Exhaust Cleaned & Polished with Wheel Woolies?

swanicyouth

swanicyouth

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Had a chance to clean up my exhaust tips today. I thought with all the posts on this recently I would make my own "how to". I was in the car headed to get the 0000 steel wool when a little voice in my head told me to turn around.

I know others have had success with steel wool, but for whatever reason, I can't get past using something the reminds me of a Brillo Pad on my BMW. There had to be another way.

The tips weren't too bad before:

3epaqame.jpg


That's what I was starting with. The car was "dirty", so first I wanted to clean them chemically as good as possible. I used this stuff:

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Including the bent handled Wheel Woolie. It actually worked quite well. The best part of using high quality stuff, like 1Z, to clean with is it's very concentrated. A single spray per tip is all it took:

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After I cleaned them up, I clayed the inside and outside of the tips:

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Results for 1 tip after cleaning:

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Now they were clean, I mean real clean:

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After that I wanted to polish the insides of the tips, the outsides looked fine. I thought about different things I could buy to do this, and thought I would try something I already had: the smallest Wheel Woolie:

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Yes, that's right - a Wheel Woolie on a drill. I wanted to take a video of it to show you how it goes. I used Meg's Metal Polish and P21S Multi Surface Finish Restorer. The P21S is what really added the magic. Here is a video of how it went with the Meg's:

http://youtu.be/FzI5TpePsBY

The Wheel Woolie worked extremely well, especially with the P21S. Also the Wheel Woolie wasn't damaged in any way.

Wheel Woolie after:

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After polishing, I cleaned them with IPA and OptiCoated them using a piece of a blue shop towel.

Here are the afters:

(With halogen light)

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(With natural light)

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For anyone interested in doing this, I highly recommend the P21S Multi Surface High Gloss Finish Restorer:

3y2u2u3e.jpg


It, along with the Wheel Woolie on the drill, really made a difference.
 
Nice job, but do you think that Opti coat can take the heat?
 
Rsurfer said:
Nice job, but do you think that Opti coat can take the heat?
Click to expand...

Doubt it, but what can? Permanon? It only lasts a few months. I planned on getting some more Permanon anyway.
 
Those tips look amazing. I'm curious to see how the opticoat holds up. I've used 22ple rim and metal glass coat on exhaust tips, which is supposed to be specifically designed to take the temps of wheels and exhaust tips, but I saw no change. Easier to just use p21s polishing soap every wash then how the 22ple held up.
 
Something about that youtube video... very erotic
 
Ryry11 said:
Those tips look amazing. I'm curious to see how the opticoat holds up. I've used 22ple rim and metal glass coat on exhaust tips, which is supposed to be specifically designed to take the temps of wheels and exhaust tips, but I saw no change. Easier to just use p21s polishing soap every wash then how the 22ple held up.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Just so every one is aware, P21S Polishing Soap and the P21S stuff I used here are 2 different products.

I know Permanon is supposed to hold up to something like 600 degrees, so if the OC doesn't hold up I'll try Permanon as soon as I get a new bottle.

I OC'ed my aftermarket Gibson exhaust tip for my Pathfinder and that seems to be holding up. But, its a clamp on tip, so it may not get quite as hot
 
Fantastic job! Thank you for taking the time to put this "how-to" together and taking such wonderful and descriptive pictures. I currently have the P21S Polishing Soap, but after seeing the results looks like I need to purchase the Multi-Surface Restorer, too!

Again, thank you for this post and "how-to"!

Happy detailing (and hopefully more "how-to's" too)!
 
First of all, thanks for all of the interesting threads and great gadgets. You are a detailer's detailer.

swanicyouth said:
Doubt it, but what can? Permanon? It only lasts a few months. I planned on getting some more Permanon anyway.
Click to expand...

I trust both Tuscarora Dave's and TLMitchell's findings. TD has a post (thread?) somewhere on his 2.0'ing Harley pipes (mentors bike?).

TLMitchell said:
You're kidding me! I found OC to be the only thing that doesn't burn off the pipes immediately. Had it on the exhaust on all 3 bikes and it's still there 6 months later. Makes cleaning the exhaist a wash-off affair vs all the polishing I used to do.

TL
Click to expand...
 
I bet that the inside of the tips wasn't that clean when new.

They look like fresh nickel plating. Which I always liked as an alternative to chrome plating.

It just has a "richer" appearance when compared to chrome.
 
oldmodman said:
I bet that the inside of the tips wasn't that clean when new.

They look like fresh nickel plating. Which I always liked as an alternative to chrome plating.

It just has a "richer" appearance when compared to chrome.
Click to expand...

Thanks

That's what I was going after. I was inspired by Bob and all his talk of little felt polishing doohickeys. I though about buying those things, but I don't know anything about polishing metal or using that polish that comes in blocks. I figured I would approach it using detailing stuff.
 
swanicyouth said:
Thanks

That's what I was going after. I was inspired by Bob and all his talk of little felt polishing doohickeys.
I though about buying those things, but I don't know anything about polishing metal or using that polish that comes in blocks.
I figured I would approach it using detailing stuff.
Click to expand...
And you saved a lot of money...
(I never would have thought the wheel woolies could have withstood high circumferential rpms)

Great innovation as usual...
Tips look great as well!

Thanks for sharing.

:)

Bob
 
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