Super White Toyota Hilux Edition 40 - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

So this detail was a little different...

I was contacted by the owners wife a few months ago to book the car in for a detail - she wanted to give her husband a gift...[dude, she is a keeper :thumbup: :grin: ] during the conversation she mentioned to me her husband really looked after his car and so I was already looking forward to the detail. I find it extremely satisfying doing the kind of work I do, for people who really appreciate it.

And it isn't always the people driving supercars that appreciate it, as was the case here.... if you love your car, you love your car!

She certainly wasn't wrong either....

This is how it looks after 5 years of not only daily driving, but it is the company workhorse too so is subjected to a lot more abuse than your typical daily ride.







So I met the owner for the first time when he dropped the vehicle off and after a lengthy chat we identified some opportunities for improvement in his current maintenance regime. Simple things that make a big difference like 2 buckets, grit guard inserts, the actual order and motion in which panels are washed, using a quality pre-wash, washing wheels first etc etc....

I took some initial paint readings which revealed THIN paint.... mostly around the 70µ-80µ range.... after checking with a contact at Toyota, the total paint film build on these vehicles is supposed to be 90µ comprised of:

25µ E-coat
35µ Primer
30µ Super White paint

So at best I had 10µ-20µ to work with - definitely not enough to do any serious compounding without risking exposing the primer - there were also a few areas that just looked visually thin - you could see the darkness of the primer showing through.

To make matters worse, I took paint readings in the door shuts and the underside of the bonnet where the paint is generally sprayed a lot thinner, and found more paint in those areas than in some places on the exterior body. The last deciding factor in how I approached this detail was the color - Toyota Super White. With modern base coat / clear coat paint, the color of the car you are polishing does not effect how hard or soft the paint is, because you are only polishing on the clear coat.

But with single stage paint like this, the color itself - actually the pigments used to make the color - do impact on how hard or soft the paint is. In this case, the pigment used to make white paint is Titanium Dioxide - pretty hard stuff.... and so with heavy compounding not an option, I thought about polishing the paint with a finishing polish or even a medium polish.... but with it being so hard, polishing would not make a noticeable difference in the look of the paint, and was certainly not the right thing to do for the paint - thinning out an already thin coat of paint would have been a disservice to the customer.

One can extract a lot of visual improvement to white paint through getting it CLEAN and so I decided to focus on washing and decontaminating, then hitting it with Autoglym SRP, topping that with some Menzerna Powerlock for added protection and sorting out the interior, engine bay and undercarriage....

The first thing to do was to clean the arches, get the horrid solvent based dressing (which had splattered inside the arch and all down the sides, as these dressings generally do) off the tires, and clean the wheels.



Process and products:

-HP rinse arches, tires and wheels.
-Clean arches with APC and Mothers Fenderwell Brush
-HP rinse
-Clean tires with Meguiars All Wheel and Tire Cleaner and a Mothers Tire brush
-HP rinse
-Repeat tire cleaning
-HP rinse
-Wash wheels and brake calipers with VP Bilberry Wheel Cleaner @ 1:6, Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP rinse
-Dry
-Remove tar using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
-Spray with APC and HP Rinse
-Dry
-Remove bonded and embedded ferrous contaminants on wheels and brake calipers with Valet Pro Dragon's Breath Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP Rinse + flood rinse
-Then when foaming the car, I hit the wheels too, and rinsed and dried them along with the car
-Later the tires would be coated with Gyeon Tire and the wheels sealed with Menzerna Powerlock and the arches dressed using Shield Sheen

The wheels themselves were pretty clean already



With a bit of dirt built up in the centre cap logos



I got little to zero bleeding from the iron remover but did find a few spots of tar which were removed.

So once I was finished with the wheels the undercarriage was tackled.

