323 GTX- The Refresh-ening!

Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote: Not to side track Rufledt's thread but detailing is one of my passions. Here is about a weekends worth of work with lot's of elbow grease and a little bit of know how.

Side track all you want! But you'll have to share some of that know how!

What did you use/do between the before and after shots?

Maybe we should start a grm friendly detailing thread. Guys like me have lots to learn from guys like y'all. I can't be the only mechanic with dingy nice cars here that doesn't know how to do it himself.

And you guys have lots of experience to share.

Also, we would then be able to not threadjack the restoration of a badass gtx.

That would be a good idea, there is a concourse component to the challenge, so it would be highly relevant! I don't have any problem with detailing talk in this thread, it would be a great way to keep all the info in a place i can easily find! I'm not sure how much experience I have to share, I just take my time, read up, and try a bunch of stuff. If it works, i keep doing it. I'll try to show the step by step process i posted on the last page here:

I had some time and needed to chill a bit so i did some more detailing and some minor mechanical stuff tonight. Remember the B-pillar?

well it's time to clean that up. here are a few more photos looking at what i need to clean up:

Looks like a spider web up there or something

dirt that the washing didn't get to.

Here's how I clean up the spider web kind of stuff: take a paper towel, get it damp, and try to slide it through the hard to clean places:

aaaaand Clean!:

I also wiped out the whole door jam, even where i wasn't going to polish. I did a lot of the process with the door open, so it was also important to keep the dome lights off:

I love the detail on some of the pieces:

Anyways, after all of the washing and drying, it's masking time. Here's an example of masking around some black plastic pieces:

That's sticky side out, slid down between the plastic and the b-pillar. then wrap it down. I did that method all over where there were plastic parts:

Is this neccessary with just a polishing? probably not, but i'm going to do it anyway. Around the window, i focus on covering the seals, not just the glass:

Today i stopped and got this, since i ran out of my other polishing compound:

A little at a time, i polish up the b-pillar. The whole pillar is small enough that i can basically do the whole thing at once, and take a couple passes very quickly. Here's what all that oxidation looks like on the rag:

Pretty gross stuff. After the first round of polish, i then inspected the piece and found a scratch:

It's not through the paint, but it can be seen easily through reflected light (that's a fluorescent tube there in the background). I got out a fresh cloth and the rubbing compound, and got to work rubbing along the scratch:

And after:

E36M3. Well, it didn't come out with a moderate pass of the rubbing compound, so by my previous scheme, i moved on. I then polished the stuff again, then put down a coat of wax using another fresh towel.

I keep rubbing, polishing, and wax towels separate. also separate wipe down cloths. I got a huge pack of microfiber towels for cheap a while ago, so i'm not too concerned about maximum use between washes. If i drop one on the floor, i'll put it in the 'wash' pile, too. Microfiber picks everything up, and i don't want to wipe dirt from the floor into my paint.

Anyways, then 'wax off' and bam:

Then remove the masking tape and look for anywhere you need to wipe off (usually the tape will pull some wax out of somewhere or something)

And here's the difference between b-pillar and door:

Same process on the door which was a MUCH more intensive masking job, and:

The window is still filty, though . Here's why masking was harder:

There's a rubber seal between the door and the window, and more between the door and the door jam. LOTS of masking tape but no wax got on anything. It's careful work to mask off all the seals without masking off any of the metal, but i'm not on a time table here, so i took my time.

(Part 2 coming soon, i'm breaking the posts up so there aren't too many pics per page)

Mechanical stuff time:

My goal here was to address the rattle i hear from the front right. I thought it was coming from the metal undercover, but more thorough investigation revealed the right side cover as the culprit. The undercovers are steel, but the side covers are plastic. Here's one of a couple places the plastic side cover rattled:

I think the plastic isn't supposed to bend there. Where the 2 pieces get close, they rattle together. Not too much i can do there, the pieces are held on with plastic push clip things, not bolts. I tried some gentle bending and sticking some foam tape between them, and it reduced the rattle. It's in no way permanent, but it will work for now. At least now i can say it's not a huge deal, plastic rattling on plastic. If i knock on stuff now, the rattling is pretty much gone. It only rattles at around 2,500 RPM, unfortunately that's perfect cruising speed.

In that shot you can spy the nice SS brake lines installed by the previous owner. pretty sweet, eh? That's what I thought, until i glanced over and saw this:

So it turns out if the plastic cover on this side wasn't rattling for some reason, i may not have noticed the SS line rubbing into the wheel and either lost tire pressure when the wheel was perforated, or lost brakes when the brake line wore through...

It's not through the stainless on the lines, but i might be ordering up some new brake lines in the near future to be safe. Needless to say, i went ahead and adjusted that immediately, after contemplating flying down a hill here and suddenly losing brakes...

I also went ahead and triple checked all the other wheels, this one was the only problem.

I also found something else that was suspiciously not dry:

so i'm going to be looking into that. On the right in the foreground you can see the only rust i've found on this car anywhere, the exhaust. The whole exhaust looks kinda like that, but there are no holes or leaks. I can't find another exhaust (aftermarket or OEM) but i'm not really looking hard at the moment.

