tlbullet

Product:
Adams Ceramic Black Trim Restorer
 
Description:
 

 
I picked this up at the local cars and coffee at the Anaheim location.
 
I had a front cowl that I picked up at a local salvage yard that I ended up using as it is a two piece design rather than a one piece design. It is a better design and allows for easier replacement of the cabin filter.
 
This ceramic trim restorer does two things with one product. It restores using the black dye while offering protection of a ceramic coating.
 
The trim piece was cleaned and prepped prior to application. Hard to capture the true condition of the trim.
 

 
During the restoration process
 

 
Even used it on this plastic push pin that was pretty faded by the So Cal sun over the last 20 years.
 

 
After. Much better
 

 
The trim after the application is black and has life after two coats of product.

 
The ceramic black trim restorer did a good job at restoring this trim piece. I will see how it holds up over the next few months. Application is straight forward. I would recommend wearing gloves to not get the dye on the hands.
 
If you have older trim that needs some restoration this will work. The plastic trim may need multiple applications. If the trim is newer then I would stick with the regular ceramic trim coating.
 
There is rubber on this trim price and I found that it can be streaky if used on rubber.  It absorbs differently into the rubber than plastic. Wiping the rubber helps to even out the coating applied to rubber.  
 

 
 

As of Dec 17, 2019. Have to admit, I'm a little disappointed the wooden sign got covered. Thought that should be off limits. But still, the wall grows!! Keep 'em coming, and let me know if you sent one so I can look for it...but it might take a pic to me first so I know what I'm looking for. 👍🏼
 

 

 

 

 

Grape is back!!
 
https://adamspolishes.com/collections/new-just-in/products/adams-grape-air-freshener-deluxe

Once u try BG theres no turning back. Sooooo easy. 

What products are you using? My preferred method is a light coating of BG, then wipe down with a MF.  Comes out streak free everytime. I dont even clean the glass first. Just Bg.  

I'll probably get fired for this, but I had no luck with glass cleaner inside either.  Once I found out about and tried the Brilliant Glaze on the inside, there was no going back. Easiest streak free glass cleaner I've ever found.  

What products are you using? My preferred method is a light coating of BG, then wipe down with a MF.  Comes out streak free everytime. I dont even clean the glass first. Just Bg.  

My guess is using too much GC (it doesn't take much) or maybe the towels are too dirty/saturated. To echo @tlbullet, which products are you using?
 
I, too, really like BG as a glass cleaner. No streaks.
 
One tip: clean inside glass in one direction (left/right, for example), and the outside in the other (up/down). That way you know where the streaks are.

Love the colors too...awd is a necessary option in Chicago I would assume.  one of my other dream cars is a M3..but it doesnt come in Awd..i guess ill keep dreaming about a 911 4s!! 🤞🏼

Tell me it’s the QF!  Still love it if its not!

I don't do Instagram (I think that's where it was from) so I didn't know this was a thing, someone on another forum sent me a message telling  me about. The post sent me said 20% off, is this just for tomorrow or is that at every get together? I'm broke so going tomorrow would suck. But next month! I live like 25 minutes from the Anaheim store. Going there + getting 20% off + going down the street to get Leadbellys BBQ would be a hellova Saturday.

Welcome. Sorry it took you so long to find us! There’s a plethora of info to be found! Good luck with your MB! Post what you got. 🤞🏼

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I have been purchasing Adam's Polishes products since July and I only discovered this forum today while treating myself to a late Christmas gift for myself, a Mystery Bucket.  I figure it's just like a gift under the tree...  A box with unknown contents.  Sure I had to pay for it, but at least I'm sure to like whatever is inside.
In any case, all the best to you all this holiday season and I'm looking forward to interacting with you all on the forum in the future!

I would love to see more limited ceramic WW like the Mystery scent this past year. I do enjoy grabbing the limited but both my vehicles are CC so it would be nice to use the different limiteds on my vehicle more often without concern over reducing the effects of the Cc. 

Soooo satisfying!! Looks great

Just wanted to share a video we posted to Youtube about our experience using a VRT dilution to dress and protect a spray-on bedliner. We got this tip from an old post on here. Love these forums!
 

