Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/10/2019 in Posts

  1. If you 100% standardise the car you will have a bigger audience and might sell it. This way you're very limited and the idiots who would buy it don't have the money.
    1 point
  2. Whats Wrong With A Sponge? It all comes down to the flat flace of the sponge. Imagine automotive paintwork with your typical dirt and grit paricles sutck on the top of the paint, that you want to wash off to reveal your car's shine. Some of these dirt particles are sharp. Now, if you place a sponge down ontop of these grit particles as you would do if you were washing your car with a sponge, the grit particles become trapped between the face of the sponge and the paint - they have no where to go owing to the flat face of the sponge. When you wipe the sponge across the paintwork, you wipe the sharp grit particles straight across the paint. As they move over the paint, the dirt particles leave a thin hairline scratch: These little scratches are highly visible in bright light because they catch the light, and this is what gives you the dreaded swirl marks that rob yuo paint of gloss and colour and ruin the car's look. A pic of bad swirl marks, the result of sponge washing of a car. Wash Mitts Lambswool and Sheepswool wash mitts have been developped to get around the problems of sponges trapping grit particles by the flat face. If you run your fingers through a lambwool mitt, you can see that it is deep pile and not flat faced. Returning to the grit partciles on paintwork, when the wash mitt is placed onto them, the grit particles are absorbed into the mitt - safely away from paintwork so that they cannot scratch the paint. Therefore, sweeping the mitt across the paint doesn't sweep the grit over the paint also and so you don't inflict lots of tiny hairline scratches. Note: While washmitts are considerbaly better than sponges, it is impossible to completely avoid inflicting the odd swirl marks here and there using a wash mitt. What follows in this thread are tips on how to keep these inflicted swirls to an absolute minimum. Which Wash Mitt? There are a great number of washmitts on the marked nowadays, ranging from lambswool and sheepswool to cotton chenille to microfibre. In my experience the best mitts are the lambswool and sheepswool. When choosing a mitt, choose one with a soft deep pile that will be kind to paintwork. Two excellent mitts are: Meguiars Lambswool Wash Mitt Eurow Sheepskin Wash Mitt and there are others too. So Many Shampoos! Which to Choose? At the end of the day, shampoo choice for your car is going to come down to personal prefernce. But there are so many shampoos on the market its hard to know which ones to go for! A couple of things to look for when choosing a car shampoo: 1. Lubricity in the washing solution - you want a shampoo that makes the washing solution feel nice and lubricated so that dirt particles can be encapsulated by this lubricant and any that aren't absorbed into the wash mitt will slide off the paint without scratching in the rinsing water. Soapy suds are pleasing and can make car washing fun, but lubricated wash solution is more important. 2. A shampoo should contain no harsh detergents if you are washing a car that you have spent many hours polishing, sealing and waxing. Harsh detergents strip wax straight off the paintwork leaving your paint surface dried out and unprotected. Fairy Liquid is therefore a big no no for washing cars. You feel what happens to the sking on your hand if in prolonged contact with harsh detergents, it dires the skin out - it will do similar damage to paint. With this in mind, there are still a huge number of car shampoos that fit the bill - ones that I have used and rate are the following, so if you're struggling on which to choose, try one of the following: Meguiars #62 Bodywork Shampoo & Conditioner (my favourite) Meguiars Gold Class Bodywork Shampoo & Conditioner Meguiars Hyper Wash (awsome dilution ratio of 400:1 - lasts ages!) Poorboys Super Slick & Suds Pinnacle Bodywork Shampoo & Conditioner Einszett Perls What is the "Two-Bucket Method" Again, millions of people use a single bucket of car wash solution to wash their car, but if you read the threads on this site you will find most members wash their cars using the "Two-Bucket Method" - whats that? As suggested by the name, the two bucket method uses two buckets, not one. In thie first bucket, you have your car wash solution as normal. In the second bucket you have clean fresh water. First off you soak your mitt in the wash solution and begin washing the car (as described below). Then, before dunking the wash mitt back into the wash solution, you rinse it out in the second bucket of fresh water - this rinses out the dirt and grit particles from this mitt so that they cannot come into contact with your paint, reducing the number of swirls inflicted. A grit-guard is also a very worthwhile investment and sits at the bottom of the bucket (I have two, one in the rinsing bucket and one in the wash solution bucket). When dunking you mitt into the fresh water bucket, rub it across the grit guard to increase the amount of grit particles which are removed from the mitt. Also, it keeps them trapped at the bottom of the bucket so even less chance of the mitt picking them back up and them reaching your paintwork to inflict scratches. Washing Here I describe the generic technique I use to wash cars... Wheels, Arches, Door Jambs Start with these. When washing your wheels using a wheel brush, the shampoo solution (or wheel cleaner solution) can spray up onto paintwork, and if youve just cleaned the paintwork, you'll end up needing to clean it again to remove the dirty spray from wheels! Don't forget to open all doors and boot and clean the doorjambs and the insides of the door (without getting wash solution into the locking mechanisms, I cover these up) - these areas can pick up a lot of dirt as well and it adds something a little extra to open the door and see the jambs as clean as the rest of the car as these areas are often forgotten