JLs Detailing: Dually 3500

[JLs Detailing]

Well the owner of this truck runs a carpet installation business. He mostly does commercial stuff but was doing the house across the street as a favor for the renovator. Well he saw me detailing a car and came over to inquire about having his truck done. He brought it about a week later and you could tell it was a work truck. Since he does mostly commercial properties he is usually driving around on freshly paved parking lots and there was a ton of tar on this thing...and yep its white! While working on it I also came across a lot of other sticky substances which I later found out was a glue that they use when laying carpet. I tried a bunch of products on this stuff and only found one thing that worked and it worked like a champ. I'll get into what I used a little later. Well here's what was up for the day on this land yacht!

Tires/Wheels/Wells: Man these things were dirty and the wheel wells were the absolute worst I have done. The tires got MS Super Green Stuff from a handheld pressurized sprayer and a black Shmitt. The wheels got Megs Wheel Brightener with an EZ Detail and a Black Magic (bent at 90 degrees) brush. The wheels were chrome so I knew I could make them shine again. I used a foam finger pocket on the wheel faces. The wheel wells got CGs Bugger and Tar Strong Wash diluted at 3:1 in a Solo 418 Sprayer and a black Shmitt. As good as MS SGS stuff is I needed a real tar remover for these wells. The tires were dressed first with a base coat of Megs Hyper Dressing @ 3:1 and then got a coat of Optimum Tire Shine. Both were applied to a CGs Tire Applicator and applied to the tire. The wells were dressed with my combo of Majestic Solutions Mr. Natural and Megs All Season Dressing.

Engine: I rinsed the engine, sprayed it with MS SGS, agitated, rinsed, sprayed a healthy coat of Megs HD @ 3:1 and cranked the engine and let it run for about 20 minutes like I always do and the results were as good as always.

Wash: First though the bugs got CGs Bug and Tar Strong Wash @3:1 in a 418 sprayer and a MS bug sponge. The CGs strong wash is by far the best cleaner for bugs, road grime, and tar that I have seen, and after what it did for the wheel wells the rest of the truck was no match for it. The door jambs got a mixture of CGs Green Clean and MS SGS with my Swissvax brush. After hooking up to the CR Spotless system the truck got a quick rinse including the door jambs. I pre-treated the entire truck and running boards with MS SGS. I then foamed the car with my foam cannon and 2 oz of CGs Citrus Wash Clear and 1 oz of CGs Strong Wash. There would be no trace of anything left behind when the wash was done, well at least thats what I thought. I used a rinse bucket with a grit guard, and I proceeded to wash with my boars hair brush. After the wash the car was rinsed and ready for claying. I saw the glue marks were still there but figured the clay would knock it out.

Clay: Well I used the Bilt Hamber Regular Clay, because as you know I love this stuff and not having to have a dedicated clay lube is great. Well after claying the glue spots were still there and there were a lot of them. I tried using some of the Megs clay that I had and it didn't phase it either. I figured it was time to back up and punt.

Glue/Adhesive Removal: Well I went through a bunch of my products like the SGS, CGs Strong Wash, and some other stuff when I stumbled onto a brand new bottle of Malco A&L Cosmoline Remover. I had bought this from Majestic Solutions when I was looking for a Body Solvent and the owner recommended this to me. Well it had made its way to the back of my cabinet and was almost forgotten. I figured it was worth a shot since Malco's description is: "Solvent-based transit coating remover effectively removes cosmoline and petroleum-based coatings. It is easy to use and will not soften, dull or discolor finishes. Safe to use on any painted surface." Well I sprayed some on the first glue/adhesive spot and wiped it right off with a MF. I was amazed at this stuff! Well I got all the spots off and re-rinsed the truck before moving on.

Dried: Used my leaf blower to dry even though I had used the CR because I wanted to move on to polishing as soon as I could while the sun was not directly on the truck. Needed to do this because I wasn't going to be able to get the truck inside my garage. Finished up the drying with a CGs Miracle Towel MF.

Trim: All trim got Stoners Trim Shine and an Obsessive Detail Plush MF.

Glass: Glass inside and out got Stoner's Invisible Glass. Applied with a glass MF and removed with a WW MF.

Interior: Like I said this is a work truck adn you could tell it from the interior. No carpet which was a break! Funny, a carpet man doesn't have carpet in his truck. Anyway I cleaned everything with the CGs Green Clean and MS SGS combo from my sprayer. Used the Plush MFs that I got from Justin at Obsessive Detail. Justin gets my MF business now and with the start of the ragshack by him I'm going to be a regular! After the cleaning I dressed all the plastic with CGs Silk Shine and a MF mitt. I then dressed the floor with DG Tire and Mat dressing.

