Wekfest LA 2014 Part 2

Back at Nisei '11 and probably like forever since I really don't know how to wax or claybar a car properly I've had these nasty swirl marks on my trunk, hood, and bonnet from daily driving my car. Of course I wash it, use microfibers, and nice towels, I even scrub my wash sponge off in the bucket before touching my paint again with it. But to no avail, Fontana atmosphere and multiple weather conditions put a beating on my finish. So one of my goals was to at least try to polish this shit myself, I would've liked to hire a detail person but time was something I really didn't have at this point.

Look at the haze on the trunk. It only got worse

Fast forward to Tuesday May 27th, I purchased a brand new s15 T28 from my friend Steve,  I headed over to sears to grab some offset wrenches, which I ended up not even needing. But I'll get to that later. I also grabbed something I've been looking for, for a very long time for my own tool bag, and it was a socket retainer for my ratchet bits.

Holy shit I hated digging through my fucking bag looking for a 10, grabbing a 1/2 11, then a 3/8ths 11, etc. I have a bastard mix of tools I jacked from my dad since he had extras, my delusional mother thinks she bought me my own tool set, but she also thinks I am my brother Bert.

Also another story for another day...



I watched a really shitty 480p video on youtube about how to polish black paint, because I guess that is what I wanted to do, remove swirls and polish. Obviously waxing was not getting rid of the swirls, so it was time to buy a polisher.

I wanted to keep this very budget friendly, granted some people will be like "I only buy the best, and use the best." You can best believe, hell will probably freeze over before I pull out that polisher and do this shit again... I didn't even hit the whole car, I literally only did the trunk, the tops of the rear overs, the roof, the bonnet, and the upper fenders. The paint is so reflective you're not going to notice any of the deep scratches unless you try to take a macro shot of it.

So fast forward to May 30th, it's now 8am, and I am downstairs trying to knock this shit out before I head over to Jordan Innovations in Irwindale California to whore out my friends shop to work on my car. The next entry is going to really talk about the adventure that transpired afterwards, but first. I just threw together this video of how my morning went.

I will give a disclaimer now, I am a huge do it yourselfer, I urge people to at least do something once yourself before you hire a professional. It's the only way you're going to learn, it's already in my head I'm going to repaint my car so if I fuck my paint up. I fuck my paint up. YOLO!!!


The video is long, I cut down half an hour of shit into 10 minutes. Had some trouble editing the audio, but hey that's imovie for you. I really touched on some basics if you don't want to watch it.

1. If you have black paint, and you have chips in your paint. Rustoleum gloss black enamel is your friend. Grab a shitty little art brush set and a little slab of cardboard or the lid of the can. And just dab it into the holes, because it's an enamel, by the time it dries it will have flex, it will match pretty fucking well with your paint, and again unless someone busts out the binoculars. Nobody will notice that shit when taking pictures for their stance blog. 
2. I don't think claying a car is necessary unless you fucking live in Fontana or Santa Clarita where there is high winds, tumbleweeds, and other things that can get into your paint. Well maybe if you drift and have nice paint. (Yeah, haha oxymoron right.) That scratch on my roof you see in the test area is from a tumbleweed that hit my car... in Fontana. 
3. If you really want that baller ass look for your paint, buy baller ass shit like Chemical Guys, they got everything you need really to take care of your paint. While 3M is good shit, I've always used Presta on my car since it's original paint job for any cutting and buffing. 5 years later and still a mirror finish with daily abuse and half ass paint care says a lot about their stuff. I feel CG's applications are more specific, especially depending on your paint colors. 
4. If you can afford it, and you have nice paint, just pay a professional detailer and go enjoy your fucking day. 

That's it for this entry, next is wrench rape which deserves a post in it's own. 

Thanks for reading my mayhem. 

Wayne