New hood covered in swirl marks and water spots, advice?

M

MasterTomos

New member
I'm new to this forum (but not forums in general), and have always been very anal about keeping my cars clean and looking good. I'm familiar with the basic claybar/wax treatment, but true paint correction is something I've never done, but want to learn how to do. I read a majority of the stickys, so sorry if I missed something obvious.



I recently bought an aftermarket fiberglass hood for my Firebird. The hood was already painted black when I got it. As far as paint chips, deep scratches, ect the hood is in good shape. As far as the paint/clearcoat goes, that's a different story. It appears the prior owner must have "cleaned" this thing over-zealously, probably with a kitchen rag or a sponge or something. The hood is covered in swirl marks and what appears to be hard water spots.



I should also mention that I do not own a buffer, but I plan on getting one. I want to be able to do this correctly.



I will be attaching pictures shortly, any advice is greatly appreciated!
 
The car being discussed, 1995 Pontiac:



Carshot1_zps79a85902.jpg




A shot of the hood w/flash below. You can begin to see what I'm talking about here with the swirl marks everywhere. The hood is dusty (uncovered in the garage for the rest of the iowa winter so please overlook that for the time being-it doesn't go out in snow/salt :() The darker spots are where I touched the hood with my fingers in this picture:



Hoodwflash_zps97cb20b4.jpg




Here are some close ups of swirl marks. Again, the car is dusty, so excuse the majority of the specs and spots. It's mostly dust :( I'm just refering to the swirls:



hoodcloseup4_zpsb2453905.jpg




In this picture if you follow the "rays" coming off of the reflecting light (most drastic at the 11 oclock poisition in this picture), you can kind of see the water spots Im talking about. It was hard to get a decent picture of them.

Hoodcloseup3_zps85aca106.jpg




two more general close-ups:

Hoodcloseup2_zps6fe3f6ca.jpg




Hoodcloseup1_zps3b976062.jpg




Again, any and all advice is appreciated!
 
Looks like a combination of heavy swirls and buffer trails from a rotary buffer. There's many ways to go about this, but for a very beginner friendly and cost effective combo, I'd pick up the HD DA polisher kit here in the store, a bottle of HD Uno, and a few extra pads. That should give you everything you need to get that hood looking right. Do a test spot on the hood with the Uno and a light polishing pad. If that combo doesn't remove all the swirls, step up to the next aggressive pad and so on. Once you find a good combo, do the rest of the hood. Once you get the defects out, use the HD Speed (which is basically part HD Polish and part HD Poxy) that comes with the polisher kit as your final polish/LSP. Or if you want to use a separate LSP, you can use the Uno on a finishing pad to clean up any hazing if needed, then apply your favorite LSP.
 
Sounds good, thanks for the advice. Again, I am completely new to some of this terminology I know LSP stands for Last Step Product, but what would some of you recommend? The car is obviously black, and it is garaged all the time and never sees rain, snow, ect. Also, should I clay bar before all of this?
 
Yeah, it's always a good idea to clay before you polish. LSP's are very much a personal taste thing, but the top 3 for me are Collinite 845, OCW (Optimum Car Wax), and Opti-Seal. Everyone here has their favorites. Or just do your final polish with HD Speed and be set. If the rest of the car is in good shape, I'd take care of the swirls in the hood, then do the hood and the entire car with Speed.
 
Probably going to take something as aggressive as Meguiars 105 and a 5" Meguiars MF cutting pad to make a dent in those swirls.
 
Either way, I am going to start off getting the HD/DA buffer kit because it's something I need. If the Uno doesn't cut it, I may have to move to something more aggressive. I'll obviously re-assess after the initial buffing and see if the results are t my liking.
 
MasterTomos said:
Either way, I am going to start off getting the HD/DA buffer kit because it's something I need. If the Uno doesn't cut it, I may have to move to something more aggressive. I'll obviously re-assess after the initial buffing and see if the results are t my liking.
Click to expand...



Sounds like a plan. FYI, The M105 Scott mentioned is available at most Advance Auto stores if you have one near you, and I think some Walmarts are carrying it as well.
 
MasterTomos- Welcome to Autopia!



For some reason I have the idea that those RamAir hoods were painted separately/differently from the rest of the car :think: :confused: :nixweiss



I could be wrong, but just in case I'd take it a *little* easy in case the paint on the hood is softer/thinner than that on the rest of the car.



But yes indeed, I too expect that's gonna call for M105 on a Microfiber Cutting Disk. Uno can do some good work, but probably won't fix that (at least not via that polisher with that size pad).



