Getting swirls out of black Toyota Tundra

[PaulMys]

Once again, Mark can convey my idea in a better way.

[01civic]

Yes, start with the white pads. I'm assuming they are flat pads? The white pads work and cut nicely with a finishing polish, or say a polish like Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover (Called TSR by us folks)

The thing is with any pad, how many of each do you have on hand? If it's just 2 or 3, then you're working borderline, and if you watched any of Mike's Vids which were linked to in your thread here, you'll understand what he says.

That over-working a pad will turn it to mush in no time. Over-heating is the usual culprit to destroying any pad.

If you're short on pads, work a couple panels, with wiping, lightly brushing and cleaning the pad on the fly.

Once it starts getting over-loaded with muck, and polishes, that's it, party's over for that pad, take it off, set it aside, and attach a fresh clean one.

Let's just for say all you have is two pads. Do half the vehicle, stop, wash and dry pads. And drying might take more than 15-20 minutes. Rush pad drying, and you'll find problems. If that's the situation you're in, no harm-foul of doing a 1/3rd, or 1/2 the truck one day, and continue on the next day.

Doing my Tahoe once, it just about took me a full exhausting run of a few hours straight just to do the roof, up and down ladders, changing pads, priming pads, wiping, what a nightmare, and I was spent after like somebody beat me up.

But I got the results I was after, perfect! And I stopped with the roof, clean up, re-group and live to fight another day.

Reserve your body, your sanity, and your resources of what you have. Rush through, cut corners, and you won't get the desired results you had hoped for. Pace yourself, take your time, and enjoy the processes, rather than abhor them.

Remember, always start and stop the DA while on the panel. Never lift off with a spinning pad, sling will add much more time to cleaning off all the slung product.

Hope some of this helps.

Awesome advice, thank you! I've currently got 1 lake country ccs orange and one white pad. I'll probably order a few more before I begin this.

[MarkD51]

The White Lake Country Thinpro Pads are usually the best pads to team with a free wheeling DA like the PC7424 Machine. Even Mike Phillips commonly says he prefers a flat pad best for corrections.

Hopefully, we'll assume you're using a 5" Backing Plate and 5.5" Pads as the largest Plate-Pad Combo.
Many say the PC is a slightly underpowered machine, so thinner pads help a good deal with this machine with pad rotation.

I'd say if you buy a 6-pack of pads, buy at least 4 white, and 5 might be even better. Then 1 or 2 orange pads.

For most swirl removal correction on most paints, I'd say 90%, the white pads work just fine, and will finish down well without a need to resort to pads any softer.

The amount of cut and fine scratch removal can then be compensated and adjusted with the aggressiveness of the polish or compound you then team with the pad.

For really hammered and abused paints, then I'd look to an orange Thinpro Pad and more aggressive products.

The theme is to get the correction you need while doing the least amount of correction. Clear coats are thin.

Most usually at least clay before a Polish process to get contaminants off the paint surface also. Baggie Test with your hand inside a thin plastic sandwich bag and feeling the paint will help you determine the amount of contaminants on the paint. This will often surprise you how a seemingly clean paint is often not so clean with this test.

Again hope this helps

[MarkD51]

I wanted to add, that there has been instances where I resorted to Speed 6 with the Porter Cable. Might've been a couple reasons for this, the Pad loading up with too much product, and such can kill rotation. In that speed 5 just wasn't getting it.

The Porter Cable does get crazy loud on Speed 6!

The Toyota Tundra is a fairly large Truck, larger than the Tacoma. I would say to do a correction on the entire truck in one go, you will need a minimum of 4-5 Pads.

Some might even likely advise, 6 Pads would be even better yet to correct a vehicle of this size.

As our forum master Guru Mike Phillips has said more than once, "In a perfect world, one panel, one pad".

Yes, we'll all agree Pads are pretty expensive. And probably most if not all of us have prematurely worn out-burned out a Pad due to our initial inexperience. In that we worked a Pad much too long.

By placing less wear and tear on any single Pad, they will last longer, and in fact can last through a good number of vehicles if you follow such rules of not over-working a pad, and properly cleaning them-drying them when done using them.

That will bring me to yet again one personal tip that I've found. And that is Pad Cleaners. When I first got back in the game, and became a member here, yep, I got all the Basics, the PC Machine, 2 Backing Plates, an assortment of Pads-Polishes, but did neglect the purchase of a good Pad Cleaner Product.

I thought, "Oh, I don't really need that, is it necessary, they seem overly expensive for one, and I have some All Purpose Cleaners, and Dish Soap on hand that should do the trick just fine". Boy, was I wrong.

