Clay All The Way
 

OH YEAH BABY!!

well i just got to share the news. my little 72 350sl has been abused for 2 winters now.

i bought it 11/01 drove it up to indiana from so fla and parked it in the drive. it had a fresh pro paint job that year. i left it there all winter. didn't do anything to it till 11/02 and i half heartedly polished it. i went all the way bought a variable speed polisher the one like a angle grinder. went to the local automotive paint supply bought all the foam pads, green tape, liquid polish you name it i bought it.

well the grinder was heavy and beat me up pretty bad holding it out at arms length. so after about 3 hours of work i had accomplished to get a somewhat decent shine but i could feel the little rough grit still in the paint.

so you'll know i live in nw indiana with all the steel mills and oxide mfgs and we get a pretty good amount of fall out.

after that polish attempt i finally got the garage cleaned out so we parked her in the garage. well that lasted only little over a month. had to do some work on the tractor/snow thrower. so out comes the 350. well it sat again during the snow and freezing tempts. so it has seen 2 indiana winters.

today i went out about 5pm (it's now 7pm) and i put the clay to it. now i couldn't find mequirers, didn't want to use mothers so i went with what the paint people used. it's called hi temp and i used mequires #34 as a lubricant.

the paint was terribly gritty and i think that was my problem when i attempted to polish her last year. just took too much effort to get the paint smooth and actually it never did get smooooth. slide a towel and it was like it had rubber skid pads. it just stopped.

well i washed the car and chamois dried it. then did the clay. i am here to say that clay is the way to get a smooooooth finish. no effort, no fuss even my wife was impressed.

if there is any doubt about clay just give it a try. it is like nite and day. now i know the polish will be much easier cause there is nothing really to drag down the application.

if i haven't said it before "man i love this forum".

All the way with clay
 

Craig, that's a mighty fine looking 350 you have there, bravo on a job well done. You have just reinforced everything good that I have heard about "clay", and I am just waiting for a decently warm day (above 50F) up here in the Great White North to try it out on my new baby, an '85380SL. I am curious though about why you didn't want to use Mothers, as that is what I had intended to get, Meguiar's being hard to find here as well.

ps you might want to send this over to the "Detailing" forum, there's lots of good stuff there as well

I agree. I just clayed half of my 300CE tonight, to prepare it for polishing, and the results are really impressive. Moreover, no effort is involved, just spray and gently rub. I used Clay-Magic, which I bought at Autozone.

GregS
'84 300D, 173k
'90 300CE, 162k

well i've been studying on this for some time now and have read several posts. done the website thing etc:

one group of posts was talking negative on the early batch of meguires the white clay. (which btw was the first clay the guy handed me). when i opened it i found white and said no. he asked why so i told him about the forum so he walked me over to this hi temp brand so that's why the hi temp. as for mothers in that post i mentioned there was something said unfavorable about mothers. but in mothers defense i was in advance auto parts and they did not have any lubricant and the 3 gals running the store that afternoon couldn't give me any advice so again i just said no.

what bothers me is that auto zone, advance auto etc: these guys are suppose to be distributors of these products and they have a pitiful stock of these products not to mention they just don't have a clue. not all the people in the stores but enough that it's hard to trust any their opinions.

i am not saying anything against the folks on the floor it is really an indication of the owners/management that they don't give their people the necessary training. but you can understand because we all want a good price so get 'em in get 'em out.

the bottom line here is i just couldn't be more impressed or happy with the outcome.

and one more thing just guess who has the garage tonite... yep the lil red 350. :D :D :D