Process and products:

-HP rinse
-Valet Pro Citrus Pre-wash @ 1:8 / MTM Hydro
-Agitated with various brushes
-HP rinse
-Dress with Shield Sheen
-The inside of the tires were also cleaned and dressed

Before



After



Before



After



Then the bed and cover was cleaned

Process and products:

-HP rinse
-Cyclo APC @ 10:1
-Agitated with various brushes
-HP rinse
-Cover protected with Aerospace 303

Before



During



Forgot to take an 'after' pic - sorry.

Then the I tackled the door shuts, inside the fuel flap and the area around the tailgate.





Process and products:

-HP rinse
-Cyclo APC @ 10:1
-Agitated with various brushes
-HP rinse
-Clean/Polish/Protect (AIO) using AF Tripple



Finally time to give the car a wash :grin:

Process and products:

-HP rinse
-Applied Valet Pro Citrus Pre-wash via MTM Hydro and allowed to dwell
-HP rinse
-2BM wash using lambswool wash mitts and Gyeon Bathe
-HP rinse
-Flood Rinse
-Dried using ONR and WW drying towels

Then it was time to decontaminate.

Process and products:

-Tar removed using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover - sprayed on, left to dwell, wiped off with clean MF towel
-Iron removed using Valet Pro Dragon's Breath - sprayed on, left to dwell, agitated, coated in Chemical Guys Maxi Suds II / MT Hydro, to extend dwell time, HP rinse,
-Remaining contamination removed using Meguiars OTC Fine grade clay
-Hp rinsed and dried





I then worked Autoglym SRP over all the paint and go to work polishing all the metal....

There was some paint transfer



But mostly just a lot of scratches...



Process and products:

-Mothers Aluminium Polish / MF applicator
-Mothers Aluminium Polish / Chinchilla MF towel

The SRP was then buffed off and a coat of Menerna Powerlock applied. This was left overnight to cure, and buffed off the following morning as easily as if it had been applied 10 minutes ago - something I love about the product.

The tail lights were then polished using Menzerna PF2500 and were sealed using Menzerna Powerlock

The interior, which was mostly clean, was then tackled







Process and products:

-vacuumed, then the carpets brushed and re-vacuumed.
-cleaned using Cyclo APC @ 1:15 with various brushes and MF towels
-dressed using Auto Finesse Spritz
-leather protected using Collinite 855

Then the door rubbers, window rubbers and exterior plastic trim were cleaned with Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner and then Protected using Aerospace 303.

Then the engine bay was done

Process and products:

-HP rinse loose dirt off
-Clean with APC and various brushes
-Polish painted surfaces using Teroson Heavy Cut XP by hand
-Clean/Polish/Protect (AIO) using AF Tripple
-Plastics dressed with Shield Sheen

I apologise for the lack of after pics - I did not want to pull the vehicle out the garage until the owner arrived, which happened to be a few minutes before I needed to leave and so only managed these quick snaps...

















Total time spent = 32 hours

As always thanks for looking, and any comments or questions are welcome.

:hi:

[OCDetails]

Very nice work! I wish I could get people to let me do this kind of detail work on their cars more often, but most people in my area that use their cars as daily drivers realize that parts like the dif and suspension are going to get dirty the first time it rains, but I do have a couple show cars that I really enjoy going into this kind of detail for. Great job documenting everything you did and writing up your process! Very nice indeed!

[campngolf]

Nice work. I bet the owner really appreciated your efforts.

[Tato]

Great work on that Hilux! Imagine yourself I did one of those earlier, not only the same car (but it was silver), ALSO it was a Gift from wife to husband's workhorse!, that's something I really enjoyed about your history.

It's nice to be part of those gifts, and you sure did your best (like I tried to do mine) making it a perfect gift.

Thanks for sharing,

Kind Regards from Brazil.

[Sicoupe]

Awesome job Lawrence! You nailed it again

[jamesboyy]

While that Hilux was moderately clean you really brought that truck up from an ten to AG standards....excellent amazing work on that Toyota....keep it up

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Beautiful work on a very cool little Toyota pick up Lawrence. It looks incredible now.

Wish we had those in the states.