The good news is the underside, while filthy, isn't rusty. Even close ups don't reveal any rust other than the exhaust. Here's a shot of the front end under the bumper, the part right down in the nitty gritty and the road salt in most cars:

See the rust on the leading edge of the frame? Me neither. It's filthy, but not rusty

That brake line.

Is it possible that the PO installed it correctly, but maybe not quite tight enough, and some road debris snagged it and pulled it onto the wheel?

You should think about making some kind of support or holder for the lines, because even in your after pic it still looks vulnerable.

I suspect thats what happened. The line wasnt on very tight, it probably wiggled over recently. It cant have been doing that for long or the line wouldve worn through. I was thinking about some kind of support but I havent worked that out yet. As long as the bolt doesnt loosen, I should be fine for now.

You can always have someone make an exhaust for the car.

There are different products out there for car care, but it all boils down to whether they have some sort of abrasive in it and then when there is an abrasive, how much is in there.

Wax - No abrasives. Usually for protecting the car's finish, usually made from carnauba.

Cleaner wax - Has some minor abrasives, but leaves behind a protective wax finish after application. Generally these are more of a shortcut product and IIRC they don't usually have as much protection to them as a straight wax product.

Sealant - No abrasives. usually some form of synthetic compound that lasts longer than straight carnauba wax. The only reason people don't use these all the time is some people like the look that wax gives.

Polish - Has abrasives, but usually not a lot, used for finalizing a car's finish before waxing/sealing. There are different levels of abrasive aggressiveness within this segment though and some of these can be very aggressive.

Rubbing Compound - Heavy abrasives, usually used for removing large flaws in the finish after which you must use some sort of polish to remove the minor flaws that the abrasives in this leave behind.

Essentially polishes and compounds are sort of like different levels of sanding paper. Polishes are on the finer side and compounds are on the rougher side.

In reply to Harvey:

Is sealant the same thing as glazing?

I thought about the custom exhaust route, but i'm thinking it either ends up costing more, or it suffers in quality. The standard muffler shop job would be crush bends, sketchy fitment, and i don't really want that. A proper one off job by a guy who knows what he's doing would rightfully be quite expensive. Am I wrong? Plus as much as i like loud cars, i really enjoy how not loud this one is. I wouldn't mind a little more volume, but i don't want it much louder, and i really don't want a big chrome tip sticking out the back, i'm trying to keep it as stock as possible.

Best case scenario i would learn how to weld and make it myself, but i don't have a welder, or access to a welder and someone to teach me how to weld, unless someone in the binghamton, NY area would accept beer in exchange for welding lessons.

Re exhaust: first of all, its a turbo car, even if you made nothing but a shorty pipe with a boom hole exit it would be quieter than most NA engines with racing exhaust. Turbos are pretty effective noise reducers. Chances are it will sound nice with a straight through turbo style muffler.

Cost will varry from shop to shop, and a shop that does propper performance work will cost more, but I'm betting that a GTX has a pretty simple exhaust layout, and the bill wouldn't be all that bad.

This isn't my GTX but the exhaust looks fairly simple:

Looks like it's actually dead straight for the whole middle section, only gets complicated at the end to go over the suspension. That's an aftermarket exhaust, but the routing looks familiar. Probably wouldn't be very complicated.

Dusterbd13 wrote: In reply to Harvey: Is sealant the same thing as glazing?

No. Glazing is a product that is applied after cleaning and correction (polishing or compounding) but prior to sealer or wax. Glazing adds depth and luster to the paint which you then seal in with the sealer or wax. While all paint would benefit from glaze, I've found it stands out more on dark metallic colors. It has no abrasives in it and is basically a filler, it fills those very tiny almost microscopic scratches that even polishes leave behind. But it also is not very durable and needs a wax or sealer to keep the luster and depth as long as possible.

hmm, would glazing help hide that small scratch on the B-pillar? it's not through the paint. I was unaware such a product existed...

In reply to Rufledt:

Not really, it may help a little bit but its purpose is filling much much smaller scratches than that. You would have to magnify the surface to really see the imperfections that it fills, but on a large surface like a hood it really makes a difference.

You have to judge how deep that scratch is. If the paint is very thin there may be nothing you can do. If it's thick enough you may just need to get a little more aggressive, at the risk of going through the paint. You could get some touch up paint to fill the scratch and carefully sand it back to level and buff it back out.

I'm going to be detailing the wife's car sometime in the next couple weekends. I'll try to do a tutorial on how I go about it if anyone is interested.

In reply to Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock:

I am!!

This clean up/detailing stuff is very confusing. And I'd really like to do the duster and elky this fall.

Also interested. I want to see how clean I can get my 8 year old 150k mile kid hauling truck.

Good stuff man, I'm following this. Awesome work!

Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote: I'm going to be detailing the wife's car sometime in the next couple weekends. I'll try to do a tutorial on how I go about it if anyone is interested.

