ilogikal1

It depends how good you want the finish, how heavy handed you are with the previous grade and how bad it is in the first place. You don't have to go through any of the grades if you're only interested in making it all the same colour again. But it is best to, to achieve the best finish though.

It's the one coating that I've actually bought for my own wheels (when/if I get round to refurb'ing them). Once it's on, and as you've found that's the tricky bit, it's bloody good! It's the same as C1 and C4 so if you want to use the bit you've got left, you can use it on any painted surface or plastic trim. I'm not convinced many on here would value a Nissan service much, certainly over a known and respected specialist to be honest. People outside the forum might be a different matter though.

Wheel colour look great. C5 will cope perfectly well on the calipers, for future reference.

Azure blue in the UK, the other name you've seen is probably the American name for it... which I can't recall off the top of my head. Almost anywhere of ever would be cheaper than Halfrauds as a rule, but if you're a discount maybe not on this occasion. Have a look on http://www.paints4u.com/ though.

Nice write up Stu, I enjoyed reading through that.

I stand corrected.

Give him a chance, ...after all it's Adrian so he has to modify it first. The photos will come with the for sale advert, which usually follows the modifying and immediate stripping of parts. Surely?

It's not a standard feature, no. In standard guise the mirrors only fold with the use of the switch.

Application 2 shows; Auto Finesse dries out very quickly on warm panels and in the sun. Gyeon > Auto Finesse* (*when used in the sun at least). Gyeon > Wolf's. Nanolex > Wolf's. Car Chem > AM Details. Whilst AF dried out quicker than any of the others on the respective wheels, it still rinsed off with no issues at all. It's only Wolf's that actively state that their product can be allowed to dry out fully, and whilst the best advice is certainly not to allow the other products to dry completely on the surface I have had no issues removing Auto Finesse or Car Chem's offerings when they've dried out - I will highlight the difference between "dried out" and "baked on" though; leave it for any considerable amount of time at your own risk! AM Details and Wolf's have been identified as the weaker offerings on this occasion, so they were removed but I made the judgement that Auto Finesse may be drying out before it's had a chance to really work. Koch Chemie was also borderline for me at this point too, so I went for another application. Everything moved one place clockwise again and application 3 went as such: Nanolex; Gyeon; Auto Finesse; Koch Chemie left, Car Chem right; Car Chem; Koch Chemie; I'm still not sure about Koch Chemie, it seems to react somewhat to those before it but those after it all seem to react too so that one's still very much borderline for me. The weakest ones, in my opinion, are these three then; AM Details, Auto Finesse and Wolf's. These four (counting Wolf's as 2) will be application 1 for the next round (the first elimination round). Each of these will be followed by one these "seeded" removers if you like; Koch Chemie, Car Chem, Gyeon and Nanolex. The intention for the next round involved those damned Slick Rims coated, brake dust attracting wheels. The Round 2, Application 1 group will be applied to a wheel/section each, allowed to react, rinsed and then followed up by a "seeded" remover using the same theory as above - the greater the reaction of the latter denotes the credibility of the former. The weakest will be removed from the test, the strongest will go through to compete against the rest as applicable. This will continue until a conclusion can be drawn and a winner chosen, at which point the world will rejoice and I will take my rightful place as the one true Emperor Everything Ever... or, you know... something else will happen. Until then, round 1 for group 1 ends here. Sound off with any opinions or comments below.

