Detailing A Classic Vespa In Need Of Some Love!! (Vlog 26)

hey guys it's Sandra here in today's video is a step-by-step start to finish detail on this almost 30 year old Italian two-stroke Vespa motor scooter now did actually shoot a walk-around video of the vehicle prior to starting the detail but I couldn't for the life of me find that footage so we'll get started into the detail with this first step of masking some of the scooters water sensitive areas and just before I start taking you through each step of this detail I want to quickly explain the owners goals and my focus with this detailing job now you'll see as I progress that this Vespa has quite a lot of wear and tear surface patina in relation to dents scuffs surface rust and some mismatched painted trims and panels so unlike most of these for detailing vlogs that I do where my main goal is to get the old and weathered paint and trims looking as good as new if not better this just won't be possible with this particular vehicle without some panel beating bodywork and paint but the owner of this Vespa is a bit of a car and bike purist and actually likes the aged look and patina with all the bumps and scuffs in the finish but would also like or the buildup of dirt grease and grime over the last few decades removed as well as the oxidation stains and - swirls in the paint corrected out so that the finish displays some improved gloss and clarity which I'll then be sealing in with a ceramic coating to help maintain its condition in the future with just a little care from the owner and as you can see I'll be displaying some text on screen to show which products I'm using for each step and I'll also have links to them in the description box but as I've stated many times there's a whole bunch of similar products out there that will also do a similar job now being that the wheels are usually the dirtiest area it's always a place I tend to start plus you really don't want standing water sitting and drawing on the vehicle's paint while you clean the wheels as it will lead to water spots an all-purpose cleaner or degreaser tends to work best for cleaning the actual toys themselves with a nice stiff nylon brush while a dedicated wheel cleaner is best for the actual rims themselves I also find it's best to spray them on at the same time and allow the rim cleaner to dwell and start breaking down all that grime while you're scrubbing down the tires you'll also see that I'll rinse the rim clean in a touchless method and then reapply the wheel cleaner before using my brush to manually clean the rim the reason for this is that you can remove a significant amount of the grime off the rims in a completely safe and touchless method so the wing you do use your brush to remove the remaining grime it's a much safer process that won't scratch the wheels and paint anywhere near as much and the exact same process was also used to clean the rear wheel [Music] the next step was a chemical pretreatment with my all-purpose cleaner sprayed onto the entire surface of the scooter what this is going to do is start breaking down and dissolving the dirt grease and grime allowing it to be removed from the vehicle in a much easier way and for the step after that I'm using my toner door air tool with a similar dilution of my all-purpose cleaner to further help lift dislodge and remove that grime in yet another completely safe yet extremely effective touchless manner the tornado air tool blasts a strong spinning beam of highly compressed air with your choice of chemical or even water in the bottle to further remove bonded dirt and grime and since motorbikes or scooters have lots of fine intricate areas it's just such an amazing tool to access those tiny areas that love to gather dirt and grime but the other great benefit as mentioned is that unlike using physical brushes and wash mitts it won't scratch the paint or trims at all the only thing that you should keep an eye on is ensuring that the surface of the vehicle stays wet or it can lead to streaks in the finish but since this scooters paint is already badly stained and etched most likely due to cleaning detergents and chemicals used in the past I'll be able to show you what these stains and look like a little later on when I inspect the paint before the correction process [Music] my next step was apprehend washis no-foam the thing that I wanna further help explain is that these cleaning detergents and chemicals together with the water that contain massively helps soften lift and dissolve surface grime in an extremely safe manner and the longer the vehicle stays wet the easier and safer the grime is to remove but if I was to take my wash bin and brushes and start scrubbing the paint and trims with the up these pre wash stages I'd be inflicting lots of swirls and scratches in the finish especially on a vehicle as dirty as this but once I've removed a large portion of all that dirt and grime in a touchless manner the hand wash and brushing stages become much safer as well as much more effective [Music] however with the touchless and pre-wash steps completed there's just no getting around that a physical step of manually hand washing and brushing out the trims and panel edges is still needed especially on a neglected vehicle such as this with decades of grime buildup but what you'll find during these hand cleaning steps after removing or at least softening that existing grime is that it's a very quick and easy process with the remaining dirt is lifted off the surface with extreme ease [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now every vehicle and its condition is different so it's always important to assess the paint during these steps and let that determine how you proceed so even after all those steps I could still feel some bonded environmental fallout particles on the paint but it was in a consistent uniform film but rather scattered larger particles that in my experience a clay bar would have much better success in removing them rather than further using more chemicals such as iron