Toyota Tacoma Exterior/Interior/ENGINE!

**Wills.WindowsAndWheels** · 05-28-2011, 01:39 PM

Whats up everyone. One of our clients who had us do her accura TL a couple months back Pearl Accura TL Single Pass..Pics gave us a call and asked if we could do her husbands pick-up as well...OF COURSE we could!

We went and bid it out for them...exterior was a little rough...some paint transfer and LOTS of lighter swirls/haze all over. The bed of the truck was pretty dry looking. The interior had the usual Arizona dusted look going on...gray cloth seats that looked tan. The ENGINE...however...the engine was special....Ive done a few bad engines....including my first one that had gone through a radiator going out, water pump leak, tranny leak, oil leak, power steering pump leak...and they leaked for quite a while...but even that didn't compare to THIS engine. GREASE galore my people! Anyone whos done engines knows dust, even light grease you can deal with...but when it is THICK...oooooh thats not so fun!

So real quick here is a run down on what we used:

The usual exterior:

Dawn soap wash
Megs. APC 4:1 for tires
Megs Hyperdressing 2:1 to dress tires
Megs Ultimate Protectant on all plastic surfaces
Megs Blue clay with ONR clay lube
Megs D151 on 5.5" LC low profile polishing pad
Megs #20 Sealant (my sis calls it the banana wax cause of its smell..mmmm)
My precious GG polisher
Steam cleaner for engine bay which is this jobs' MVP for sure
Megs Degreaser 4:1....shoulda just used it straight!

The interior:

Steam cleaner AGAIN for seats and basically everything else!
Little Green Extractor
Megs APC+ for carpets
Megs APC for vinyl and seats
Megs Ultimate Protectant

So lets get the pics rollin shall we?

Ill start out first with the engine since it was the first thing we did...and also a huge freakin disaster!

Please note the HOOD...i don't know how you get that much oil on the underside of the hood...but it happened...and it was THICK

Here is a closer look at the bay:

Here I am steaming the hood...if you look closely you can see the left half is already clean....that took a LONGGGGG time..especially to do it without jacking up the paint.

Here is the under of the hood finished:

Drum roll please.....I present to you the engine bay...

I forgot to mention we dressed it with Megs HD 2:1 also

here are a couple more before and afters of it

Can i get a 'damnnnnnnn' ?

There she is

So next lets take a look at the big part of the job...the outside:

So yes, we can all see its dirty.......tires were in bad shape

They turned out good though

Like i said before, the truck bed was very dry and dirty...

Not that it really mattered hahaha....we pressure washed it down and then used a LOT of HD on it to blacken it back up...heres the after:

And of course we have to have sunshots to see what we were working with. Let me tell you i was ALMOST blind after taking these damn pictures...its SO hard to see swirls on light colored paint...and IMPOSSIBLE to see on the camera if the pictures turned out good or not....on top of that my sunglasses make LCD screens look about the same as if i was on an acid trip or something...they turn all funny rainbow colors...so yeah...the pictures took FOREVER BUTTTTTT....they showed the swirls

Here is the hood:

And again

And here is the quarter panel up front:

*grits teeth* yeah we can't have that up in here!

So, we got to work...washed it down...the wheel wells i THOUGHT were black........till i hit them with the pressure washer:

Jumpin' frog feet batman, its gold! I discovered gold!

Came out pretty nice with a little work.
Then came the clay bar...luckily there wasnt a lot of paint overspray on his truck like his wife's car had (thanks to the house painters who sprayed the garage door WITH the car still inside...uncovered)

But we did have a little paint transfer:

But that was nothing a little patience and clay couldn't take care of

So after getting it all prepped and ready it was time for the polishing to begin...brinkman light shot time!

Here is the after shot:

Here is a before shot of the hood:

But that cleaned up real nice

Here is a full shot before hand....help i can't see where I'm going!!!

That was a first...driving a truck with a sheet over the windshield lol...luckily i only have about 15 feet to go. Here is the after:

Here it is from the other side before...

and after....

Andddddd remember those swirls all over the hood?
They got the boot:

**Wills.WindowsAndWheels** · 05-28-2011, 01:39 PM

Carrying on.....

Another pretty Az sunset...

The roof...the roof....the roof is on fire!

The sun was bright....one last final photo of the outside:

Lastly we have the dust riddled interior...

These babies here were SUPPOSE to be gray. But they had themselves a nice Az tan going on

...but sorry it had to go

Here is before

Doesn't look horrible if you didn't know the color it was suppose to be...but here is the after

Seats were just as dirty from the other side (i know you are TOTALLY surprised right?)

But my sis took care of that part as well

Of course the drivers seat was jacked up too....

But it got 'the treatment' also

*sigh*...the floor mats....well..they were special...very special...

But with some oxyclean, APC+...PC with brush attachment and our little green extractor, my sis got them looking good again

Sweet!

Now though the mats took a big beating....they failed to take all the spills for themselves....the carpet itself wanted in on the action too

(in my best Al Pachino - Tony Montana voice) Its ok - its ok!