Leather: The leather was cleaned with the CGs Green Clean and then conditioned with CGs Leather Conditioner.

Paint: The truck was white so it was going to be my Duragloss Treatment. Nothing looks better on white and it didn't let me down. I applied the DG 501 with my Metabo and a 5.25" white 3M polishing pad. Man the DG 501 deep cleaned the paint as most of the pads were grayish black when I finished and after all the previous cleaning that makes the power of 501 even more impressive. I buffed it off with Obsessive Detail's Ultra Premium MFs. These MFs are the best for buffing off polish.

LSP: I went with my DG 601 bonding agent followed up with the DG 105. It was applied via a CGs Stage 3 applicator and buffed off with more of the OD's Ultra Premium MFs. After about an hour a final wipedown with DG Aquawax was done with the new Rubbish Boys Super Plush Detailing MF. This MF is soooo thick and plush. I usually use a Cookie Monster MF for this final wipedown but the Super Plush MF from Ben has displaced that as my go to now.

Well when the owner came to pick it up he was thrilled. He was so happy that he booked me to take care of the truck every 2 weeks! He was so impressed that he also booked me to do his 20 foot enclosed trailer as well. I did that the next week and that was a job but turned out very very well. All in all a great client pick up for me. Well here are the before and afters:

[springbok]

Your attention to detail is truly remarkable.

It's a pity that most of the products you use and recommend are not available in this country.

I particularly liked what you did with the wheels.

Talking of the wheels, just an observation. The wheels look too small for the wheel wells. Anybody else here notice that?

[Starvekos]

Another great read and excellent work JL. This truck is hooog. Also love the results on wheels, did you seal them after cleaning? Why do you lace the tires with Hyper Dressing before applying tire dressing?

[freerider]

Very nice work JL, how long does it take you to complete something this size, from start to finish?

[megesh]

(25-11-2008 09:17 AM)freerider Wrote:  Very nice work JL, how long does it take you to complete something this size, from start to finish?

and how many people you have working with you?

[Carn]

Terrific work JL, well done once again

When you have some time I would love to hear more about the CR Spotless System, definately something on my wishlist but at $300 or so it's really pricey

@ Don do you have any CG's Srong Wash arriving or only the citrus ?

[freerider]

(25-11-2008 11:03 AM)Carn Wrote:  Terrific work JL, well done once again

When you have some time I would love to hear more about the CR Spotless System, definately something on my wishlist but at $300 or so it's really pricey

@ Don do you have any CG's Srong Wash arriving or only the citrus ?

Sorry man, only the citrus wash and gloss

[JLs Detailing]

(25-11-2008 07:41 AM)springbok Wrote:  Your attention to detail is truly remarkable.

It's a pity that most of the products you use and recommend are not available in this country.

I particularly liked what you did with the wheels.

Talking of the wheels, just an observation. The wheels look too small for the wheel wells. Anybody else here notice that?

Thanks springbok much appreciated! Yes Carn and I have talked about how unfortunate it is that a lot of the products I like you don't have. And not only do you not have it but shipping is a killer to get it there. Oh and I agree with you about the wheels, they are just not big enough to give the right look.

(25-11-2008 08:10 AM)Starvekos Wrote:  Another great read and excellent work JL. This truck is hooog. Also love the results on wheels, did you seal them after cleaning? Why do you lace the tires with Hyper Dressing before applying tire dressing?

Starvekos I didn't seal the wheels as that is an upcharge and he didn't want to pay for it as he is having me clean them every 2 weeks. Since I am maintaining them so regularly there really isn't a need to seal them.

I do the base coat of Megs HD because even though I like the look it gives most of my clients want something a little more shiny. Not greasy super shiny just a little more than matte. Also I refuse to use a solvent based tire dressing as they sling so bad and are generally just not good for the rubber. So since I only use water based dressings I go with a coat of Megs HD @ 3:1 since its cheap and then put a more expensive water based tire dressing like the Optimum on top of it to give it a perfect look and more durability. Lets face it as much as I love Megs HD after a rain its gone so putting something on top gives the look and durability I'm looking for with a water based dressing(s).

(25-11-2008 09:17 AM)freerider Wrote:  Very nice work JL, how long does it take you to complete something this size, from start to finish?

Thanks freerider! I did this truck in about 5 1/2 hours start to finish. Now mind you that is "no" paint correction. I do deep clean the paint with the DG 501 polish but no real correction is done. Since its a work truck and when it comes back every 2 weeks it almost looks like that again there is just no need for him to pay for paint correction as it wouldn't last. Now when I do paint correction it takes much longer. I would say this truck would have taken me at least 15-20 hours with paint correction. Also the interior although dirty was a breeze thanks to the rubber mats and no carpeting, so that cuts down on the time as well.

