Oh brother... Here he goes again. (Lot's of pics)

SuperBee364

SuperBee364

New member
For those of you thinking, "Oh great, we get a few months break from Supe, and now he's back and posting yet another rant about how wonderful touchless washes are.", you're right! But I just can't help it... bear with me through one more? :)



I've been on a quest to develop the closest thing I can get to the perfect touchless wash. I think I'm getting very close. Take a look at the results and see what you think.



This was the first wash I've given it since I applied the second coat of Vintage last week. I purposely let it go a few days to get it as dirty as possible. It rained/snowed alot the passed few days. In the following "before" pictures, the crap you see on the paint is a mixture of brake dust, water spots, road grime, road salt and sand. Mostly brake dust and water spots.



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I think most of us can agree that in order to get this completely clean, some sort of wash media would be needed. At least, IME it would be. Until now. :)



Process was:



2 Coats of Vintage LSP. Latest coat applied about four days ago. Edit: The wheels don't have any LSP on them at all. Going to put UPGP on them tonight.



High pressure rinse



Wheels pre-sprayed with P21S wheel cleaner



2 oz of Z7, 1 oz of CG's CW&G, 29 oz of water in the foam cannon. Very thick layer of foam was then applied and left to dwell for about three minutes.



High pressure rinse.



Spot free rinse using a Mr. Clean spot free rinse cartridge



Blow dry with leaf blower.



Tires were treated with Z16. This was *really* hard to do without touching them. ;) OK, I did use a tire swipe for this part.



The only parts that had any wash media touch it were the wheels. There was just too much brake dust sticking to them for the touchless method to work. I'm going to seal them with UPGP and see if that helps. I ended up having to ONR the wheels after the whole wash was done due to the yucky brake dust.



Anyway, you'll notice in the afters that the car is completely clean. No water spots, no road grime, nada. It's as clean as if it had been washed with a mitt. I think that 99% of this is due to the LSP; Vintage lets go of whatever is on it very easily. The only sealant I've used that displays a similar ability is UPGP. It's not quite as good, but it is still very cleanable using touchless washes. The other 1% is the soap combination. Zaino/CW&G just *cleans*.



Check out the "after" shot of the back end. The black vinyl sticker on the trunk didn't fare very well. It's still dirty and water spotted. (Edit: Bold added for the preceding sentence. The stickers aren't up to a touch free process.... yet). There's no vintage on it to protect it. QD's make the flat matte finish of the stickers too shiny, so I'm going to ONR them tonight.



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My wife's truck was recently in an accident. I'm waiting another couple of weeks to polish it. I'm going to repeat this test using Zaino on her truck once the new paint is cured enough to be polished/sealed.
 
Not bad. Doesn't show at all on the blue but the black trim is going to need something from the looks of it.
 
Nice, glad you found a process that works for you. I've found I can get a decent amount of touchless cleaning using my Gilmour but not anything close to what you are getting with a pressure washer.



Also, I look forward to your Zaino tests. I would be very interested in a clean rinsing LSP that's a little cheaper.
 
Excellent stuff superbee.

The one thing with wax over sealant is that it absorbs rain drops/dried up water spots so they come off very easily with just foam gun.



Trouble is you can't use wax in parts of my country cause it melts in days. Darwin is the worst with tropical storms in wet season and 30 to 40 C weather day after day for 365 days.

Outback SA it can get to 50 C in summer
 
SVR said:
Excellent stuff superbee.

The one thing with wax over sealant is that it absorbs rain drops/dried up water spots so they come off very easily with just foam gun.



Trouble is you can't use wax in parts of my country cause it melts in days. Darwin is the worst with tropical storms in wet season and 30 to 40 C weather day after day for 365 days.

Outback SA it can get to 50 C in summer
Click to expand...



Oh, I'd never use a wax over a sealant, or vice versa. Never been one to "top" LSP's with something else. The wheels don't have anything on them at all right now, so the UPGP will not be topping Vintage. :) Edit: Although now that I've re-read your post, maybe I should give that a shot sometime.



That is some serious heat! Hope it cools down for ya soon... should be, right?
 
I'm still not quite sure, Setec... I soaked it in some phosphoric acid based cleaner for a couple hours, rinsed it out, and now it seems to be working pretty well again. Might have just been hard water scale?



I'm still planning on taking it apart.
 
I would be interested to see what happens after a few weeks of these touchless washes, when you take a clean white MF/Cotton App and some AIO to see if the app stays clean.
 
When the car no longer cleans well using this process (which I've been doing for quite a while -well, variations, at least-, just haven't taken pictures and done a thorough write-up), I'll start washing it with a BHB until I get a chance to put on another coat of wax, or an interim touch-up with Field Glaze.
 
Denzil said:
So no water spotting at all on the paint itself? Looks impressive...
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The spot free Mr. Clean cartridge works really well. I had previously used a dual cartridge water softening system, but it's just an ion exchange... exchanging calcium ions for sodium ions. It pretty much left salt stains on the paint and started corroding my pressure washer gun. The Mr. Clean cartridge is a true de-ionizing water filter. It removes the calcium instead of exchanging it for sodium. They are kind of expensive, though. The label says they're good for about ten washes. I get about five out of them.



Blasting off the spot free water with the leaf blower gives the finish shown. I imagine when it gets hot, it's going to be tough to do this part fast enough.



I had been using a waffle weave to dry, but wanted to go totally touchless.
 
I just looked at their website, Setec. Wow, great stuff. Yeah, I really need to get one of those... Or a real RO system.



Entire wash could be with de-ionized water... Setec, you are a bad influence, you realize this, right? :)
 
SuperBee364 said:
I just looked at their website, Setc. Wow, great stuff. Yeah, I really need to get one of those... Or a real RO system.



