richy
New member
- Mar 27, 2007
- 5,158
- 0
This gentleman was a referral as well as a fellow LEO. He approached me to prepare his 2006 GMC Sierra Pickup for sale. It has only 87,000 km (roughly 50,000 miles). It was quite dirty so I wasn't really able to assess the condition of the paint but I had suggested a one step process to keep the cost down. In the back of my mind I was thinking of trying the M205 + mf + Rupes combo on the paint to see how it did.
Here it is as it arrived:








The chrome on the driver's door was bad. Shame as the rest of it seemed really good.




Time permitting I would clean up the inside too.




First up was the wheels, barrels, wells and tires.
The barrels looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a long time. I used Malco Brake Off and let it dwell. A light agitation was given and then they were rinsed off. I followed that with Megs WB. Acid neutralizing the alkaline. That was rinsed off and a final shot of Zep Citrus for good measure. Boy did that regime really clean them!
The faces were cleaned with Megs WB followed by Zep Citrus.
The tires were cleaned first with LATA followed by a 2nd time with Zep 505.
Finally the wells were cleaned with LATA followed by some Permanon.
The truck was then hand washed with DG 901 followed by a 2nd decontamination wash using IX paste. The roof after being rinsed was shot with CarPro Hydro as it wasn't getting polished so it still would bead up as nicely as the rest of it was going to.
The truck was brought inside and was blown off using my Master Blaster and was then clayed using my Speedy Prep towel.
Now it was time to play with some paint!!
The hood was frankly a mess! Check out all the chips!






The worst part was that wasn't all of them! There were a couple of quite large ones. I offered to pick up some touch up paint the next day for him as I was going to be out anyway. They would have really stood out with polished paint had they not been filled!
So, back to the hood being a mess. I ran a tape line down the hood to test 2 different methods. I know I was thinking a single stage polish, but that wasn't going to fly on this hood...it was too bad. Check out both sides of the tape line:


I had read Kevin Brown's article about using gobs of 205 + a mf disc + Rupes and decided to try that against my faithful stand-by, my black TB wool pad. The article claimed it was as effective as wool. I'd soon see for myself!
I had a brand new Megs heavy cut mf and used M205 + Rupes 21. I had to admit it was a great combo. It did cut quickly and with no dusting and finished down well. It was impressive. Here are the results of that section done:


As you can see, it did really well. If the paint wasn't so badly marked, it probably would have been fine. But in this case, it was not enough. Too many scratches were left behind.
I then tried the other side of the tape line with my Flex 3401 + TB black wool (an older one) + Amerirocks. You can see how that finished down with no following steps at this point either:


The winner was clearly the TB wool pad but there was dust and it was going to be followed by M205 for the win. The hood to me is always the centrepiece. I was so impressed with the 205+ mf combo that I decided to use that on the rest of the truck (side panels).
So the hood got 3401 + ARocks + TB wool followed by M205 + yellow B/S + 3401. I then used 3401 + DG Squeaky Clean + white B/S pad to ensure a proper surface to coat. The rest of the truck got the M205 + mf (I ended up using a regular Megs mf compound disc rather than the heavy cut one..I just liked it better with the thicker bottom on it). That was followed by the M205 + yellow B/S and the SC as above. This is a big truck and took a lot of time even for something that I was not trying to get perfect. I was getting about 90% correction on the sides with this combo. It was quick and effective.
Here it is as it arrived:








The chrome on the driver's door was bad. Shame as the rest of it seemed really good.




Time permitting I would clean up the inside too.




First up was the wheels, barrels, wells and tires.
The barrels looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a long time. I used Malco Brake Off and let it dwell. A light agitation was given and then they were rinsed off. I followed that with Megs WB. Acid neutralizing the alkaline. That was rinsed off and a final shot of Zep Citrus for good measure. Boy did that regime really clean them!
The faces were cleaned with Megs WB followed by Zep Citrus.
The tires were cleaned first with LATA followed by a 2nd time with Zep 505.
Finally the wells were cleaned with LATA followed by some Permanon.
The truck was then hand washed with DG 901 followed by a 2nd decontamination wash using IX paste. The roof after being rinsed was shot with CarPro Hydro as it wasn't getting polished so it still would bead up as nicely as the rest of it was going to.
The truck was brought inside and was blown off using my Master Blaster and was then clayed using my Speedy Prep towel.
Now it was time to play with some paint!!
The hood was frankly a mess! Check out all the chips!






The worst part was that wasn't all of them! There were a couple of quite large ones. I offered to pick up some touch up paint the next day for him as I was going to be out anyway. They would have really stood out with polished paint had they not been filled!
So, back to the hood being a mess. I ran a tape line down the hood to test 2 different methods. I know I was thinking a single stage polish, but that wasn't going to fly on this hood...it was too bad. Check out both sides of the tape line:


I had read Kevin Brown's article about using gobs of 205 + a mf disc + Rupes and decided to try that against my faithful stand-by, my black TB wool pad. The article claimed it was as effective as wool. I'd soon see for myself!
I had a brand new Megs heavy cut mf and used M205 + Rupes 21. I had to admit it was a great combo. It did cut quickly and with no dusting and finished down well. It was impressive. Here are the results of that section done:


As you can see, it did really well. If the paint wasn't so badly marked, it probably would have been fine. But in this case, it was not enough. Too many scratches were left behind.
I then tried the other side of the tape line with my Flex 3401 + TB black wool (an older one) + Amerirocks. You can see how that finished down with no following steps at this point either:


The winner was clearly the TB wool pad but there was dust and it was going to be followed by M205 for the win. The hood to me is always the centrepiece. I was so impressed with the 205+ mf combo that I decided to use that on the rest of the truck (side panels).
So the hood got 3401 + ARocks + TB wool followed by M205 + yellow B/S + 3401. I then used 3401 + DG Squeaky Clean + white B/S pad to ensure a proper surface to coat. The rest of the truck got the M205 + mf (I ended up using a regular Megs mf compound disc rather than the heavy cut one..I just liked it better with the thicker bottom on it). That was followed by the M205 + yellow B/S and the SC as above. This is a big truck and took a lot of time even for something that I was not trying to get perfect. I was getting about 90% correction on the sides with this combo. It was quick and effective.