(25-11-2008 09:55 AM)megesh Wrote:  

(25-11-2008 09:17 AM)freerider Wrote:  Very nice work JL, how long does it take you to complete something this size, from start to finish?

and how many people you have working with you?

megesh its just me working on these details. I don't have any help except the few times my wife's uncle is in town or we go for a visit like the ones I posted earlier. 95% of my details I do alone, but I would kill to have someone to do interior work for me.

(25-11-2008 11:03 AM)Carn Wrote:  Terrific work JL, well done once again

When you have some time I would love to hear more about the CR Spotless System, definately something on my wishlist but at $300 or so it's really pricey

Thanks Carn means a lot from my bud! As far as the CR Spotless goes I would not detail without it. Now how cost effective it is depends on the quality of your water. The water from my municipality is very very good. The Total Dissolved Solids reading (TDS) right out of the tap is about 100. Most municipalities probably run about 300 or more and CR says you should get about 250 gallons of de-ionized water from the CR Spotless before having to change the resins. With my water at 100 I get about 800 gallons of de-ionized water. So I was able to get close to 70 washes done before having to change out the resins. Now when I traveled to my wife's uncles house to do those BMWs I had to use their water and it was from a well. There is no telling what the TDS reading on that water was but it wreaked havoc on my CR.

The CR Spotless has an inline TDS meter that tells you the purity of the water leaving the CR. It starts at 000 and escalates as it pulls impurities out of your water. Once it reaches a reading of 020 CR recommends changing the resins as it can't gaurantee a spotless rinse once it gets above 020. Before going to do those BMWs my TDS meter was reading 000 and after doing those 4 cars down there with water no where near as good as mine it was reading 013. If I lived in that area I don't think the CR would be finacially smart. Now how does it work well:

The CR unit uses a mixed resin bed to take out anions and cations to make the water pure. Deionized water has actually used resin beads to take out cations (magnesium,calcium,iron,etc.) and anions (silica) out of the water and demineralize it. It exchanges these cations and anions for Hydrogen and OH or HOH (can't remember exactly which one) ions. This demineralizes the water and thus gives you "pure water".

Now Reverse Osmosis units do the same thing that the spotless systems do. RO's are ususally used when you have a large volume of water that has to be demineralized. An RO basically "squeezes" the impurities out of the water by sending it through the RO unit at a very high pressure. I don't think you have to be concerned with changing media with an RO unit but the down side is you have a lot of "RO reject" water for every gallon of "Pure water" you recover.

Now if you didn't have a "mixed" resin bed in the CR and the resins were seperated and one canister contained the resins for the anions and the other canister contained the resins for the cations then you could regenerate it yourself when the reading got high. You would simply use acid in one to regenerate it and caustic in the other to regenerate it and once you rinsed them with the chemicals and then rinsed them again with water you would have regenerated resins ready to de-ionize again. Unfortunately since CR uses mixed resins you can't do that and have to buy new resins from them each time your TDS reading gets high.

The system does work though and I can wash a black car in the middle of summer in the middle of the day with the sun directly overhead and leave it to dry. When it is completely dry from sitting in the sun there will not be one single waterspot on the car!

[Carn]

Wow thanks for all the info dude

By the sounds of things the system would only be worthwhile (cost effective) if you have no shade to wash the car in and if your water quality was pretty good to start off with. I believe the replacement filter media is also quite costly (from reading Nica's posts anyways) and who knows what our water quality here is like and how often the media would need changing

Are there any other viable alternatives to the CR system out there JL ?

[calypso]

There must be a local equivelent here. Just got a water filter upstairs that looks like it has a similar filtration system (2 canisters), but that was R5000.

[Carn]

Calypso the CR System is a de-ionising system and not a filtration system similar to a purifyer as far as I understand it. De-ionised water is actually not all that healthy at all

I could be mistaken however so lets wait for the experts to chime in

[calypso]

Oh sorry, i wash judging just based on the looks of the system.

[JLs Detailing]

Carn you are right there is a difference. Mostly what you see in homes is a water softener not a deionizer. You have to be careful when purchasing a unit too because many that sell water softeners will say spotless but thats not the case. Many people get confused with deionized water and soft water. Soft water filtration systems take calcium out of the water by exchanging the sodium for calcium since it's easier to lose the sodium and pick up the calcium. To recharge these systems you use a very strong salt water solution. When you flush these systems with salt water and the solution is so strong that now the sodium overpowers the calcium and attaches and the calcium can be flushed out and you are right back where you started. So all a softener does is remove calcium that makes what is known as "hard water".

And no you are not suppose to drink deionized water.