OK, now that I've completed my L98 build, after doing as much as I could to make the engine and accessories look good I figure I'd like to do a bit more to this area.

Here is what I've got now.



The things I've seen that I want to do are the following

1) Paint underside of the hood. I've seen pictures here that people have done well with can spray, so I might try that. The biggest job must be masking? Anything to be aware of on this job?

2) Clean paint the wheel well top attached to the hood. What to do with these? It is driven about 3K miles a year so they will get some slop on them on occasion? Paint, coating?

3) Clean, paint, or treat the wheel well plastic to look better. Similar to the previous question, just not so sure they are treat the same?

4) Clean the aluminum of the A/C, hoses, evaporator. Once my A/C is checked out I figure to just hit the aluminum with some steel wool lightly, then just some polishing compound and elbow grease.

5) Maybe I can clean that wiper motor area????? Not sure about this one, could get messy

For anyone who has done this please give me you thoughts on any of these.

Thanks.

 

Before you get the paint out try and just wipe the under hood area with a mild degreaser/water mix.....most of the white dots you see under/on there are just water spots from where water condensation forms and has dried to leave small spots...most of these spots should come off with a little elbow grease.

 

Sweet!

 

You can come over to my garage and detail under my hood anytime.

 

Looks good so far....I've used Simple Green and about 50 million rags, toothbrushes, popsicle sticks, etc. to
get to some of the hard-to-reach areas as well. As Lyle said, you may be suprised how clean the under-
side of your hood can get. Now, this is gonna sound funny, but Pledge furniture polish works great for
leaving a shine that doesn't attract dust. You can use WD-40 on the wheel side of your wells....it will help
remove the years of crap under there, and slow down getting new crap.

 

I remember someone else a while ago using pledge on his inner wheel wells I think. The WD-40 thing makes sense too, many people recommend it to remove tar or "cone marks" but hey who hits cones anyway

 

i did a lot of what you asked about. if you use some good cleaner on the under side of your hood it may come clean, if not you just got it prepped for paint. for the other plastic wheel well areas a good tire cleaner will work great. and the best one is the ac lines and all the aluminum stuff under the hood. you may not need any steal wool at all just a big can of mothers mag aluminum polish and a ton of elbow grease. it took me over 100 hours to do but i did all the aluminum under the hood, all the front and rear suspention and drive line parts as well. when i was done people asked me if i had it all chromed. for the wiper area get a fome cover from ecklers for 20 bucks or so.


the second photo is after all the work and after driving it a wile so it is not as clean as when i got done, but it only takes an hour or so to get it back to shineing for shows.

 

Greased lightening when used 50/50 will take a good deal of corossion off aluminum but has the be rinsed a lot the hit it with dishsoap and warm water and rinse again as it will continue to attack aluminum. same goes for engine paint etc it is pretty aggressive stuff compared to simple green. I would not use steel wool on the aluminum but would use stainless or fine brass as a second choice..

 

These cars are too clean to drive or race!

 

i race mine and drive it every day about 40+ miles. i dont like cars that are all show and no go. it has to have both for me. once its clean its easy to keep it that way.

 

He may not look like much, but he knows a thing or two.

 

Can I hire you for the 100 hour clean job?

 

yea but to do that over agean itll cost ya an arm and a leg because i wore mine out on my car. ( ha ha get it an arm and a leg)

 

i did my cowling last weekend put in new screens polished a few things there hoods next i ll take it off to do the hood i use base coat clear coat on the cowling

 

Two things to try; Mothers Back to Black, and Mr Clean cleaning pads (I forget what they are called, but they work great, I use them on my boat).

 

Did you use up your leg polishing that thing?

 

Dolfan, I used rubberized undercoating on my wheel wells after scraping off all the old stuff. In your picture, did you just use steel wool on the plenum, runners, alternator mount and valve covers or is that silver paint? If you used paint, what kind was it?

 

My screens are falling out, how did you guys fix the screens?

Ohh, I see, you put expanded metal in place of the old stock screen

 

Before cleaning:


After cleaning (I added a few minor modifications to the engine bay area also):


Most all of the water spots came off with degreaser/water mix; however, I did have to touch up the paint in a few areas that where too far gone or where the A/C compressor scuffed the hood. The wheel wells were cleaned with CD2 engine degreaser spray can (this CD2 stuff if pretty impressive)

 

To clean the wheelhouse pieces, I used several cans of Stoners Tarminator. Spray, wait a couple minutes, wipe with paper towels (you'll use lots), hose off. Repeat as many times as required. Mine came out factory clean using no abrasives.

Followed that with soap and water and a mild scrub brush to remove the bulk of the film left by the Tarminator. Then PPG Acryli-Clean wipe down to remove the remainder of oils and dirt to prep for paint. Sprayed two light coats (per instructions) of "Bulldog" Adhesion promoter. Followed that with SEM "Trim Black" paint.

Did this all off the car if that's not obvious.

They came out very well.