about. Pre-Rinsing This loosens up dirt and wets the paintwork ready for washing. Using a hose pipe, direct a gentle spray of water at the paintwork at a shallow angle. If you blast the paintwork with high pressure at ninety degrees to the paintwork, you'll force grit into the paint and cause scatches. Just a gentle spray of water to wet the paintwork is all that is required. If you don't have access to a hose, use a watering can with the rose fitted to produce a gentle spary of water: Shampooing This is the major stage of the washing process, and the time when most scratches can be inflicted if care is not taken. This removes fresh surface contimaniation from paintwork such as dust, grit, mud, road film etc... Add the correct amount of car wash solution (according to the dilution ratio on the bottle) to your bucket and fill with water to produces suds and lubricated wash solution: The water can be cold, or warm - I prefer warm water as it keeps my hands warm, especially in winter!! Now, use the two bucket method described above. Use two washmitts - one for the top areas of the car (roof, bonnet, upper sides above the wheel arch line) and one for the lower areas (below the wheel arch line, front and rear bumpers). Use a light parallel motion when washing, with out applying forceful pressure that will inflict scratches. If a mark is stubborn and wont come off with gentle movement of the wash mitt, it will require a stronger cleaner such as tar remover or clay. Start from the roof and work down, therefore the large quantities of dirt that form on the lower parts of car are not transferred to the traditionally cleaner upper areas of the car. Try to avoid letting the shampoo dry on the paintwork as this will cause streaks and soap spots, for this reason try to avoid washing in direct sunlight. If you are in direct sunlight, it may be neccessary to wash and rinse a panel art a time. Continue until the car is completed. Rinsing Once washed, the next step is to rinse away the soap bubbles and film. If using a hose I first of all use a light spary of water to wet the paintwork (using the rose on the watering can), just like the pre-rinsing step. Then follow this up with a flow of water from the hose (rose off the water can this time). Most shampoos are free rinsing and require this flow of water to make the rinsing water "sheet" off of the paintwork. (This sheeting effect will work best on well sealed and waxed paintwork). On a sealed/waxed car, keep rinsing until the water sheets cleanly off the paintwork and leaves behind only water beads and not flat regions of water. This makes the car essentially self drying! Rinse from the top of the car down. Drying Another risk stage as far as scrathes are concerned. First off, I find that using a waffleweave drying towel is far safer and more effective than using a chamois leather. A couple of examples of good quality waffleweave drying towels are: Meguiars Water Magnet Drying Towel Poorboys Waffleweave Also Pakshak towels are very very good too! Rather than sweeping the towel across the paintwork to remove the water, I prefer to pat dry the car. The sweeping of the towel has more risk of inflicting scratches as stray grit particles may be picked up and inadvertantly swept across the paint inflicting swirl marks. Instead, pat dry the car by laying the towel down over the wet paintwork. Gently pat the towel, then lift off the paintwork. The towel will absorb the water to dry the paint. A thin flim of water may be left behind but this will quickly evaporate to leave a sparkling, streak free finish. And there we have it - safe washing technique to avoid inflicting dreaded swirls into paintwork.
    1 point
  3. Fitting the stalk The stalk that fits is from a VW Transporter T4 (part number: 7D0 998 527, retains at £65 inc. VAT) The stalk is almost a straight swap, however I found that after fitting mine it fouled the cowelling slightly. When pulling the stalk to flash someone it wasn't returning to its original position, and the headlights were staying on. The bit that catches can be seen here: You can see the slight difference between the CC stalk and the original stalk here: I used a modelling file to re-shape the cowelling and stalk so it doesn't touch any more: Remove the airbag and steering wheel and fit the stalk: Connect up the loom that came with the stalk and run it under the steering column. There is space under the steering column to mount the connector: (note how the wire colours change across the connector) The stalk in place: Connecting the stalk to the custom loom A +12v feed is required for the cruise control to work, ideally this should be ignition switched. I chose to use the ignition switched 12v to the headunit since I have an aftermarket headunit and it was easy to get to. Alternatively, the heated rear screen button could be used. It may be a good idea to add an inline fuse as an extra precaution too. Now you have four wires from the stalk, four wires from the ECU and one 12v feed. The four wires from the stalk correspond with the four wires from the ECU (whatever colours you chose): White --> ECU 46 (for cruise on/off switch) Blue --> ECU 45 (for resume) Red --> ECU 44 (for Set) The +12v feed must be spliced into the fourth connection: Black --> ECU 14 (the +12v feed 'enables' cruise in the ECU and gives 12v to the stalk) Activating with VAG-COM Instructions for this can be found on the VAG-COM website. Also, the stalk comes with a booklet giving the activation code. The trial version of VAG-COM can be used to activate cruise. Basically: You can use VAG-COM to check the operation of the stalk be reading some measuring blocks. Reading measuring block 022 in the engine controller (ECU) whilst operating the stalk functions: 00000X Enable cruise 0000X0 Cruise on/off 000X00 Set 00X000 Resume Measuring block 006 in the engine controller will show 1.0 when the switch is moved to 'ON', indicating cruise is active. If VAG-COM shows correct operation of the stalk then thats it - installation is complete! Enjoy
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.