I'm interested!

That scratch is really shallow and only visible with the reflected light, but it definitely needs no magnification to see. I'm pretty sure i could go a little heavier on the polish and get rid of it, but i'm also pretty sure it's very minor and i can live with it. I'm more concerned about the front bumper which straight up needs to be re-painted.

No pics of any work today but i did look into why the stereo doesn't work. I followed the service manual instructions- pull the antenna up, turn the radio on, and crank to maximum volume. It would find radio stations i know exist when i hit seek, but pure silence. No popping noises, no hiss. Service manual says i need to check to power supply. I'll do that later, i'm not highly concerned about it. Some investigation with a light shows the speakers are, in fact, still under the speaker grills, and the fuses under the dash haven't blown. Interestingly, the fuse box cover has 3 spare fuses and a fuse puller in it! That's pretty convenient if I do say so myself.

Just throwing this out there but Burns Stainless and Magnaflow do mandrel bent pieces of varying degrees in both mild steel and many different types of stainless that you can order individually. So it would just be a matter of figuring out what you need then offering someone enough beer money to weld it together for you. The exhaust looks pretty straight forward so that might be something worth considering if you can't find a fullblown replacement.

Great pickup by the way. I'm enjoying the thread.

i just looked up burns stainless, they linked the GRM article about exhausts! i remember that article. Looks like mufflers are the primary cost (makes sense), and they come in 2.25" which would probably be about right for exhaust diameter with a low boost 1.6. I have no short term plans for replacing the exhaust unless it starts leaking, but it's something to keep in mind for the long term i guess.

Only a minor update, i did some vacuuming and stuff. First the trunk:

Not bad, just some dead flies and stuff, a dust buster made short work of it. I also took this opportunity to check out the ample storage space:

Plenty of space for activities! or storage of stuff. All cleaned up:

I also read through the owners manual and the empty spot in this door thingy...

...isn't supposed to have anything in it. The non-turbos had something there, turbos don't.

I also did some vacuuming inside:

The previous owner put some floormats in it, front and back. They look like generic ones, and they serve their purpose. The PO said once he had parked it with the sunroof tipped open (it has a manual sunroof, how cool is that?) and some shiny happy person threw a cigarette butt through the slot. Luckily, it landed on a floor mat, not the seats or dash.

It's not bad under the floormat:

Some minor vacuuming later:

I recently got a small carpet cleaner with a wand thing, i might try it out on the carpets in here. They look a bit dusty. The carpet cleaner does wonders in the living room on toddler-related stains, it might work well on dusty carpet in a car.

Also take a look at the hood release, it's broken and jammed. The plastic ring under the handle is supposed to be attached to the thing with the nut on it. I still haven't looked into where it's routed, but i will replace that at some point. I have the part and until then i have a method to get the hood open.

Anyways, while looking around, i found a sticker on 2 of the seat belts:

Any idea what that's all about? were they parts stickers that should've been taken off when the car was put together or something?

Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote:

Dusterbd13 wrote: In reply to Harvey: Is sealant the same thing as glazing?

No. Glazing is a product that is applied after cleaning and correction (polishing or compounding) but prior to sealer or wax. Glazing adds depth and luster to the paint which you then seal in with the sealer or wax. While all paint would benefit from glaze, I've found it stands out more on dark metallic colors. It has no abrasives in it and is basically a filler, it fills those very tiny almost microscopic scratches that even polishes leave behind. But it also is not very durable and needs a wax or sealer to keep the luster and depth as long as possible.

Some sealers won't apply over a glaze IIRC, they need to go right on the paint. I've heard glaze is applied over the wax to give some extra shine. That said, I tried it that way and found it too annoying to deal with so I might be totally off base. A good quality carnauba wax provides enough shine for my taste and generally I prefer sealers since they are more durable, though some don't have quite the shine that regular wax does.

In reply to Harvey:

I've never used a sealer, or researched them. I've always been a wax guy. IMO glaze certainly should not be put on after the wax, it should go on prior to the wax. I've seen guys at car shows do it trying for trophies. But the benefits of it will be gone in short order, it needs the protection of the wax in order to last. I guess it all depends on what you are shooting for.

Nick (Not-Stig) Comstock wrote: In reply to Harvey: I've never used a sealer, or researched them. I've always been a wax guy. IMO glaze certainly should not be put on after the wax, it should go on prior to the wax. I've seen guys at car shows do it trying for trophies. But the benefits of it will be gone in short order, it needs the protection of the wax in order to last. I guess it all depends on what you are shooting for.

I think that's the context I've seen it used in. Just to fluff up the car for shows. The stuff I've tried has been very greasy. The 3M Imperial Glaze.

Some paint sealants form a molecular bond with the paint and so can't be used on top of anything other than paint, but you get better durability. I know Zaino works like that. Not sure about some of the other products, but most that I've used say to start with a clean paint surface.

There are also a few polishing products that will leave a glaze behind that one can wax over. I think I have a few 3M products like that.