Tire Challenge

[wizardofahs]

Well i had a little break between classes today, and i wanted to do something nice for my mom since she is letting me use her explorer while mine is at the body shop. She takes it up skiing often, and the tires were gross...



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t1a.jpg



I washed them with dawn using a twice demoted wash mitt, and then went over them with some EF black opal tire gel (used one of those low profile applicators to get all the cracks). Here`s the results:



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t1b.jpg



Big improvment, not sure how it will last but we`ll see. Some parts aren`t quite as good as i want, so i`ll probably go back tomorrow and use some bigger applicators to try and get a smoother finish.



Also here is a pic i just snapped from outside the front of my house, kind of shows all people on flat ground what your missing. (Yes it`s january and there should be snow all over but it`s a wierd year in Colorado, today there was just a LOT of wind)



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/mtn.jpg



I also have some other pics which i`ll post up later of the other tires, for now i gotta run to class...

(sorry the quality isn`t the best on the pics)

[Redcar GUY]

looks good! Now all you need to do is the rest of that blue oval :)



:xyxthumbs

[BoxsterCharlie]

Clearly you washed the rims as well. That`s seriously impairing my ability to judge the before/after pictures of the tires objectively!



;)

[wizardofahs]

Yea, you can see the rims were pretty dirty. It`s not quite as perfect as i`d like, but i was kind of crunched for time (things always take longer than you want). Tomorrow i have fewer classes so i think in the afternoon i`m going to take a 2nd look and see if i can`t improve it any more. The rubber on the tires seems to have some areas where it is a little beaten by the sun or something. The gel i used on them didn`t quite absorb as well into some areas as it did others. I let the tires dry after washing, but i think there might of been some water under the surface or something that could of impacted it. I`ll try and get some better pics tomorrow.



One really nice thing about that EFBO gel that you can see, is that the white stayed white. Some of the other stuff i`ve used would cover over the white with black, which you`d then have to clean off to get the white back. I guess it is a clear gel though so that makes sense.

[wizardofahs]

Here`s some better pics...



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t2a.jpg



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t2.jpg





http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t3a.jpg



http://www.mines.edu/students/p/pfchrist/t3.jpg



I got the rest if anyone is interested. It looks like the gel will hold up very well as time goes on. Up close you can definatly see spots that are darker than others, adding a little more gel and going over the lighter spots didnt` necessarily make a difference, i`m wondering if its just the tires. There is a darker band on the inside and i was just eating lunch and saw a truck with similiar tires that had a darker band on the inside and a brown band on the outer part... i`ll have to run some tests.

[captkirk2]

Nice Job! The band you see is common on raised white wall tires and is part of the manufacturing process.