99 Holiday Rambler heavy oxidation removal - Pinnacle Auto Detail - CT

[PinnacleAutoCT]

Hey guys, I haven’t posted in a while due to the nice weather in CT, I figured this set of pictures might be worth sharing since it’s a little out of the ordinary. Like the title says, this trailer was manufactured in 1999 by Holiday Rambler, it has an aluminum frame IIRC (hence the Aluma-Lite name), and was finished with a white gel coat, which was in poor shape to say the least. The owner had been storing this trailer in Florida, splitting his time between the two states, resulting in the trailer accumulating a solid amount of mold and mildew buildup while no one was there to maintain it. His standard procedure for removing the buildup had been to spray it with bleach, scrub it with a large, long-handled brush and then pressure wash the bleach/grime mixture away. Needless to say, the finish was heavily scratched, oxidized and dulled by this form of cleaning. According to the owner, this trailer had never been polished in its entire life because he never trusted anyone to do it. After detailing the interior of his Suburban, and correcting the paint on his 65 Malibu SS, he brought this beast out and told me to go to town on the paint. The moldings would be replaced and the roof painted, so there was no need to clean those areas. The work was completed over the course of a week (the owner was in no rush), since I had a busy schedule with my normal clients during the day, and would typically start work on this project late in the afternoon or early in the evening.
Hopefully the pictures will demonstrate the poor starting condition of this trailer. In these first two pics you can see a couple bright and reflective spots where I tried a couple different products to remove the oxidation:
DSC04778 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04779 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04780 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04781 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04783 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04785 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04787 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04789 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04791 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr

Here you can see the heavy staining of the window moldings which necessitated their replacement (full strength OPC wouldn't touch the staining):




Black streaks were apparent in many locations:

DSC04798 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04794 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04795 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr


The odd staining of the vinyl graphics seemed to be a result of the bleach washes:

DSC04804 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04797 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr


This area of the trailer has probably been shown before in other pics, but this one does a great job of capturing how dull, oxidized and scratched the paint was. The reflection and color was really terrible compared to how it would be upon completion:

DSC04799 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04886 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04882 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04881 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04887 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04889 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr

The process:
-wash (didn’t remove much dirt or staining)
-compound twice with the Rupes and the rotary using Meguiar’s #49 on LC light cutting pads, then LC black finishing pads
-polish with the Rupes and HD Speed
-hand apply Meguiar’s #45 to add extra oils to the gel coat and hopefully preserve the finish for longer
-apply Sonax PNS via microfiber towels


After:
DSC04856 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04858 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04861 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04862 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr


The wide array of pads, products and equipment at use during this project:


DSC04877 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04912 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04971 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04973 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04976 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr

DSC04985 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC04987 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr

DSC04991 by Mike Donoghue, on Flickr
DSC05006 by Mike Donoghue, on Flick

As always, thanks for looking, and feel free to comment or ask questions!

[PinnacleAutoCT]

I forgot to mention, in some of the "after" pics, the lower trim had yet to be cleaned. Also, the front and rear of the trailer would be repainted in addition to the roof, so those areas were left alone (polishing had no effect on their appearance).

[Trip]

Looks great, nothing like a Shiney trailer

[GSKR]

looks friggin awesome.

[GSKR]

Can you share the method of your primary compound and polish.I live in fla and do several of those a year finding that sometimes I have to mix 2 products in one bottle thanks.

[GSKR]

Forget it got it nice work .

[GSKR]

Pat yourself on the back,not many people can achieve that gloss and swirl free.I see members spending 20 hrs on a car.Got your system down and will try it.The last one I did was a 06 ford f450 Winnebago,it was so cooked from the sun.I was mixing products together in one bottle.At the end came out really nice and took about the same time.I topped it with powerlock.

[GSKR]

Do you have a Ibrid ? It makes ease with faded edges or around the Windows.

[Mike Phillips]

Wow Mike!

The before and after results are incredible! To me, this is some of the hardest types of detailing. Hats off to you for taking on the job.


Here's the picture that tells the story. Over time the gel-coat oxidized AND became stained with dirt. I cropped out this picture from your original and uploaded into your free gallery here on AGO.

[PinnacleAutoCT]

Thanks everyone, and thanks Mike Phillips for that pic!

GSKR- If you have any other questions about my process, just pm me. It's important to swap pads frequently and use an abundance of #49 (I mean, a LOT). I was going through 30+ pads in a 3-4 hour work period just to keep working efficiently during the compounding/oxidation removal steps. I definitely should get an Ibrid at some point, those corners that are not polished had to be hand polished afterward (the pics were taken mid-project in some cases), and it was definitely more time consuming than I would have liked.

Total working time on this project was about 23.5hrs, exterior only.