To kick this off then, the contestants are; Auto Finesse Iron Out. Car Chem Revolt. Gyeon Iron. AM Details AM Iron. Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner. Nanolex Wheel Cleaner and Iron Remover. Wolf's Deironizer "Decon Gel" - I've used the full size bottle for this test, but will be using the Waxybox sample in the next round as well, I believe they're the same version but not entirely sure so I'll chuck that into the mix next time too. As I said before the car was washed first, for the wheels this meant agitating the dirt on the face of the wheels with a brush during the snow foam stage and then rinsing. That was it. The barrels weren't cleaned at all (because I'm lazy today), I was also focusing more on the reaction on the face than on the barrel so the removers weren't necessarily intentionally directed onto the barrels evenly. The premise is simple, spray on a section, allow a couple of minutes to react, rinse, every product then moves round to a different section, repeat. The theory is that if a remover is any good, the next one shouldn't react - the stronger the reaction of the secondary product, the weaker the primary was. In terms of this preliminary round, it's simply a "qualifier" if you like to identify the weaker products and determine the order of use in the next elimination round. Simple, right? Good! Things to note, two wheels were in direct sunlight whilst the other two were in more ideal conditions in the shade. The two in the sun were therefore warmer than the other two and promoted drying out more than the shaded wheels. I attempted to allow enough rounds to counter this as much as possible, but again "limited fallout to remove". I will endeavour to make the elimination round much more consistent. We therefore start with this; Auto Finesse Iron Out on the left, Gyeon Iron on the right; Gyeon; Auto Finesse; Car Chem Revolt; Koch Chemie pH Balanced Wheel Cleaner on the left, AM Details AM Iron on the right; Koch Chemie; AM Details; Wolf's Deironizer left, Nanolex Wheel Cleaner and Fallout Remover right; Nanolex; Wolf's; Notes from round one; AM Details is the best smelling - it actually has a lemony scent to it now and doesn't have the typical fallout remover rotting corpse tone to it. Koch Chemie and Nanolex have a peroxide sort of chemical smell to them - not pleasant by any means but not as bad as that aforementioned rotting corpse stench. Gyeon has a battenberg-scented-rotting-corpse scent to it - it's the standard fallout remover scent that's not-really-masked-by-the-undertones-of-a-sweeter-battenberg-smell. Wolf's has a very strong "rancid eggy" scent. Car Chem and Auto Finesse have that typical fallout remover scent that usually indicates the need for a forensic police investigation. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about... They all seem to work with all of them reacting, however Wolf's took the longest to react. Car Chem had dried out a little bit, but that was on the wheel that's been sat in the sun for the longest, Auto Finesse had also started to dry out on the other wheel in the sun however Gyeon hadn't. By the time I came to rinse, AF had dried out a lot more that even Revolt on the (slightly) warmer wheel. Every product moved one place clockwise and application 2 commenced as such: Gyeon right, Wolf's left; Wolf's; Gyeon; Auto Finesse; AM Details left, Car Chem right; Car Chem; AM Details; Nanolex left, Koch Chemie right; Koch Chemie; Nanolex;

Fallout removers then. This marks the start of what I'm going to term as "the big arse test of fallout removers I can be bothered to test". The intention is a number of preliminary rounds (such as what follows), followed by a confirmation and elimination round for each preliminary round. Those which aren't eliminated from their previous rounds will then be put up against different removers than said previous round. If this doesn't make sense, it'll become clear as it goes on... hopefully. This test will be done over an undetermined amount of time for several reasons, such as having limited fallout to remove at any given time and my preference to spread the costs as much as possible. Once the full test has been conducted, I will post the full test as a separate thread so that it isn't lost in here but whilst conducting it I'll post up in here - unless of course any of mods object to this? I had a bit of a false start to this, I tested one on the paintwork before the wash to see if there was enough of a reaction for the test, which I got. I then washed & dried the car, then started the test on different panels to the one I checked and got; So yeah, that didn't work at all. There was a bit of reaction from each of them but we're talking half a dozen or so small spots for each section really, so nowhere near enough for the test I had in mind. Subsequently I opted to sacrifice the wheel sealant test that was occurring on the Leon and took the fallout removers to the wheels. Whilst I get round to writing that up, here's just something for Rebel Scum you to think about today.

Can you do me a favour and check the connection type on the attachments, please? Are they Karcher fitments? A picture would be most helpful too, if you don't mind.

That's easy enough; just get the front bumper painted the same colour as the rest of the car, unlike the above. It'll look completely different then. I have to admit, I don't hate the colour scheme though.

*Awaits the "Apple Watch tattoo solution" product; a length of Elastoplast with the Apple logo drawn on it in marker pen. Yours for the cheap, cheap price of £300 per pre-cut length or a fully tailored, made-to-measure length for a mere £500.*

I don't know about the '70, but on the '50 the front on all cars is just stuck on as is the rear on the roadsters, but the rear on the coupes also has two locating pins so there's two holes.

Rain has halted play for my intended detailing relating plans for the day (booooo!). Every cloud though... You might (or probably might not) remember that 1 year, 1 week ago today I posted this glass sealant test back on page 3, which itself was 4 weeks old by then - making it 57 weeks and counting. It seems, after a nostalgic trip through my own thread, that I've not updated that side of the house a great deal since then (I've posted a couple of updates on the other test that's happening though). So, a long overdue update on that first test then. For reference then, over 13 months ago on a window that's washed once a month (soapy water, squeegee; the typical window cleaner routine) I started with this; Applied as such; Today, that looks like this; Top section; Bottom section; So 13 washes later and PIAA is long gone (I seem to recall it lasted roughly 9 months, but to be honest I might be making that up) - there's little to distinguish those sections from the untreated sections and tape lines - however both Car Chem Ultra and GTechniq G5 are still clearly going strong. Obviously this has very little to do with how each would react on a car so this (and the other one which included Nanolex Urban too - I would have an update for that one, but it's not rained on that side of the house yet ) is largely pointless, but here it is anyway.

