vollychief

I vacuumed my dog's hair out of my Dad's truck.  Love my dog, love my Dad's truck, don't love my dog's hair in my Dad's truck. 

It is one of our front line engines.  All of our trucks haven't been cared for like they need to be.  They get washed when dirty, but that's about it.  No spit and polish.  With some of the current members, they are starting to show more ownership and pride in the department.  What better way to show that than to spend 5 plus hours on one of the engines.  It looks sharp and you can tell they spent a lot of time on it. (plus it is good PR, and I will take all we can get!)  They didn't get to the diamond plate though. 

I guess I should have been more specific.  I'm doing the windows to get the hard waters stains off.  I don't want to attempt to do a correction/polish.  I'm going to start with vinegar and move to claying the windows before using a buffer on it.  
 
 

I had to use Google to see what that says. #Driven Hearts.  The stanchion is in a bad spot and leaves it to some bad interpretations .  ?

Thank you all again for the help!

We went with an electric pressure washer.  I picked up a foam cannon and snub nose handle off of Amazon.  I spent a lot of time debating and researching for a foam cannon, especially since it will be used on an electric pressure washer.  As soon as I buy an quality one, it will break, so I went with something different. 
 
I do like the idea of getting a second pressure washer to help speed up the process.  If it goes well with one, I may do that. 
 
As a side and semi-related note, we were doing air pack training one night.   It's hard to simulate the kind of conditions and work done at a structure fire in training.  So I had the members wash the trucks in their air packs.  They enjoyed it. 

We were in an area with 95% to 97% coverage and it didn't seem to get that dark which was disappointing.  My brother went to southern Illinois and was very close to the totality line.  He took a time lapse video and it did get very dark, dark enough you could see the stars.  Now I see what all of the hubbub was. 
 
I saw some videos people posted from St. Louis showing how dark it got.  Very cool! 
 
Thank you for sharing the pictures of the shadows! 

 

We were in an area with 95% to 97% coverage and it didn't seem to get that dark which was disappointing.  My brother went to southern Illinois and was very close to the totality line.  He took a time lapse video and it did get very dark, dark enough you could see the stars.  Now I see what all of the hubbub was. 
 
I saw some videos people posted from St. Louis showing how dark it got.  Very cool! 
 
Thank you for sharing the pictures of the shadows! 

 

90% here in Colorado Springs, CO. That was cool.
 
Through the glasses...

 
Zoomed in...

 
Crescent-shaped shadows through the trees...

Is anyone else in the line of the eclipse? Fortunately we're in the direct path! I'm pumped up about it! 

Washed the Raptor...
 

 
 
...and the Jeep.
 

 
 

I polished/corrected the headlights on my wife's 2007 Pacifica.  They were pretty bad and I bought the new headlight restoration kit and trim coating kit.  It went well, but I think there is discoloration on the inside of the lenses.  When I get time I will do a write up with before and after pictures. 
 
This was the first time of doing any "detail" work on my cars (since high school/college some 25 years ago).  I do have to say I love the smell of Adams products.  I read through the forums and the comments about how wonderful the products smell but didn't give it much thought.  Such wonderful scents, better than the chemically scents of the off the shelf products.   

I polished/corrected the headlights on my wife's 2007 Pacifica.  They were pretty bad and I bought the new headlight restoration kit and trim coating kit.  It went well, but I think there is discoloration on the inside of the lenses.  When I get time I will do a write up with before and after pictures. 
 
This was the first time of doing any "detail" work on my cars (since high school/college some 25 years ago).  I do have to say I love the smell of Adams products.  I read through the forums and the comments about how wonderful the products smell but didn't give it much thought.  Such wonderful scents, better than the chemically scents of the off the shelf products.   

I hope i dont sound like an idiot, but im not sure what ss rims are. I will say that on both of my tahoe's that i have had, the chrome looking wheels are clear coated. So you would use clay bar, paint polish and whatever style paint protection works for you(wax is not good on wheels, doesnt last because of the heat). You def dont want to use metal polish if they are clear coated. 
If they are true aluminum or what not, spend a lot of time polishing them, make them perfect and i would coat them, because true aluminum needs constant upkeep. I do the fire truck's wheels at work, and it takes about an hour per wheel, and thats if they are in good shape, but they come out looking like mirrors!

I'm getting ready to do a full paint correction and ceramic coating on our new fire engine and medic unit here next week! I can't wait to see how it all turns out, should make cleaning the rigs so much easier

It looks great so far Scott.Post some pics when you get done.

I knew I was starting a big project but I’m the eternal optimist when it comes to something like this.  Also, everything I used are products I purchased before I found out about Adam’s Polishes.  Please don’t hold that against me. 
Saturday I started cleaning/polishing the aluminum diamond plate on one of our fire engines.  It is a 2001 model and it is safe to say the diamond plate has never been polished.  Here is a picture of the general condition after washing. 
 

 
About a year ago, I found California Custom Aluminum De-Oxidizer and Purple Metal Polish, so I tried it on the bumper of the fire engine.  All work was done by hand with applying the De-Oxidizer first, getting the white haze then applying the polish and working it well.  It worked well on the bumper.  I worked on the bumper off and on over a year.  It was after meetings, only for 15 minutes at most to see how well it worked.   
 