I'd wax it with Collinite's 476S, which I greatly prefer on dark colors. Or something "modern" like Poxy.
 
Accumulator said:
MasterTomos- Welcome to Autopia!



For some reason I have the idea that those RamAir hoods were painted separately/differently from the rest of the car :think: :confused: :nixweiss



I could be wrong, but just in case I'd take it a *little* easy in case the paint on the hood is softer/thinner than that on the rest of the car.
Click to expand...



The hoods on a factory WS6 would have been equipped at/by SLP for the LT1 car years (and firehawks for that matter) but this is an aftermarket hood. For that same reason, I plan on "taking it easy" because I have no idea who this hood was painted by. There's no runs in the paint/clear and it appears to be a decent quality job, but you can never be too careful. :)



Also, thanks everyone for the continued discussion/advice!
 
MasterTomos- Ah, thanks for schooling me about the hoods...see, I couldn't even tell that it's an aftermarket one, I'm *so* out-of-date on my F-body knowledge!
 
It's really close to a factory WS6 LT1 hood (ws6 was only available in 1996 and 1997 for LT1 years). However, even a lot of f-body buffs don't know that LT1 WS6 hoods and LT1 firehawk hoods are different (although both equipped by SLP).



The LT1 ws6 (available 96-97) hoods had "sharp" cowls that were more of like a cliff than a slope, and also had fingers around the ram air openings (like my hood pictured above). The LT1 firehawk (available 93-97) had more of a "sloped" cowl and was smooth around the ram air openings. Also, the firehawks had a larger airbox openings underneath, and used a corvette-sized air filter. The WS6's had a smaller air box opening, and a slightly smaller filter compared to the firehawk. Google images them and you'll notice the difference around the nostrils.



My hood is kind of a hybrid between the two. It has the WS6 style fingers around the nostrils, the firehawk style "slope" to the cowl, and a firehawk-sized airbox. :D
 
MasterTomos said:
Either way, I am going to start off getting the HD/DA buffer kit because it's something I need. If the Uno doesn't cut it, I may have to move to something more aggressive. I'll obviously re-assess after the initial buffing and see if the results are t my liking.
Click to expand...



Avoid purchasing UNO for this application!

You need HD CUT.



Both are extremely easy to use, but you'll get much better correction with HD CUT and from the looks of those pics you're definately gonna need it.
 
Scottwax said:
Probably going to take something as aggressive as Meguiars 105 and a 5" Meguiars MF cutting pad to make a dent in those swirls.
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^^This. OP keep us updated on your progress. I'm a F-body fan myself, 89 T/A and a 00' Firehawk here.
 
LilJayV10 said:
^^This. OP keep us updated on your progress. I'm a F-body fan myself, 89 T/A and a 00' Firehawk here.
Click to expand...



Nice, I much prefer the 89-90 body style of the 3rd Gen TA to the 91-92. what color is the hawk?



I will likely order the buffer and supplies in a few weeks. And then we have to wait for the Iowa weather to cooperate so I can get it over to the car wash before I do anything :/ 17 degrees here today...
 
The general method I normally find in situations like this is to just use a swirl remover followed by a pure polish. You could also do the other thing which I like to use and that is Optimum polish and finishing polish. Start with a rotary using the polish and then switch to a Flex DA and finish with the finishing polish. That combo brings out damn nice results
 
DrBuff said:
The general method I normally find in situations like this is to just use a swirl remover followed by a pure polish. You could also do the other thing which I like to use and that is Optimum polish and finishing polish. Start with a rotary using the polish and then switch to a Flex DA and finish with the finishing polish. That combo brings out damn nice results
Click to expand...



For someone with no rotary experience to start on a hook like that?



No.
 
Unless somebody's gonna do a *LOT* of rotary work, I don't see any point in ever touching one. By the time the average person develops good rotary skills they'll have done more polishing than the typical person is gonna perform in three lifetimes. Pros...well, sure, that's different. But for amateurs like myself (i.e., "very serious people who aren't doing this as a profession") IMO there's no longer any need to go rotary. Eh, I haven't used either of my rotaries in years, pretty much not since products like M105 and MF Cutting Disks came out. I could even argue that most folks are better off using (high quality) 3-4K sanding media.



I dunno about finishing via Flex 3401 :think: I never get the final finish I want with mine, just doesn't leave the same gloss as my Cyclos or the GG RO so I finally just quit trying to do my final polishing step with it.
 
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