Car detailing

Beetle Progress Report

I managed to finish my repaint of the rear wheels through the week so first thing this morning I removed the last of the masking tape and refitted the wheels. There’s a nack to putting a large heavy alloy wheel on with studs and I started to get there today, with it between my knees and shuffling on my knees to ease it onto the stub at the same time threading one stud to secure it.

Given the aggro when removing the wheels (one broken wheel wrench) I applied a little Copper grease to each thread on the rear wheels. Then I had to remove the front wheel studs one by one to grease them. So that’s 16 studs I greased and then had to retighten to the correct torque with my torque wrench. I really do sometimes question my life choices and as I’m selling the car will anyone really care.

Anyway, a few mins of a puny compressor had both rears inflated and the Beetle was once again in its own four wheels.

I am never ever doing alloy wheels myself again, it takes such a long time and is very fiddly. The results are pretty average versus the effort but as this is a budget job it will have to suffice. The car sadly is not worth enough to send the wheels away for refurbishment.

In between doing this I had given the bodywork a quick once over with a spray on cleaner that you can use dry. This was just to give it a bit of shine as it was looking a bit sad.

Next I removed the wipers arms which are in a rough state. The sprung mechanism is worn and so it’s scratched itself to bits. To begin with I’ve oiled it but I may need to replace as I can’t see a way to repair them. New units are over £60 so I will see what can be had second hand.

As I still had some time I explored removing the air filter which is at the rear of the engine bay tucked under the scuttle. This means that the front three screws come out easily but the back two are very awkward. I tried a few different tools, eventually finding that my screw bits fitted a socket in my mini-socket set and that gave me a low profile screw using the ratchet. I was impressed with myself for my ingenuity! I was glad when the air filter was found to be dirty because that justifies the effort in removing it. I’ll order a new one online.

Unbelievably that little work took most of a day but to be honest I was just doing it all for fun really and just enjoying being outside in the sunshine. Oh – I did clean the interior of Helen’s car as well so not that unproductive!

A light scrub

I had literally one hour spare to give the Beetle a quick spritz. Since I’ve been keeping it, I’ve not given the exterior a base clean. With fair weather it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

I sprayed the bodywork and the algae on the hood with Demon Clean muck shifter and while that was sitting I got out the Karcher pressure washer and layered some snow foam.

I then gave it all a good rinsing off with the pressure washer which took a while because the suds were so thick, but it did shift the road grime off pretty well.

I towel dried the paintwork and quickly sprayed on some Turtlewax Ceramic polish which goes on damp. I was fairly liberal as I was looking to add some protection rather than obtaining the best finish. It buffed off alright with a bit of smudging, so I moved onto the hood, applying some Autoglym Hood Protector which goes on with a damp sponge. It’s a runny product so not an easy application and it has low coverage so it took a bit of doing but I got a good amount soaked into the damp hood.

So not a bad hour’s work and a degree of protection on some key areas. It does look great when it’s clean like all black cars although there are loads of small corrections to be done over time. For the moment this will have to do while I focus on priorities such as refurbishing the two rear wheels

The paint looks almost good here
Still lots to do!
The algae has gone…for now…

15 March 23 – Under bonnet tidy

A brief bit of work tonight, simply giving the under bonnet a light wipe over to get rid of some of the marks which have accumulated over time. I find that the marks came off with a little T-cut on a cloth. Afterwards I gave the area a spray with some detailer and wiped it off.

I discovered that I’d neglected to put the fuse cover on the fuse box so I located it in a likely looking pile of bits and popped it on after a wipe over.

Something missing…
…that’s better

Looking across the other side of the engine bay the bonnet release cable was looking a bit floppy and there was a blank bracket which must have held a clip at one point. So it was now just a matter of finding a clip to fit and popping it on. I found one that looked right but it needed a clean up so I spent 30 not very interesting minutes with some sand paper making it more presentable. Fitted that and called it a night.

A very grubby clip
Slightly better now
Holding the bonnet release cable in place
Engine bay looks reasonable

7 July 2022 Show time?

I rashly committed to a local car show and the weekend has rolled around and I’m faced with a 10 mile drive in the MG on Sunday. The car is fully Road legal so no worries there, but it’s not finished by a long shot and I’m nervous that problems unknown could occur on the drive.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained so I rolled her out the garage tonight on a beautiful summer evening for a bit of preparation. Main job was to give the paint a quick wipe over with some quick detailer just to remove the dust and rub off the odd oily smudge from my fingers. Then I used a glass cleaner to remove the smudges and dressed the tyres.

Inside the car I secured the centre console which I’d removed when I put the carpets in.

Tomorrow I’ll get a can of petrol filled and top up the tank and maybe do a run around the bypass to check for leaks and creaks.

I’ll present her as work in progress!

1 Sep 19 Clean machine

Wait a minute, thats not the MG. Correct. It’s back to School week for Helen, teachers all around the country are wondering where the last six weeks holiday have gone and it only feels like five minutes since they broke up. Helen wanted her car cleaned for the new term, and as the local sweat shop was closed, it fell to me to do the job. I started by clearing the interior of all the accumulated rubbish and then gave it a thorough hoovering, includng the mats which of course I removed. I then dusted all the crevises with a soft brush and wiped over all the surfaces with a matt interior cleaner. I don’t use loads of it, just enought to actually clean as well as dust. Moving to the exterior, I gave it a thorough soaking with a hose, then a gentle soapy brush wash with car shampoo, followed by rinsing again with the hose. For the wheels I didn’t use any special product, just one of those large glove microfibre thingies made of what looks like green Wotsits. The brake dust came off okay with a good soaking and a gentle rub of the glove. I did an initial dry of the car with a large mircofibre cloth, then went around again to completely dry the paint, excepting those annoying drips that appear when you are not looking. Moving to the exterior glass, I treated it all with a Bluecol product that is supposed to negate the need for wipers, a bit like Rain-X. I had forgotten I had this until someone at a BBQ recently mentioned it so I thought I would dig it out and reapply it. The Jazz has a huge windscreen and a panoramic roof, so there is lots of glass to treat, but also to benefit from the beading up that is supposed to occur. Will also reduce wear on the wipers too. I then gave the paint a quick spruce up using a hydroscopic detailer (Brand = Chrome) which I was bought recently by a friend who works at a truck stop. Apparently the Truckers all rave about it and it seems to go on and buff off easily enough. Sadly, although the car is only five years old its amazing how many little chips and scrapes its aquired. None which really need doing, unless we were being really picky, but just one of those things. By now I was getting hot in the early Autumn sunshine and Helen appeared to critique the job. She spotted a few smears here and there which I rubbed off and gave me a pack of Simoniz interior glass wipes claimed to be smear free. These worked okay, but I am not a fan of throwaway wipe types things usually. Anyway, on finishing the Jazz, I was pleased with the result. Didn’t progress the MG one jott, but the pearlescent organy-brown Honda looked suitably glossy outside, so I consider that enough of an effort to warrant recording here. Hope you’ve all had a good summer. Happy Car washing and restoring.