Saturday, I started with the bumper using the same products, but trying different applicators.  First was a tile brush and the de-oxidizer.  The brush seemed more trouble than what it was worth so I moved to old carpet squares.  I even tried working the deoxidizer in with a Torq buffer.  Working the de-oxidizer in by hand with a piece of carpet was the way to go. 
 
Moving to buffing, I started with a piece of carpet on the buffer.  It worked well but my homemade carpet buffing pad didn’t stay attached long.  I moved to a 3” white Hex Logic pad on the buffer.  It worked a lot better, but I think I need to go with a different pad, but that is a question later. 
 
I’m starting out with a 3” pad due to the some of the space I’m working on.  On the bumper, I think a 5” pad would have been too big.  But there are sections where I will be using a 5” pad. 

When I was wiping off the leftover polishing residue, it took forever.  I was using cheap terry cloth towels from Walmart.  Just on the front bumper alone and folding the towels into quarters, I used all 8 sides on 3 towels.  I went back later and was still pulling up polish residue even though the surface looked like I had everything off. 
 
This is my first question, what do you suggest to take off the polish residue?  If it is a microfiber towel, what kind?  I had no idea there were different types until I started doing some research. 
 
Here is a picture of the final product.  Great shine, only wish the lighting was better. 
 

 

 
For areas like this where it is hard to get in between with a polisher, what would you suggest?
 

 
Here is the new area I started Saturday.  The bolts in the middle I used as a guide (instead of tape) to separate 2 different methods. 
 

 
First, I applied the de-oxidizer with a carpet scrap over the whole section.  It did not turn white like it did on the bumper.  Any residual de-oxidizer I wiped off with a towel.  I didn’t do anything different that I can think of.

The left section, I applied the polish with a carpet scrap only.  This side did not work up with the black residue like it did on the bumper.  I reapplied some polish to the carpet scrap thinking more is better and kept polishing the diamond plate.  I still didn’t get the black residue that I did on the bumper, some but not much. 

I started to remove the polish and it did come off very good.  If you look in the comparison picture below, you can still see some polish residue.
 

 
On the right side, I used the same 3” white (not now) buffing pad and the California Custom Purple Metal Polish.  I worked it in different directions and reapplied some polish to the pad.  I must have applied too much and it started to sling residue over the area. 

After polishing what I thought was an adequate time, I started to remove the polish residue.  As you can see on the picture, the right side looks a lot better than the left side.  It was still difficult to remove the polish residue. 
 
Is this going to be something I need to repeat the process several times in order to get the mirror like shine back? 
 
I do believe I’m using the wrong type of pad.  I think I need either a wool, foamed wool or microfiber pad for the polishing process.  Any suggestions? 
 
I am also going to try Kingsford’s flour vinegar salt paste as an initial step before moving to the products I have.  I’m open to suggestions, but I need to use up what I have on hand first. 
 
My hope is once I get done, go over it again as a final step/clean up since it will take more than one weekend, and then apply something to help protect the metal.  Then maybe once a year it won’t take as long to buff the diamond plate back up to the shine it should be. 
 
For review of my questions: 
 
What should I be using to remove the polish residue?  If it is a microfiber towel, what kind? 
 
For areas that are hard to get in between with a polisher, what would you suggest? 
 
What type of a pad will be better for the polishing process, wool, foamed wool, microfiber or something else? 
 
What can I apply to keep the diamond plate polished or reduce the amount of work to keep it polished? 
 
 

right after politicians and road salt 

So true! Illinois is the worst for everything, especially keeping a black vehicle clean.

Welcome to the forum Scott, and thank you for your service to your community!
 
I'm actually going to be helping to detail a local volunteer fire department's huge $1.2 million ladder truck hopefully next month. It has a ton of diamond plate and I'm going to be sure to take a lot of before and after pictures! Can't wait!

Welcome Scott!  Several members have detailed the fire trucks for their departments.

Hello from Illinois where Mother Nature thought it was spring for a few weeks and decided to go back to winter with some snow. 
 
I'm an amateur, always enjoyed cleaning and waxing cars growing up but family, kids and priorities changed it. 
 
I'm getting back into detailing primarily for the fire engines on my volunteer fire department.  Since they were purchased by tax payer funds and donations, we need to care for them.  The engines have been neglected over the years, washed, maybe waxed, but the diamond plate is in rough condition along with the paint.  It will be a lot of work, but worth it in the end.
 

 

Hello from Illinois where Mother Nature thought it was spring for a few weeks and decided to go back to winter with some snow. 
 
I'm an amateur, always enjoyed cleaning and waxing cars growing up but family, kids and priorities changed it. 
 
I'm getting back into detailing primarily for the fire engines on my volunteer fire department.  Since they were purchased by tax payer funds and donations, we need to care for them.  The engines have been neglected over the years, washed, maybe waxed, but the diamond plate is in rough condition along with the paint.  It will be a lot of work, but worth it in the end.