And of course the full dash area was nice and dusty and dull and just blah....

But she got that baby lookin brand new again too

And she also did a wax on the running rails as well as dressing on the rubber areas to make them look sharp as well

Before:

Here is the After:

And also just because we're just cool like that...we went ahead and gave the headlights a polish too. They really NEEDED a full restoration but the owner didn't want it...but we were still able to clear them up some and put a coat of sealant on them to help them keep from getting all yellow again so quick

Here is before:

And here is the after

Like i said...better...but not as good as we'd like to see them..but hey improvement is still improvement

Here is one last shot of the finished product

So all in all we put in about 7 hours (so 14 total between the 2 of us)...they were happy with it..and might even get his motorcycle next, which would be a first...so we're hoping he gives us a ring about it...would be fun

. The wife of the couple is having us come monthly for a maint. wash....which isn't much money but, i like it when people hire us to maintain all the hard work we put into their vehicle to keep it looking the way it should...

Hope you guys enjoyed the write up...and ive got quite a few more i STILL have to get around to...31 ft RV...dark blue Rav 4 (that one turned out sweet)...and our first black car...well...truck actually...a dodge ram pick-up....here is the catch though...a contractor owned it...yes...let your imagination run wild as to how much dirt, grime and PAINT was on EVERYTHING...and then multiply it by 10...i'll get that one up soon

Thanks guys!

**Elite Pro** · 05-28-2011, 01:50 PM

Awesome work Wills

Excellent job on that engine!!

**ScubaCougr** · 05-28-2011, 01:55 PM

A miracle turn-around. I think he did some off-roading perhaps? Thanks for posting. Lots of lessons for my personal Tacoma.

What kind of steamer do you have? That engine looks sweeeet!

**Finemess** · 05-28-2011, 01:59 PM

Wow! That engine pops now. Super work.

**Sunshyne** · 05-28-2011, 02:05 PM

one of the better engine before/afters I have seen

nice work

**Wills.WindowsAndWheels** · 05-28-2011, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by Elite Pro

Awesome work Wills

Excellent job on that engine!!

Thanks! That engine was a beast but it was well worth it in the end. The owners were even nice enough to leave a pretty decent tip as well..and that was BEFORE we started working...they had just left a check and the keys...its nice when your clients really trust you like that...you can't buy that type of loyalty

Originally Posted by ScubaCougr

A miracle turn-around. I think he did some off-roading perhaps? Thanks for posting. Lots of lessons for my personal Tacoma.

What kind of steamer do you have? That engine looks sweeeet!

Haha yeah maybe so...some off roading in an oil field perhaps? My steamer is the McCulloch steam cleaner McCulloch MC-1275 Heavy-Duty Steam Cleaner Its only a cheap little $100 unit (i got mine for $75 off craigslist) but it works quite well. That job would have been near impossible without it...that grease was just too thick. For some of the deeper areas in the engine bay i did use the pressure washer because my hand couldnt reach down in there...but the nice thing about mostly using the steamer is you dont have to bag up the alternator and air intake and all those other 'dont get me wet or i wont work' pieces lol

Topping it off with the Hyperdressing is a dream...just spray it and let it dry..then wipe off the excess about 5 minutes later...love it!

Originally Posted by Finemess

Wow! That engine pops now. Super work.

Thanks a lot...we try to always get better and better

Originally Posted by Sunshyne

one of the better engine before/afters I have seen

nice work

That is a huge compliment because there has been some great before/after pictures on here...i dont know if this one is one of the best...but it was surely our most difficult one and our biggest turn around without a doubt

**jamores23** · 05-28-2011, 02:54 PM

Great job will as well as a great write up. You make it fun to read

so you just used 151? How'd you like it?

**Wills.WindowsAndWheels** · 05-28-2011, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by jamores23

Great job will as well as a great write up. You make it fun to read

so you just used 151? How'd you like it?

Yup just D151...i think its really good stuff especially since i get a lot of daily drivers who only want a single pass. It gives really good correction and as you can see it finishes up nicely. I do however always top with a sealant...the wax is decent...but doesn't offer the long term protection that I like to leave my customers with...thats why i finish up with #20.

Ive used it on both LC white and orange...white is usually strong enough to give a good 70% correction (though i have gotten better in some cases)...i did have to up to an orange for the hood of a RAV4 that we did....the white was doing pretty good but not cutting some of the deeper swirls...so i had to up the pad.

The funny part is on that Rav4...we went back the next month for a maint. wash...and noticed 1/2 the hood was swirled to hell already! My sis and i were wondering what happened...the rest of the truck looked pretty good...but that 1/2 of the hood looked like crap...well towards the end of the wash the old guy comes out with a magnetized emergency light...(i think you know where I'm going with this)....before i could say anything he comes out and says "yeah look what i found for real cheap the other day" and SLAPS it on the hood and starts dragging it around..."This will really come in handy if i ever get a flat...especially with all these crazy drivers out here"....

I just sort of cringed...told him that would scratch the paint...but he didn't seem to care lol...after he left i looked at my sis and told her "Well...now we know why the swirls came back.."