I've got my R1 spoiler off for a repaint and man was it NASTY under the spoiler. There was a ton of dirt, but worse was the mineral build-up left by years of water drying under there.

Here are some pics detailing how you get that kind of crap off your car without screwing up the paint. The entire process probably took me 15-20 for both sides.

http://community.webshots.com/album/141128816SjBaaH

 

Wow, looks great.

 

How did you buff it out? I tried paint cleaner but that didn't do it. oh, and how bout another group buy on the battery tray thing?

 

If you click on the pics there is a description on how I did it step by step.

If you start a group buy I'll make the battery trays. I need ~30 people to buy in to get the price down, it costs me ~$8/tray if I have them make 20 vs. 40.

 

I'd buy 2 of them, not sure about the other 28 though ...anybody else, anybody?

Where did you get 1400 sand paper? I only found 600 at lowes and 400 at Home Depot.

 

you can get 2000 at auto stores

 

I noticed my VR wing itself is getting a little stained. You have to look close to notice, but it's getting a bit cloudy on top.

I'm not familiar with Finesse-it. Think it'll be a little to harsh for some stubborn oxidation? BTW Jeff, what glaze/polish are you following the Finesse-it with?

 

You can polish that wing for a while but sooner or later you'll need to paint it.

Finesse-it is not harsh at all, I think I'm using Finesse-it II actually.

I have some 3M glaze but I rarely use it, generally I just use plain old Turtle paste wax.

 

Hmm, I think I have a few extra micrometers of extra paint left. The oxidation appeared after a 3-4 day rainstorm. The car was covered outside at the time. There are spots of clean paint that almost seem to be "deeper" than the oxidation, if that makes sense.

I've been using a acyrlic polish (Klasse) with great success on several cars, but I feel it should have a glaze layer between it, and the paint. I follow that with carnuba.

Strange thing is the wing almost seems to be clear coated. I tried a mild body scrub which barely leaves a streak of VR on the rag when polishing the mirrors... but not the wing.

 

Looks good Jeff, but why bother removing it? Now you either have four holes to contend with or you are just putting the wing back on and the buffing was pointless?
So whats the plan?

 

The crud was actually visible with the spoiler mounted. Look closely at the pics and you can see that the crud extended beyond where the spoiler mounts. It is pretty much impossible to get in there and clean around the R1 spoiler. I mentioned that the spoiler is off for paint, I'm not going to have to deal with any holes.

I'm getting the mirrors painted to and the doors have the same issue where the mirrors mounted, crud visible but you can't clean it off with the mirrors in place.

 

Plan on posting before & after's of the repainted parts?

Thanks for pointing out the Finesse It stuff, BTW.

 

Haha - when I was prepping my car for body work, I was amazed how much gunk built up in the fender area, especially inside the fender lip. I was using a brillo pad and Ajax, but still had massive amounts of grime come off with the wash water on the second washing.

 

Great job!! Wish the other "problomatic" FD issues were as easy to solve. Thanks for the write-up.