and tie removers that would have minimal impact in this particular case so using a traditional clay bar and lubricant with just a very minimal pressure I was able to collect and remove those last remaining bonded particles from the paint at which point are then proceeded to give the scooter a final rinse down followed by drying the vehicle with an air blower to also aid in blowing out the trapped water from all those intricate fine areas so just to sum up in this first wash and decontamination stage I want to repeat that you don't have to use by exact process and products but your goal still needs to be the same in that you're looking to remove everything that's sitting on top of the paint and trims in an effective yet safe manner so that you're left with completely clean bare paint and surfaces and the best way to do this on an older neglected vehicle is by removing the layers of dirt and bonded grime in stages as if you try to remove them all at once you'll just end up causing more damage to the paint and trims and the reason why it's important that a vehicle is completely clean and bare prior to polishing is because any of that existing grime will be picked up by your polishing pads and it'll actually start inflicting damage as you try to correct the paint [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] on to the pre correction and inspection of the paint and trims now with the paint clean bare and dry this is the only way to properly inspect and assess its condition together with a proper defect spotting line and it's also important for me to identify the defects I'm up against as it'll help me determine what my options are and the best way forward so as you can hopefully see there is a blanket of severe swirl marks covering every inch of the paint with quite a lot of water edgings and chemical stains throughout in addition to that the paint has some really heavy oxidation that would lead me to believe that it's a single stage paint but also based on having a closer look I can definitely see at least two different types of paints on this vehicle from what looks to be the original paint on the main chassis of the scooter to some backyard spray painting on the front and rear fenders and lastly the most dramatic and obvious defects are the heavy and deeper scuffs and scratches as well as dense in some surface rust that won't be my focus here as I mentioned earlier [Music] [Music] [Music] now just as important as it is to understand what condition the paint is in which in this case is extremely poor it's also important to understand how much paint you have to work with in general as an automotive detailer I like to see readings above 100 microns which generally gives me some flexibility of the pain or in most cases clear coat these days to work with but in all honesty I'd much prefer readings well above a hundred and fifty microns which makes my job a lot less stressful with far less chance of burning through paint now part from the Vespas headlight housing that looks like a brand new clear coated part to me and maybe a couple of other isolated areas the readings on the paint were extremely low averaging 40 to 60 microns but as low as 20 microns in certain areas and as it's always best to lean on the side of caution the lower readings is what you should base the available amount of paint you have to work with so all in all I have some extremely and severely damaged paints but I don't have enough of it on the vehicle to safely remove these defects which is never a great situation however as I mentioned at the start of this video this Vespas owner isn't looking for anything close to perfection or complete defect removal but rather a nice improvement and although I won't be able to remove the more significant defects hopefully you will see during this paint correction process that I'll still be able to significantly improve the finish of the paint in a safe and respectful manner now the great thing about most vespers or even naked bikes is that unlike most cars which are a real headache and a pain in the butt to remove trims and certain panels it's actually rather quick and easy to remove these trims so that you can clean and polish the surrounding areas much better so to make my life easier and even more so important to be able to clean and correct certain areas to a higher standard I decided to remove quite a few trims and panels to gain better access to these intricate areas [Music] [Music] [Music] now after removing quite a few trims and panels I could see quite a bit more dirt and grime behind those areas so I decided to use my steam cleaner to safely clean those more sensitive areas as you really don't want to be introducing a lot of water or chemicals in those electrical or engine park areas and the great thing about a steam cleaner is that it only leaves behind a very minimal amount of water requires no chemicals and it's high pressure and heat is extremely safe yet extremely effective at breaking down and blasting away grime the only drawback is that it is a rather time-consuming process as you really have to work small areas at a time in order to achieve good results but as you'll hopefully see it was able to remove quite a bit of trapped grease and grime that no other tool I have could do [Music] the final stage before paint correction should always be an IPA or isopropyl alcohol panel wipe down the reason for this is that although the vehicle surface is already stripped down they'll still be remaining chemical and detergent residue as well as some minimal grime from dry blowing and even steam cleaning the surfaces and unlike all those other chemicals and products that leave their own residue behind cleaning alcohol is mostly self evaporating and it leaves no residue of its own behind that can interfere with the next polishing stage [Music] now although I've already removed much of these vespers trends there's still quite a few remaining plastics and rubbers that need to be masked to protect their finish during the paint correction stage a masking also