@Rich feed that paper right into your fireplace...get that fire going! 

@Rich feed that paper right into your fireplace...get that fire going! 

Well,  turns out it was on the wrecked truck, they recovered it, sent me an email it was coming today by Smart Post, didn't come, sent me another email that it's coming tomorrow. 13 days for my Ballsy wash. Sure hope it makes it.  I'm starting to STINK!  

I first tried to spray it on the grey microfiber applicator pad and spread it on as if I was using it on paint but I didn't like the results. It was uneven and blotchy. I then switched to spraying several shots directly onto the mats and leveled it out with the applicator pad where necessary (it gathered up in corners of ridges, for example, and looked like it needed a little help on smooth surfaces). I allowed the mats to cure and they turned out great! Pics forthcoming in a separate write up.

Was expecting my Adam's delivery today (2 actually, but separate).  The one came..........the other one didn't make it. FedEx tracking went from "out for delivery, delivery Friday" to "Scheduled delivery pending" and "No scheduled delivery date available at this time".  Well, long story short, we had an unexpected ice storm today and a FedEx truck was involved in a bad accident on the nearby highway. I'm betting my package was on that truck.  Would be about the right time, right area.  Dang.  😢

I want to share my process this weekend and get some feed back from you guys on how I can improve. I apologize for all the words. A lot of this detail was me testing some different methods, so I had a lot of thoughts. Basically this is a fun research project.   I got to spend some time this weekend with my brother and I detailed his car for him. I focused on the exterior. I was with him Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning.
  Friday When I got there it was getting late around 5pm. With the sun finding it's resting place, I decided it was too late to fully commit to washing or doing anything extensive. So while the sun was out, I went around the car and inspected the paint in the sun and with a swirl finder flashlight. I assessed what needed to be done. I also had to keep in mind that chasing perfection is out the window at this point. 
  1. The paint was very neglected. There was peeling clearcoat on the hood, and peeling was especially bad on the roof. on the doors and other vertical panels, there were a few small spots that had some peeling, but for the most part it was pretty intact.  2. There were several deep scratches all around the car, but when I was looking for swirls or really fine surface scratches, they were present, but pretty hard to see. No matter which angle I faced or which light source I used, it was difficult to successfully locate the swirls. I don't know if that's a product of that light paint color, or if the paint was so worn down that the swirls had pretty much been leveled. Idk - not sure how it works. Other than the swirls though, the paint still seemed to have some oxidation or lack of depth. 3.  The gray texturized plastic trim on the doors and bumpers was painted very very similarly to paint used on the wheel arches (fender flairs(?)). Had I not done my inspection, I probably would have polished right over the trim thinking it was paint it looked so similar. 4. The black trim around the windows was also noticeably faded. Unfortunately I didn't think I had time to do a trim restorer, so I just planned to do a VRT on them. 5. The headlights were oxidized and yellow 6. The wheels and tires looked like they had been rolled around in soot or smoked in the green egg. 7. Glass was in decent condition 8. Interior seats were ripping and need some serious attention beyond my current skills.  
 
