest bidder. The wash brushes they use aren't terribly abrasive, i just have to keep yelling at people to rinse them out and not do idiotic stuff like scrub out the wheel wells then do the hood an sides. Myself and one other guy are about the only people i trust to wash them correctly, but we can't always be around.



The paint on the busses where it hasn't been harmed is actually very nice. VCI did a good job with them and i think a nice polish and wax would bring back 95%



Boutique products, once again, are simply not cost effective simply due to the amount that gets used. Theres way more paint to wax on an ambulance or firetruck than a midsize sedan
 
Megs 66 sounds like a great idea. it's a good cleaner that can be bought in large sums for cheap. Quantity is a necessity. 2 engines a rescue and 2 busses would eat up a lot of small bottles,



Throw a coat of the fleet wax over it once i'm done polishing. That should be nice for a couple months.



knew there had to be other firefighters/EMTs here.



Recommend some good 6" Rand. Orbital polishing pads if you will.
 
Color X / M-66 with a polishing pad followed with Collinite wax 843

Klasse AIO with a polishing pad followed with Collinite wax 843
 
Recommend a good one, i'll see if i can put in for it at the next company meeting (good luck with that).....come to think of it, we might already have a pneumatic "rotary buffer". hmmmm...... (cue tim the tool-man laugh)



Really, it's bigass pneumatic grinder, but the difference between a grinder and a rotary buffer is all in the attachment, right? It's probably got the right size shaft, so all i'd have to do is drop $20 on a PC backing plate. Put as much pressure as you need, i don't think you'll be able to slow it down.



This job is gonna go quick.



Edit: Incase you couldn't tell from the tim the tool-man, laugh, i'm being a smartass
 
victory said:
This job is gonna go quick.

So is your paint if you're using a grinder. Rotaries have adjustable speed, grinders have one. It takes a fair bit of skill to use a proper rotary properly without damaging the paint, I'd be surprised if anyone here would be anxious to dive into a detailing job with a pad on a grinder.
 
velobard said:
So is your paint if you're using a grinder. Rotaries have adjustable speed, grinders have one. It takes a fair bit of skill to use a proper rotary properly without damaging the paint, I'd be surprised if anyone here would be anxious to dive into a detailing job with a pad on a grinder.



Should have added a smiley face, but if you couldn't tell by the tim the tool-man laugh, I was being a smartass.



Of course i'll put in for the correct tool. If i get turned down (which is likely) it will be a loooong day with the orbital.



Seriously, it's probably going to be a long day. They have a habbit of not authorizing anything they don't have to. It's not an issue of me not wanting to put in the time to practice with the thing, i just don't think they'll go for it and i simply hae no need to own a rotary personally.



If you have a suggestion of another product for use with the orbital pipe up, even if that means concealing a bit versus polishing completely out. i don't think i'm going to get the money out of them.
 
If I were you, I'd look more towards the concealing side of things. Polishing out the kind of marring your talking about really requires a rotary (you can do it with a PC but you're looking at 6 hours for a car, and god only knows what for an ambulance/fire truck). Clearkote VM is a pretty obvious choice, but it's pricey. As an alternative, I'd suggest The Chemical Guys' Revive polish, its like 30 bucks a gallon and it's a polish/glaze, which'll hide pretty well. If you think you're going to need more than a gallon of polish total, buy a gallon of laser buff too and mix 'em 50-50. Top with the Fleetwax and you should be good to go.
 
thanks. Seriously, you have no idea how stingy they've been lately. We had to fight for 6 months to get a working television for the training room



My guess would be the better part of a year to correctly polish with the PC. Remember, all these vehicles are on duty 24-7, and if they get a call while i'm polishing, tough **** for me.



I had a secondary concern about heavy polishing, mainly being that if i polish out all the markings, they will make more in short order and i'll be polishing those out in another couple months. Wondering how long it would take to wear through the paint. It's not like your every day car which you really have to intensively, abrasively polish very rarely.
 
The Moosewax looks like the cost would be the limiting factor. the CG Revive looks a good deal more economical. You cave to figure how much product would get used just on one side of one of these ambulances. They're significantly larger than even the largest SUV.



$1/oz vs $0.21/oz
 
can anyone recommend a good glass polish? the front windshields of the engines and rescue need it pretty badly. When the driver and OIC jump in they generally throw their helmets up on the dashboard. It inevitably hits the glass causing paint transfer (We use painted NY style helmets).
 
This is what i did....



Cheif i need some wax i'm going to NAPA....





OK....



At NAPA...



one gallon of Meg 66 please..



I have to order that...



it's ok.. and charge it to the FD



BEEP BEEP DONE
 
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