Post 627653 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-07-21 21:48:08
Took my spark plug cover, belt cover and fuel rail cover off for a clean today. Used diluted Daisy APC. After sparying it on and leaving it for a few minutes, then agitating with a tooshbrush and rinsing off, I noticed some parts were lifting on the plastic and then I was able to peel a film off the top in parts.
Anyone had this happen before? Is it a standard coating, like a lacquer on the plastic, or do you think someone has sprayed it before? Or maybe it's a coating from some other product applied in the past.
So now it's going to take a bit more elbow grease to scrub all the coating off. Was going to apply Gtechniq C4 to it all but as I can see now the plastics are not of a great standard, I'll just rub some black Plasticare over them instead.
In related news, I stuck my new top engine mount on today (didn't go for a Powerflex bush in the end) and now it sticks out like a sore thumb as it's a bit of sparkly silver amongst a sea of oily old tarnished metal :rolleyes: Not sure whether to wipe some dirt and grease on it or soldier on and try getting the engine looking a bit more presentable (now where did I leave that pot of silver Hammerite?).
Post 627677 by graemewelch on 2013-07-21 22:03:48
my engine bay was the same. prob engine lacquer. i hate the stuff but garages use the stuff to tart up the engine bay
Post 627717 by AndysR on 2013-07-21 22:50:50
Volvo applied a protective product to the engine during manufacture which dulls and looks more like a varnish with age, it's probably that ;)
Post 627726 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-07-21 23:17:11
I wonder if that's the same stuff that has yellowed on the cylinder head. I was trying to clean the congealed oil off around the top of the cylinder head and there are areas that are gold as if severely oil stained, and won't clean off. Perhaps it's more of this stuff that has discoloured.
Post 627735 by Tomcat on 2013-07-21 23:51:09
Is there an easy way of getting it off Andy?, besides scraping it I mean?
Post 627868 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-07-22 13:10:44
On the alloy parts, I went at it with both diluted APC (which is fairly harsh) and GUNK, using both a tooth brush and the scouring side of a kitchen sponge, and it didn't want to know. If I find something that works I'll update this. Will probably try some Autosol next, first with the toothbrush and then with a dremel. Maybe some wire wool too.
For the plastic I'm going use more APC and try IPA too. Gotta be careful with those and not use anything too abrasive for the scrubbing as don't want to put any more scratches in the textured finish.
Post 627929 by ROZER on 2013-07-22 18:14:28
I have just done mine had to rub down engine cam cover with 800 paper lots of rubbing , inlet manifold next going for a very high shine.[ATTACH=CONFIG]22042[/ATTACH]
Post 628007 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-07-22 21:33:52
That looks really nice. I like how you've partially reversed the colour scheme. Did you use a specific plastic paint and lacquer for the covers?
Post 628048 by ROZER on 2013-07-22 22:33:20
I used Halfords own plastic primer 2 coats then rover gunmetal metallic 3 coats , then u-pol clear coat power can 2 coats ,to finish simoniz clear lacquer this stuff really gives a fantastic shine . I like the colour that much of my engine covers that I fully refurbished my 18 inch pegs with this rover gunmetal .[ATTACH=CONFIG]22043[/ATTACH] was taken from my Samsung phone they look the tits up close .
Post 628054 by AndysR on 2013-07-22 22:44:11
[QUOTE=Tomcat;627735]Is there an easy way of getting it off Andy?, besides scraping it I mean?[/QUOTE]
I had mixed results with Autosol metal polish and elbow grease on the majority of the rocker cover and inlet manifold... Not tried anything on the plastics tbh..
Post 628088 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-07-23 01:27:45
I'm only going to try the Autosol as I have it lying around, so no loss apart from my own time if it doesn't work well. Will just be a case of trying to tidy it up with what I have lying around. The old adage of "you can't polish a turd" rings true here. I shant be spending hours trying to make this thing gleaming whilst it still resides in a p!ss yellow estate body, and shall settle for it just looking a little cleaner and well cared for.
Incidentally, it's actually not true about not being able to polish a turd. You can actually mould poo in to a ball and then through a very slow and laborious task of rolling it between your hands you can gradually polish it up like marble. True fact. I must hasten to add that I didn't learn this from 1st hand experience.
Post 628089 by Tomcat on 2013-07-23 01:34:31
Ya know thinking back to this I'm sure I found something that worked...Just cant remember what it was. I have an idea so I'll try it in the morning and get back to you all, I think it was something that helped disolve the laquer and then it just wiped off... Oh and I friggin hate the stuff, nothing worse than that nasty yellow stuff all over the place, it should be banned.
Post 634304 by Gold 'N' Brown on 2013-08-10 20:50:52
Got back on to the plastics over the last couple of days. Wasted a bunch of time at the beginning scrubbing away with an old toothbrush and diluted APC, thinking it was taking the lacquer off, but realising once dry it had done smeg all.
So then I soaked the plastics in white spirit and rubbed them with a used sponge scourer. This was much more effective. Got just about all the lacquer off, but the white spirit strips the colour from the plastic and leaves it very faded. This didn't concern me as I was going to restore it anyway. I had a choice of Black Plasticare dye or Gtecnic C4. The plasticare was locked away and the C4 was new and I was itching to try it, so no contest really.
Here's a before and after. The before is when the plastic had been stripped with white spirit, and the after is one very sparing coat of C4 (to do this took all of 3 teeny tiny drips on a cotton pad). The only other step in between was cleaning with IPA before applying the C4.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]22181[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]22182[/ATTACH]