            This inspection was important because it helped to figure out what I needed to prepare for the detail, and it helped me begin to form a plan. I decided that I would focus on the exterior with a proper wheel and tire cleaning, strip wash, decontamination, polish, and wax.   Saturday Prepare First thing I did in the morning was pick out the chemicals and tools I needed for the day.    Headlight Restoration I decided that my first move would be to pull out my swirl killer and kill the headlight oxidation. I started off by using diluted rinseless wash to do a quick wipe down on the headlights and make sure there wasn't any dirt or dust on them. Then I started using my swirl killer on a test section until I figured out what process I was happy with. I will post a separate post about 2 methods I was testing for headlight restoration. Here's the one process I settled on for the RAV 4 headlights:   Step 1: Heavy Correcting Compound on a synthetic wool pad, about 3 passes. Step 2: Heavy Correcting Compound on a microfiber pad, about 3 passes, use the pad conditioning brush, spray some DS on the pad, and go for another 3-4 passes Step 3: Heavy Correcting Compound on a blue pad, about 3 passes, spritz DS, and go for another 3 passes Step 4: Finishing Polish on a white pad, about 3 passes, spriz DS, and go for another 3-5 passes until the liquid was pretty oily looking. Step 5: (during polishing stage) Revive Hand Polish       I'm pretty happy with the results, I see that its not quite perfect but its better and the goal was to improve visibility and not leave a flawless car. So the goal was achieved. See my headlight restoration post for other thoughts and to see my test of this method compared with another method.   I decided to do headlight restoration before the wash with the expectation for the oxidation residue and the polish liquids to sling everywhere, and boy was I right. the area under the lights would drip with yellow-brown oxidation, and the hood/windshield/my clothes ended up having specs of polish all over the place. I even took measures to use less liquids and make sure it was spread all over the headlight - still got everywhere.    Wheel and Tire Cleaning Wheels, Tires, and Wheel wells were nasty. So I selected some powerful chemicals to use on them. I had full strength Eco APC, full strength Wheel and Tire Cleaner, full strength Wheel Cleaner, and Full strength Tire and Rubber Cleaner.  I also had a bucket filled with water and car shampoo with all my tools in it. Keep in mind I do one wheel/tire completely before moving to the next.   1. Wheel Wells - I started by spraying Eco APC all in the wheel wells. Letting it sit for a while then brushing to help knock some stuff off. There was some kind of something coated at the top of the wheel well, and that stuff didn't budge, and I don't know that it ever will. So I left it and moved on. 2. Tires - Then I sprayed wheel and tire cleaner all over the tire and into the barrel of the wheels and into the lugnuts to start working some of the nastiness down there. I then agitated the tires, rinsed and repeated until the tires started to foam white instead of orange. 3. Wheel Barrels - I used a generous amount of Eco APC and Wheel Cleaner into the barrels and on the wheel face. I followed by using the turbo stick which was incredible for the barrels. I love that tool. If I noticed the turbo stick or the wheel looking like they were drying I would spray some Eco APC and/or Wheel cleaner on the tool and wheel and keep going. Once the barrels were clean, I moved onto the face of the wheel. 4. Wheel Faces - I started using the red wheel brush, but noticed I needed some more bite to get some of that stuff off. So I carefully used a brush that was a little bit stiffer (about similar to Adams Tire Brush) to try and get some of the darker spots and it worked pretty well. After that I went back to the red wheel brush and had some good luck finishing the wheels.  5. Rinse. Once I rinsed, they actually shined!          
  Strip Wash Before I rinsed the vehicle I made sure to have my buckets and foam canon prepared. I mixed about 3oz strip wash, 1 oz mega foam and filled the rest of a 16oz with warm water into my foam canon. and about the same amount of soap into a 5 gallon bucket with my wash media.   1. Rinse - Got big pieces dirt/dust/leaves off 2. Foam - Foamed the entire vehicle and allowed it to dwell for 3-5 minutes 3. Hand Wash - Used my mitt and thoroughly cleaned the vehicle. For hard to reach spots I would gently use a boars hair brush. 4. Clay - While the car was still wet and soapy I used a clay mitt and detail spray for extra lubrication. on non-peeling paint and glass. 5. Rinse 6. Iron Remover - I sprayed Iron Remover on all paint including the peeling paint (I should have done this before clay, but I was worried about time and not thinking) 7. Rinse 8. Dry with a microfiber towel. For hard to reach areas I used a sidekick blaster in conjunction with my towel.

