How to Machine Clean a Vinyl Tonneau Cover

[Mike Phillips]

How to Machine Clean a Vinyl Tonneau Cover

Machine Scrubbing Vinyl






Photographing Dirty White Vinyl

It was a little tricky getting pictures that would show just how dirty the vinyl on this 1932 Ford Phaeton was but if you look closely I think you can see the dirt I loosened being rinsed off in these shots...














In these two shots, you can see the last 1/4 I have to clean.






After shooting the video I could see the sections I scrubbed by hand were not as bright and white as the sections I did by machine so I actually went back and re-scrubbed them for a uniform appearance.



Cyclo Polisher = Cyclo Vinyl Scrubber



Cleaning dirty vinyl tops and tonneau covers is hard, dirty work. The Cyclo polisher takes all the elbow grease out of the job and does a much better job than working by hand.

Here's a list of the products I used to restore a brilliant bright white to the dirty vinyl tonneau cover on this 1932 Ford Phaeton. You can use these same products on any vinyl detailing project, automotive or marine.


Cyclo Polisher Mark 5 Pro

Marine 31 Fabric & Vinyl Cleaner

Marine 31 Vinyl Protectant with SunBlock

Carrand Deluxe Interior Brush


For more tips on car detailing in general, for example how to get a show car finish like I created on this 1932 Ford Phaeton, get a copy of my how-to book.

The Complete Guide to a Show Car Finish

[theblob640]

Mike and his crazy Macgyver skills does it again, huge difference!

[Mike Phillips]

To get an idea as to how dirty this vinyl tonneau was before I cleaned it, here's a picture that shows how dirty and stained the paint was.


Here's why you need to polish paint...


Here's a section I've taped off on the cowel because me and one of our forum members already buffed out the hood when he stopped by to test out polishers.






On the left I've clayed the paint and then machine polished it twice and then applied a coat of wax. You can clearly see the left side is now a brighter color of yellow and the right hand side has what appears to be grayish film over the paint.




Here's the same picture above with graphics....





Think about it... the vinyl tonneau cover is exposed to the same dirt the paint is exposed to so it only makes sense that if the paint is dirty with embedded stains.. so is everything else on the car...

[Mike Phillips]

Here I've taken pictures 18 and 19 and added a couple of black lines to more clearly define the last remaining dirty section to show the before and and after difference.


Picture 18








Picture 19

[Mike Phillips]

I actually took pictures of the entire process, here they are.

This top was completely embedded with dirt accumulation that was really hard to capture on camera except when you see the pictures of the scrubbed section getting rinsed.

[Mike Phillips]

Always pay lots of attention to the stitching at seams...

[Mike Phillips]

Cleaned and protected and ready to put back into action!