Hello,
This weekend I spend many hours working on my SL getting it cleaned up and I am not done yet. My non-clearcoat paint was very oxidized and full of years of contaminates and pollution. My leather is old original leather that is starting to crack & tear with renewed use (car was not used much in 1980's and 1990's). For the paint, I bought Meguiar's Deep Crystal products (Wash and 3-step Cleaner/Polish/Wax system). For the leather, I bought Leatherique Rejuvination Oil conditioner and Pristine Clean cleaner.
Prep work: 4 hours
Since this was my first attemt at really addressing the paint issues on my car, I removed as much as possible for two reason. First, to create better access to as much painted surface as possible. Second, to have the parts off the car to clean them. Not only was there road grime, but there was paint overspray from a previous paint job years ago so I wanted to remove it from several chrome/rubber parts. I removed:
- Headlights
- Front bumpers
- Grille surround
- Hood emblem
- Windshield wipers
- Cowl vent
- Door handles
- Hub caps & rings
- Soft top cover
- Chrome off the soft top cover
- Rear bumpers
- Trunk star
- Trunk emblems (230SL and Automatic)
- Trunk handle
I wanted to take off the chrome trim along the bottom of the car (along the sides), but this turned out to be too much trouble because rivits were used in some spots and the screws used in other spots were very rusty.
Paint: 6 hours
- Step 1 is to wash the car. I've done this many times, but it was nice to do it with all these parts removed. The car now had all loose debris washed off.
- Step 2 is to clean the paint. The cleaning product goes on with a terry cloth towel and wipes clean with the same. My car is 124 Arabian Gray, but the respray was a lighter gray than the original color. I got LOTS of gray paint on the towels when using the cleaner. If I knew what I was doing, I would have bought another bottle of this and done it a second time before proceeding. This made an incredible difference, it actually changed the color of the car! I found that the respray job done years ago was not as far off from the original color as I thought. It's different than 124, but the oxidization really made it look much lighter than it should.
- Step 3 is to polish the paint. This step was performed with terry cloth towels and is meant to finish cleaning the paint and start creating a glossy finish. I didn't notice much more gloss being created, maybe a little, but I continued to get more gray on the towels so it was still cleaning the paint.
- Step 4 is to wax the car. This product was a liquid wax in a bottle and was applied with the terry cloth towels. This really made the paint glossy as you would expect. I believe at this step, I was still getting dirt off the paint. This goes to show that you really need to do a good job on the cleaning stage.
I'm very happy with how the paint came out. I don't have any other experiences to compare this with, so I can't say it's any better or worse than other products, but I think it worked well and would have been even better had I cleaned the bad paint twice. I did this all by hand, so an orbital buffer might have improved the results as well.
Leather: 3 hours
- Step 1 is to vacuum and dry-wipe the leather. This removes all loose particals. I took this opprotunity to remove my floor mats and vacuum all around the car.
- Step 2 is to apply the Rejuvinating Oil. They say this works by soaking into the leather to provide nourishment to the fibers thereby making it softer and more plyable. It forces all the dirt and grime out of the leather to the surface. This gets applied by hand, literally. I wore thin rubber gloves and used a couple paper towels to wipe it on to the material. I don't think I used enough because I had 1/2 a bottle left after doing the whole interior of the car. According to the instructions I should have used 1/2 a bottle on the seats alone. After applying this you let the car sit (top & windows up) for many hours, maybe over night if necessary. Mine sat about 5 hours, maybe that's not long enough.
- Step 3 is to use the Pristine Clean cleaner. This cleans all the gunk that comes to the top of the leather. This worked fairly well, getting the dark colors out of the folds of the leather and off the surface. It brightened up the color a little in general. It took a LONG time to use the cleaner because you really have to scrub the leather firmly. I'm not sure if it made the leather softer, time will tell.
I was only somewhat pleased with the Leatherique products, but they had some aspects going against them. First, the leather is in rough shape. Second, I had no experience using any leather conditioner or cleaner. If I had used more Rejuvinator Oil on the seats and elsewhere, and let it set longer, perhaps it would have worked more gunk out of the material and the cleaner would have done a better job. It worked well enough that I'm willing to buy more and give it another try now that I'm experienced.
Finishing the job: Will start this tonight
I now have to clean all my chrome parts and assemble everything. I found some Turtle Wax Chrome Polish in my garage from when I had a motorcycle, so I'm going to be using that. I'm also going to take my headlights apart to clean them on the inside and perhaps replace the reflectors if necessary. When everything is put back together it will look like a whole different car!
If anyone has any questions about this work, I will be happy to explain any details.
Many thanks to Bob Geco for assuring me that I was using the right kind of paint products for my old non-clearcoat paint. He was able to see my car at Joe's tech session and being able to touch and feel the paint allows a much better recommendation on paint care.
Happy cleaning!!
Rodd
1966 230SL Euro
1994 E420