    Interior Not much to say here. I did it quick and easy. Took the rubber mats out and used Rubber Mat and Liner Cleaner. Vaccumed the floor, used Interior Detailer on seats and plastic/vinyl. I used the new holiday odor neutralizer and it smelled nice.   I used the new Tire Shine on the rubber mats, used foam first to spread, then a microfiber to spread/dry. Then I left in the sun for about 30 minutes. They returned back to a dark matte black.     Trim/Wheel/Tire Protection I applied VRT on the trim, it needs more attention but I didn't have the time this weekend.   I used the new Tire Shine on the tires, and H20 Guard and Gloss on the wheels.   Polish I don't think I would consider this a true paint correction considering I wasn't trying to tackle any scratches really. My goal was just to remove oxidation and reveal a new layer of clear coat to improve clarity and depth to the paint.   I really only had a small area to work on considering 1/3 of the vehicle was peeling clear coat and the other 1/3 was textured plastic trim. So I really only polished the quarter panels, the top half of the doors on each side.    Considering the rest of the paint was in such bad shape I took extra measures to make sure I didn't worsen the condition of any of the paint that was still okay.Before starting with any polish, I used a paint thickness gauge and took readings around the car. I noticed that in most of the places where I had planned to put the polisher, I was getting a pretty consistent reading of 120-130 micrometers (µm). I also took reading of the paint where it was peeling. Where clearcoat was still present on the hood, my readings were consistently about 115-125µm and where there was no clearcoat, my readings were pretty consistently around 91-92µm. I thought clear coats were much thicker than color base coats, but I since it was from 2001, I didn't know if those are normal readings for 20 year old paint which was painted using a 20 year old process.   Anyways, I trusted my numbers, and, to be safe, made an assumption that the clear coat ended abound 100µm. I decided that if I took any reading below 110µm, I would stop polishing there to avoid any damaging the paint. I proceeded with a test section and I took readings after each step to see how much clear coat was being removed.   I taped off a 2x2 section on one of the doors to do a test section and figure out what process I wanted to use first. Least aggressive first always!: 1. Revive Hand Polish - I started with Revive Hand Polish with a Blue Hex Grip Applicator by hand. There was a visible improvement but not as much as I was looking for. Thickness readings about 0-1 µm removed. 2. Finishing Polish - Then I used Finishing Polish with a White Pad on a high speed with my Swirl Killer. Visually, I felt like it was starting to get some where, but I felt like I could do a little bit better. Thickness readings about 2 µm removed. 3. Correcting Polish - I moved to Correcting Polish with an Orange Pad on high speed, and when I wiped away the residue, I was very happy with the depth and clarity that was produced. Thickness readings about 4-6 µm removed.   I settled on using a one step process with Correcting Polish and Orange Pad running the Show. I think it turned out pretty nicely.   It only took Two orange pads, one for each side of the car (not including what I used on the test section). I used the pad conditioning brush after every panel or every other panel depending on how I thought the pad was preforming, and I would spritz DS on the pad in the middle of polishing each panel. Total time was about 50 minutes after I did my test section figured out what process I wanted to use. Keep in mind, I was doing a small portion of a small car with only one step.   Something minor that I did and think it was worth it, was once I put up the polisher and cleaned up to move on to the next step, I used Revive Hand Polish on the Head lights and Tail lights. I think it worked very well on both!
Sunday Protection It was starting to get dark again, so I finished the night off by using Ceramic Spray Coating on both the Windshield and the Headlights to preserve the restoration.   To use Ceramic Spray Coating: (on glass) I made sure to clay the glass during the wash, then use glass cleaner thoroughly and for the surface to be completely clean, smooth, and dry before applying CSC. I sprayed it directly into a microfiber applicator, and used the microfiber applicator in a cross hatch pattern to cover the drivers half of the windshield. As soon as that stuff hit the glass it seemed to be flashing. It was completely rainbow before I finished the cross hatch. So I ran quickly to the other side, and I applied the same way on the other half of the windshield. Then I quickily ran over and got my suede removal towel and carefully and thoroughly leveled the coating, first on the drivers side, then passengers.   (on headlights) I used a Surface Prep and made sure it was clean and dry before I applied and leveled the same way I did for the windshield.   At this point I put my stuff away, and told myself I would pick up in the morning, that way the coating will cure while I wait to come back.   Wax The next morning quickly wiped down the vehicle of any dust with diluted rinsless wash.   Then I pulled out the Swirl Killer and Red Pad again. I thought Ceramic Liquid Wax was the candidate for this job, so I applied it using the machine. I would apply to 2 panels before I removed with a double soft towel.    I thought it came out nicely.
 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 
I had a friend come by and help me everybody say thanks to this little guy.

Adams did change the formula this month. I believe it now includes some sio2.  The first batch was released during the BF sale.  And from the pics I saw on the site, it does appear to be lighter in color as well.