What I found was none were very efficient of removing polishes and dirts no matter what I tried, Purple Power, Simple Green, Dawn, etc, and the other downside was crazy amounts of soap suds that were then difficult to fully rinse-remove from the pads.

There's a number of good Pad Cleaners sold here specific for the task, will definitely make such tasks a lot easier, and will help to extract the longest life from the Pads.

When I eventually got these cleaners, and then I learned better technique with not over-working my Pads, after use, and then cleaning, the Pads looked brand spanking new. Like I had never even used them.

And yep, I am familiar with the theme and feeling of "Money here, Money there", does it ever end? And costs seem to add quickly, and expensively, and is it all worth it for let's say one vehicle? Well, with proper care of Pads, and your tools, you will have them for more than one correction on just only one vehicle and one use.

There's lots of videos here, and places like YouTube, you can find many of Mike's Vids, and others, and catch tips here and there, cleaning Pads on the fly, and things like that.

[01civic]

I'll look into the thin pro pads, definitely looks like a good fit for the pc polisher.
There is some wax residue on the black plastic door handles. Will back to black or another basic cleaner take this off?

[MarkD51]

I'll look into the thin pro pads, definitely looks like a good fit for the pc polisher.
There is some wax residue on the black plastic door handles. Will back to black or another basic cleaner take this off?

You could try whatever you might have on hand, an All Purpose Cleaner on a Towel, and might remove such if not too bad. Something like Back to Black might remove, and then again might only hide the residues?

And yep, there are specific products made for such and sold here. I know Griots Garage makes one, and there are others if I recall.

If you have difficulty navigating through the vast myriad of products here, when in the Store Section of AutoGeek, there's a search engine where you can search for any specific products.

Let's say you're looking for nice small Foam Hand Applicators for applying waxes-sealants. The search will bring up numerous examples of such, and will show quantities and prices also. Helped me once when I was looking for such items.

The Thinpro Pads aggressiveness scale is exactly the same(Orange-White-Blue-Black-etc) as their standard Flat Pads. Just a thinner Pad is all, and being thinner definitely helps with the PC Machine

[Desertnate]

Actually, I use orange pad on toyota paint all the time. I think the trick is to not overwork it and use a good leveling liquid.

with menzerna 400 and Meguires MF Cutting pads ( not the HEAVY ones ) i make wonders! but then i have to use my yellow rupes pad and yellow KERAMIK compound to polish it to perfection and get rid of some micro marring caused from MF pad

Have either of you tried working with a less aggressive pad/polish on a Toyota? Not trying to be argumentative, just curious.

The only time I've ever had to use either a compound or an orange pad on Toyota paint was repairing damage on a Tacoma tailgate which was scraped up pretty badly by a garage door. The really soft paint has always corrected out really nicely for me with polishes like Blackfire Polish, or my current weapon of choice, Optimum Hyper Polish on a white pad.

[Belo]

had similar swirls on my black 19 silverado. I know it's probably a different paint, but over the weekend i iron-x'd, clayed and then just a simple hdspeed with a green pad. Used some meg's ultimate compound on a few scratches, but the hdspeed handled all the swirls marvelously.

I'd recommend you start with a light polish (if you plan to 2 step), or maybe just an AIO and see if that test spot does enough to meet your needs.

[WillSports3]

Actually I have, it depends on what I'm doing to be honest. My mazda paint is a little bit harder and I use white for just cleaning it up once every two years or so. It's more for paint cleaning than anything else. But with an orange pad and cut and finish, it's a very good one step. Whst I've found is that on most Toyota paint, an orange pad, a long throw DA and cut and finish is all you need. I do about 4 passes per section and done. Now if I use a white pad, the white pad needs more passes I find to work all the cut and finish down. From what I've seen the cut part of cut and finish goes quick with an orange pad.

[TTQ B4U]

I'm working on a 2011 tundra that is in great shape, except that the black paint has swirls. I tried to capture with a camera below. I have a PC 7424, and new orange + white pads. Also have; Meguiars ult.polish, ult compound, Menzerma 400, and HD adapt compound polish. Will any of these help? Any products to recommend for this? Thank you

Toyota and Lexus have pretty easy soft paint to correct. So long as you keep your 7424 spinning it won't be an issue. For what you're showing you won't need a compound. Any good AIO or polish will do the trick. Use light cutting pad a medium polish pad. Green Hexlogic is perfect for an AIO on Toyota paint.