Entire wash could be with de-ionized water... Setec, you are a bad influence, you realize this, right? :)
Click to expand...



I actually have been running a hose from my inside soft water and just using that instead of the CR. One of these weekends I'm going to get my *** in gear and replumb inside so I can get the soft water at my outside faucet.



And yes, you're not the first one tonight to suggest I'm a bad influence.
 
I think I might have found a solution to the Mr. Clean problem. Here's a pic of my dual cartridge water softening filters...



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They are traditional water-softening filters; they exchange calcium ions for sodium ions. So the water ends up coming out salty, leaving salt marks on the paint. These filters are rechargeable by soaking in a water/salt rock solution.



The FC006 filters on this page... Filter Cartridge Menu will directly replace the water softening filters, and produce genuine de-ionized water. I won't have a TDS gauge on it like the CR system, though, but this is a much cheaper solution. These cartridges are not rechargeable using salt, since it's not an ion exchange filter. But at 27 bucks per filter, they are much cheaper than the CR system or the Mr. Clean cartridges.
 
SuperBee364- I follow your washing experiments with interest, thanks for posting this.



That Vintage sure does seem to shed the dirt!



I just got a CRSpotless (along with revamping my water conditioning) but I haven't unpacked it yet; I plan to use it for just the rinal rinse. I dunno if RO would be feasible, those systems a) work so slowly and b) "waste" so much water that I just don't see it for anything besides our drinking water (for which it's great).



Interesting that your softening system leaves salt residue, my (new) softeners do *not* do that (even thought the water seems super-soft; it tests to 0 TDS). My "water guy" says that if they're working right it won't happen..but that's a regular water softener as opposed to the filter-style and they might be completely different :think:



Maybe you need to flush them out more after the salt-water soak, to rinse out all the residual salt :nixweiss



Heh heh, I've been learning more than I ever wanted to know about my water and its conditioning...been testing it, having it pro-analyzed, etc. Seems like I'm finally getting things sorted out but I've also been spending a lot of time/money on it. Heh heh, the dogs are so used to my plumbing contractor showing up every Tuesday that I think they miss him this week (we're waiting on still *more* parts).
 
I'm anxious to hear of your experience with the CRSpotless system, Accumulator. They use the real deal... De-ionizing filters instead of tradtional "softening" filters.



We have some of the hardest water in the nation here in SLC. The harder the water is when it enters an ion-exchange type softener, the saltier it will be when it leaves it... It's a one-to-one exchange. One ion of calcium to one ion of sodium. So water that has less calcium in it to start with has less sodium in it on the other end. Because our water is so very hard, it comes out quite salty.



True de-ionizing filters don't exchange calcium for sodium, it just removes the desolved solids entirely. The advantage is, obviously, that it doesn't come out salty, but the disadvantage is that the cartridges are not rechargeable. Edit: What I mean is you can't "refresh" the cartridges using salt water. You can change out the media, though.



RO systems are, as you mentioned, very inefficient. And unfortunately, they are even more inefficient (more waste water) when you throw really hard water at them. The whole-home system I want to install is about 2800 bucks, so it's going to be a while. :) Until then, the cartridges for the hose will have to be good enough.
 
You may consider the larger system in Salt Lake City with the mineral content you guys have!

In Jersey also we have some high calcium/mineral content. The whole house is on a mineral & scale filter, and the Washing Machine has an additional filter. Even with this system, I would get obvious water spots after a wash. So, I decided to try the CR Spotless Water System and was very happy ... at first ... within just a few washes I was getting particle readings from the system.

Calling into the company, I was told to reduce my water pressure – which I couldn’t understand because there’s a reducer washer in the feed connection that’s awfully small. I tried this and still had contaminants coming through the System.

Strangely enough ... at this time, I was having a lawn sprinkler system being installed, and my installer was intrigued by the ‘Spotless Water System’ and my dilemma of short life filters. He said I also had the highest water pressure he’s ever worked with ... ever!

Calling into CR Spotless Water Systems that same weekend ... by chance, I spoke directly with the owner “Chuck�. After several beta/test procedures with me, we came the conclusion that I needed a bigger system to handle both the pressure and water volume I was getting out of my faucets. Deep inside I really believe Chuck may think I was just trying to upgrade my small system for a large one as he stuck by his small systems abilities – but in the end (and without any attitude), he did allow an upgrade and made good on the extra cartridge exchanges as well. There was talk of him coming out to my house to see my extraordinary pressure (and he’s still invited), but I also know he didn’t discount my problems, and forged my solution. For that I praise him and his company as being true to their advertising and staying solution minded. There really isn’t a better final rinse solution – or – company you could buy it from.

Chuck did a remarkable job exchanging the smaller system for the larger system. He followed up and made sure the replacement system was working well several weeks after the exchange. This made all the difference and I now LOVE using the spotless water system. Read the disclaimers with strong consideration to how and why they’re written. It will help you keep your rinses contaminant free – even from airborne/blown particles.

And yes ... they’re not kidding one bit ... hose the car off in a clean air environment ... come back later and you won’t find one water spot! Awesome!

If you end up talking to “Chuck� ... tell him Gregory from N.J. with the crazy water pressure said hello!

I hope this doesn't get flagged for spam or something ... that's NOT my intent or design.
 
Interesting, Saintlysins, thank you... I really do want to get a CR system soon, but I'm going to have to stick to my thrown together filters for a while. I may end up having to get some sort of cheap TDS meter, though.
 
I completely respect what you've built already "SUPERBEE". Pretty creative to say the least! The additional salt in the exchange is a bit scary though - thankfully you've got the Mr. Clean Machine for final rinse.
 
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