protects my polishing pads from picking up unwanted residue from all those trims as well so although you can see that there is quite a bit of prep work involved before we actually get to polishing the paint I wanted to explain that it's extremely important that you do this work correctly or you will pay for it later on [Music] Oh God [Music] my starting point for the pain correction is always performing test sections to discover which combination of pad polish and technique is going to render the best results for each specific vehicle and its unique paint and defects now with the knowledge that I have very little pain to work with and I'm not chasing perfection as it's just not possible given the circumstance my only real option here is using finer polishes and pads with relatively light or gentle polishing techniques to remove - Wells oxidation and stains in the paint while improving gloss and clarity levels and as I'm working on a smaller vehicle such as this Vespa I'll also be using smaller three inch two inch one inch and even half inch pads which are also far less aggressive than larger pads and machines after completing this first test section with the Ripper's yellow foam polishing pad an NV finesse polish I can also confirm that it is a single stage paint with the blue color paint transfer on my part I'll be blowing up my pads with compressed air after each section to remove as much residue as possible and I'll also be performing an IPA wipe before inspecting my test area now overall this first test section has performed fairly well removing almost all the lightest wells UV oxidation and chemical stains while still greatly improving the gloss saturation and clarity in the finish now it's by no means perfect as there still are deeper scratches and edgings remaining in the finish as well as a bit of haze but all in all as a light non aggressive and safe combination it's actually quite good however that doesn't mean that a potentially better combination doesn't exist and in all honesty being that the paint is so dangerously thin I'm really looking for a single-stage combination to minimise the amount of paint correction - as little as possible so for a second Test section I tried the rubezh chemic polish on the same yellow foam pad and also in relation to technique I'm using just minimal pressure and working smaller sections with quicker arm movements as apart from the paint being thin I can also tell that it is a soft and sensitive paint that needs a more gentle approach now although it may be difficult to clearly see in this second combination as the results are quite close it didn't perhaps remove quite as much of the defects as the first one but it did seem to finish with a touch more gloss and clarity which is really my main focus here for a third Test section I switched it to a super fine polish in the form of show concepts s40 on the same yellow pad now one thing I've noticed about using these super fine polishes is that it's always a hit or miss situation where they either work amazingly or tend to be rather bad whereas with most standard fine polishes there tend to be a lot more consistent in achieving good results and in this particular case s40 was a bit of a mess as it not only removed less of the existing defects but it also finished with a little more haze in the finish in the previous two sections for a fourth and final Test section I went back to NV finesse polish but this time tried it on the show mate red foam finishing pad which tends to have a little less cut than the rippers yellow pad but also tends to have a slightly better finish in this particular case however I really didn't achieve a better finish in the first section with the rippers pad and the defect removal was also a step down so looking back at all four test sections the one that stood out as the best was the second one using the yellow rippers pad with the reverse chemic polish and although it wasn't what I'd consider to be a high end result or finish it was still a vast improvement over the original condition of this paint now as I mentioned earlier the fenders of this Fest bar had been badly spray-painted and we're definitely not original paint so to make sure that my combination of polishing pad would also work well on these panels I did another quick test section now there's not much I can do about the horrible paint job or ridiculous amounts of orange peel as the paint is paper-thin but with all that said I was still able to make a noticeable difference and the same combination seemed to work quite well removing most of the haze and oxidation while still restoring a decent amount of gloss and clarity so with my combination of pad and polish worked out as well as my understanding that this is an extremely soft thin and sensitive pane that requires a gentle technique a set of polishing the rest of this Vespa now I've tried to include quite a few different shots of paint correction in quite a few different areas of the vehicle also including a number of 50/50 before and after shots so that you guys can see the progress I was able to achieve I'll let the footage run for a while as it's mostly self explanatory but I'll pick it up again shortly to further explain a few more things [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] now the paint in between the Vespas rubber footrests was extremely difficult to access and polish without removing them which I wasn't about to do so I ended up using my shine mate mini rotary polisher attachment with a half inch pad that perfectly fit in those tight areas now these foot well areas were one of the most scratched up areas on the scooter so I was by no means of trying to get a perfect finish but rather just remove that thick haze that was filled with those lighter scratches to restore some more gloss in those areas and although I wasn't able to remove the deeper scratches in those foot wells I was able to create a little shine that would help improve the overall finish in the end [Music] I see tracks [Music] [Music] [Music] now although this