They pop up on here and eBay from time to time.

Your bluetooth doesn't work because you've only got the cradle, not the module itself. Your phone might still not work though depending on exactly which model it is.

Yes, only minorities can possibly be discriminated against or encounter racism of any kind. It's a prerequisite really...

If your axle stands are under 360mm it'll be fine, otherwise it won't be, surely? Whether or not your axle stands are high enough to work under the car, I have no idea though.

I find this most amusing, largely because I seem to recall that the last thread I saw about Tradelink was that the salesman was too pushy. Seems they can't win whatever they do (or don't do). Good luck with the continued hunt.

I've checked what I had earlier and it seems the Korrosol that I had, has leaked (from the bottom of the bottle too) so there's none left. I may thus resort to doing the test in stages - using what I have now as round one with the best one(s) going up against others that at a later date. I could do with finding sample sizes of the most popular ones (that I don't already have) though, otherwise it's going to get horrendously expensive!

Current preference is Car Chem Revolt. I'll be doing a comparison between a few shortly - I was hoping to do it this weekend, weather permitting, until I realised I don't have any Iron X. I may do it anyway though.

You are not wrong. The owner needs more money first though.

These two things then. I'll start by saying I was wrong about Imperial removing Slick Rims. It just kills the beading (except on plastic). The staining however... well, see below. Another 450ish miles covered since the last wash, which was the same journey as the first one in very similar weather - bone dry whilst driving, but it did rain whilst the car was sat stationary again (although it wasn't sandy rain this time). As you can see from the discs, it rained again after the return leg of the journey too this time too though. I started with this (please ignore any tyre fitting soap, I had new tyres fitted on the Friday and then drove to London on the Saturday, so they hadn't been cleaned since being fitted); HubiRims wheel; The Slick Rims wheel that has been treated the same as the HubiRims wheel when cleaning so far; That's not a reflection or anything, that's a very rusty coloured stain. This is the half Imperial'd wheel - the left side is the unscathed Slick Rims, the top right is an area that was cleaned with Imperial last time and the bottom right is 50/50 up to the side of the spoke (the side of the spoke and left of that is all Slick Rims, face of the spoke and right was Imperial'd); I couldn't differentiate the areas, to the point where I actually had to check the previous photos to remind myself of what area was Imperial'd (I'm making that a thing now, just so you know). Finally this is the completely Imperial'd wheel. The one where all the beading was killed off except on the centre cap, the one which made me think that Slick Rims had been killed off entirely... Damn it! But also, So perhaps Slick Rims hasn't been removed after all! This is the only wheel with heavy spotting (the other two Slick Rims wheels, both fronts, had the odd spot still though). At this point, all wheels were attacked with Wheel Woolies and some "pH neutral shampoo" - no idea what it actually it, it's a blind test product from Waxybox, but I'm assured it leaves nothing behind. The important point (for me) was that it's pH neutral, for the benefit of what remains of the Slick Rims. That left me with this (wheels are in the same order again); HubiRims wheel (excuse the weight tape residue) Unmolested Slick Rims That rusty stain didn't shift much! The previously half Imperial'd wheel - left not, right was The previously completely Imperial'd wheel The spotting lifted considerably easier this time (no scrubbing occurred on this wash like I had to last time). With that, out came the Car Chem Revolt. I wasn't particularly bothered about killing HubiRims off with fallout remover as that weight tape on that wheel already annoys me so I intend to remove both rears, strip off the HubiRims and replace it with something else. I've not yet decided what to do with the Slick Rims, with the wheel off I may well strip that too but I may just further molest the sealant after they (Slick Rims) suggested I give it an IPA wipe. In the mean time, Revolt did this; HubiRims - most of the reaction was traced back to the flaky damage of ugliness (that I've still not got round to sorting, obviously). The unmolested Slick Rims - surprisingly it didn't react with the stain around the bubbling. The previously half-Imperial'd wheel - left & bottom is unmolested, right was Imperial'd. There was no noticeable difference between the two. The previously completely Imperial'd wheel - oddly, the reaction with the spots wasn't purple (there was purple reaction too, just not coming from the spots) but rather... well, this. When Revolt was rinsed off (with a hose on a "jet" setting for those interested), it had removed virtually all of the stains, spots and marks - those that remained were sparse enough for me to assume that I'd just missed them with Revolt. The beading from anything that Imperial has previously Imperial'd (I told you I'm making that a thing!) is still comepletely gone, whereas that on the un-Imperial'd bits is still very good. It's just a shame the protection is so poor really. HubiRims beading was deminished a bit from the Revolt but it's still going, and to be fair it's still much better than the Imperial'd Slick Rims. No pictures of that though, largely because I can't be arsed with Slick Rims at all anymore.