bollar

Well, all, we had a sunny, cold and windy day here in New Orleans, and I got a chance to complete the job on my SL 500. It lives outside, so I try to stay on top of keeping it neat. I've been anxious to get into the wheel wells and finally got a scissor jack that was low enough (under four inches). The plan was to pull each wheel and clean them front and back and in the meantime scrub and dress the wheel wells.

These pictures are huge. You can see the entire gallery on my site. That might be to your advantage, as you can view thumbnails first. http://www.bollar.org/2003sl500.htm



The car's a year old and I've never taken the wheels off, so they looked pretty rough:



But they did clear up pretty easily. Each wheel took about an hour. Each wheel got a Z7 bath, Z18 clay, Z2 w/ZFX. Tires got Z16. Unless otherwise noted, all products are Zaino.


Wheel wells were scrubbed with a tire brush and Z7. I had lots of leftover Eagle One Wet Tire Shine, so they got a huge dose of that:



And putting it all together:


The car itself was pretty clean, but I gave it a quick Z7, Z6 and freshened the leather with Z10.

StephenK

Job Well Done, what did you use on the exhaust tips?

bollar

LusterLace. It's great stuff. It's strips of cloth impregnated with polish -- you just wrap it around the pipe and pull back & forth. Really easy.

StephenK

Thanks, it looks like it does a great job.

BklynBenz

looking good. i got a few cars up here in ny, if you wanna do some more.

tiggerfink

Now come to memphis and do mine.

By the way, that looks like my car.

blueSL

Great job, pity though that MB dont make the brake calipers look more interesting than they do, especially when so readily visible throught the AMG 5 spokes...

For my exhaust tips, I use a wet brillo pad (fine wire wool, impregnated with soap) and the golden rule is to do it a little and often to keep on top of it, just like brake dust on the alloys.

WIldcat465

Why remove the wheels?

bollar

A couple of reasons. First, since the holes between the spokes are so large, I wanted the back of the wheel to look good. it was tough for me to get past the disc brake to do a good job. Second, I wanted to have the wheel well look cleaner (more black than gray/brown). Again, the clearance is tight, so removing the wheel made it easy to do the job right.

CclassRun

Do your neighbors wonder why the crazy man across the street spends so much time cleaning his car like mine do? BTW NICE CAR

bollar

Thanks!

Yeah, the neighbors are pretty sure I'm psychotic -- especially when I'm washing it in the rain.

wblynch

Yep on the neighbors thing. They always have to make some "clever" comment. "Are you cleaning those cars AGAIN?"

The worst one is a church fanatic. He always says something he thinks is witty. -- "Don't you get tired of washing that car?"

Well, one of them is a fisherman so I asked him, "Are you going fishing AGAIN? You just did that last week". Another a golfer...

I asked the church fanatic, "Don't you get tired of going to church?".

Well, they don't say anything anymore (to me) but they still look at me funny.

redduc

It wasn't until I pulled the wheels off that the neighbors decided I was nuts. You can eat off the back of my BBS though so screw um'

ano0oj

holy...the car looks really good. So in the end, how long did the whole thing take you?

bollar

Thanks!

The initial detail on the car took six hours or so, the wheels and wheel wells another four hours. Upkeep interior and exterior is 90 minutes.

JM19

When you went to remove the wheels, did you use jackstands in addition to the scissor jack for extra support? Or did you simply let the car rest on the scissor jack while you were cleaning?

deuce zer0

hey tigger,

do you ever go to any grizzlies games?

bollar

I just let the car rest on the jacks. Since I wasn't getting under the car, I didn't think it necessary.