particular Vespa didn't have a lot of chrome or polished metal parts are still able to polish a few of the metal parts such as the kickstart lever is in-car probe metallic polish on a microfiber pad that I have to say worked extremely quick and easy for some additional gloss on those parts [Music] now the two rear fenders on this vest bar are actually two of the largest panels on the scooter and as such I used my slightly larger three inch mini polisher to correct them now just like the front fender they did have a shockingly bad spray-can paint job but once again you'll hopefully see that it was still able to give them a little more pop with some extra gloss and clarity [Music] [Music] now as I mentioned earlier the only clear cutter panel on this Vespa was the front headlight housing trim which was also the only area with a decent pane thickness so as such I was actually able to get the finished near-perfect using a two-stage process now with only a few more panels left in the correction process or just let the footage run and I'll pick it up again with this Vespa in the paint protection Bay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now just before we get to coding the pain I'll start by protecting encoding the Vespas safe for this amazing car pro c quartz leather which is a fantastic coating for leather vinyl and just about any interior surface of a car and just like almost every other coating out on the market its application is identical by applying it to a micro suede cloth spreading it into the area and then applying it in overlapping horizontal and vertical lines however depending on the surface that you apply to such as this seat it can actually self level on its own with a nice uniform finish so there's no need to wipe it down as you would on paint the only reason we wipe all level down coatings is to remove streaks or high spots in the finish so if there are no streaks and high spots there's no need to level it down and it's also best to do at least two if not three layers of c-course leather usually applying additional layers about an hour or so later depending on the temperature for protecting the paint the ceramic coating news that was shown supplied bed lock now once again the application is relatively the same for bed lock compared to most other coatings though it comes with its own more unique foam microfiber applicator but apart from that it's much the same in that you want to work relatively small areas at a time spreading the coating throughout them and then ensuring that you run the applicator over each area several times so that you have a nice uniform coverage of the coating now in most cases I found that bed lock takes a few minutes to flash and Bob to the pain before you need to wipe or level it down with your cloths but as it was an extremely hot summer's day when I applied it it was flashing rather quickly within a minute so my case an environment after spending a minute or so applying it I almost immediately began wiping it down with my first cloth together the majority of the excess coating followed by my second cloth to finish streak-free and I'll also add that after applying bed lock to a couple of cars now it's actually a soup easy and not in the least intimidating coding to work with with an extremely easy wipe off and quite a forgiving user experience with a lot of latitude in its wipe off time so it's not like you have to be spot-on with your flash and wipe off times but beyond that it's a really fantastic looking coating that does fill in minor haze and swirls which for this particular job I was really thankful for and it also adds a nice amount of saturation darkening and boosting gloss levels and for working on softer and more sensitive paints such as this one that you can quite easily scratch during the coating stage the seamless wipe off of this coating even in extreme heat makes it a great option to have the only real drawback that I can see at this stage is that it is quite expensive costing almost twice as much as most other consumer based coatings at least here in Australia now as I finish up coating the vespa I'll just wrap up this video with my thoughts on this whole process now in truth actually wasn't going to do a video on this detail as I knew after inspecting the scooter seeing its poor paint job and measuring it's dangerously thin paint that I just wouldn't be able to achieve the sort of quality finish that I'm always working towards but after thinking about it some more I thought it could be a good video to help show that we as Detailers have limitations and we can't always achieve that showroom finish when there's simply not enough paint thickness to work with or if it's a horrible amateur paint job but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done to make the vehicle look its best under those circumstances and ultimately that was my goal here and all the owner was asking for who incidentally was extremely happy with the results and is actually my older brother I've never owned a Vespa before but seeing and hearing that little two-stroke engine absolutely thumping like a jackhammer down the road on two tiny wheel barrow wheels as he took off in a cloud of smoke put a smile on my face and maybe understand the appeal of these little Italian scooters as always I really hope you guys enjoyed and found this video useful share this video like comment and subscribe to this channel to show you support for this content and I'll see you guys soon [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] no there's no maybe that's my bingo what would it be like if your way [Music] keep playing [Music] I remember we used to sound like a finely tuned guitar flip this table try and get back to the start [Music] [Music]

Channel: Car Craft Auto Detailing

Views: 115,540

Keywords: vespa, care for vespa, two stroke vespa, wash vespa, carpro, meguiars, rupes, paint correction, detail motorcycle, detail scooter

Id: c4xySMQWt0k

Length: 44min 22sec (2662 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 05 2020