Detailed the Stang

Well, I spent Easter weekend cleaning up the Mustang, much more so than it ever has been before. Here's everything I did:

Washed the car with Meguiars Deep Crystal Car Wash
Used Turtle Wax Bug and Tar Remover on the front bumper to get most of the bugs off
Clay barred
Put on Meguiars SwirlX with an el-cheapo (yet effective) Coleman DA buffer
Put on Meguiars Deep Crystal Polish with the same buffer
One coat of hand-applied Meguiars Cleaner Wax
One coat of hand-applied Meguiars NXT Tech Wax 2.0
Cleaned the windows inside and out with ArmorAll Auto Glass Cleaner (great stuff)
Two coats of Rain-X applied on all windows
Cleaned interior vinyl with Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer
Put some regular ArmorAll on the mirrors, piece under windshield wipers, and pieces over the tail lights
Cleaned up tail pipes and spots on rims with Blue Magic Liquid Metal Polish (also great stuff)
Cleaned door jams and area under trunk lid
Cleaned up headlights with the same Meguiars polish I used on the paint
Shined the tires with ArmorAll Tire Foam


All I can say is wow. The car is by far the cleanest and best looking it has been since I bought it almost 4 years and 40,000 miles ago. I took a lot of pictures, but for whatever reason, most of them didn't come out very good, but here are some of the better ones.

Clay bar after just the passenger side, even though it was clay barred about 8 months ago.
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One of the rims had something on it, looked like rust, but I know it wasn't because the rims are aluminum; still haven't figured out what it was. Either way, the Blue Magic Metal Polish cleaned it right up, along with some other small miscellaneous spots on the other 3 rims. Left side has been polished (ignore the smudges), right side was before polish.


Cleaned up headlights with Meguiars polish. Worked pretty well. Tons better than they were. I've already had compliments on how much better they look.
Driver side:


Passenger side (ignore the moisture inside the headlight):


Door jams:








Underside of trunk lid:




Also got top of bumper that is usually under the trunk lid, as well as the black pieces over top of the tail lights. They were so nasty, I've never noticed them before. lol.


All of the products I used, in order of use:


Inside:


Hood of car all finished up:


Roof of car all finished up:


Changed the license plate bulbs to LEDs.


Also figured out why my LED bulb dash swap dimmed way down. The radially pointed LEDs on the 5 LED bulb quit working. Moral of the story: don't buy cheap LEDs from Ebay if you want them to last....Not easy to see, but you can see in this picture only the center LED is working.


This past weekend, I had some buddies take some pictures of my car with some really nice cameras and lenses. We are still in the process of going through them and getting rid of the imperfections (cropping, lens flare, etc.), and I'm going to get some more before I post them up, but here's a little teaser picture. Enjoy.

SjStang00 said:

DANNNNGGGG man thats a lot of cleaning supplies! haha. But for real the Stang is lookin good as hell, that mustve take quite a while to do everything! The LED lights look raw.

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Thanks man! It did take quite a bit of time, but I feel it was well worth it. There's almost nothing as fun as people gawking at your car, then almost passing out when I tell them it has 100,000 miles on it. lol.

RedDaemon said:

looks really good!

i think you can skip over the cleaner wax step next time as youve accomplished the same thing through claybar, swirlx and polish in the previous steps? i could be wrong

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Thanks! I was kinda thinking the same thing, and I'm out of Cleaner Wax anyway, so that probably will not get done next time. I'm thinking about ordering some of the Meguiars Mirror Glaze #16 Professional Paste Wax to use next time I go over the car. I've heard SRTHandz talk highly of the stuff, along with others. And it's cheaper than the Tech Wax is (which I'm almost out of also). Still debating. Also heard it's normally pretty hard to get a hold of, so I probably will.

Kilgore Trout said:

Looks great but 303 Aerospace Protectant >>>> Armorall

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I'm glad you said something. I meant to ask if anyone knew of anything better to use than Armorall. It is way too greasy for my liking. The Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer has impressed me, although it has a smell that I don't care very much for. So I'll keep my eye out for that stuff and try it next time.

Kornnut said:

Always fun to clean your car like that. I can hardly wait to do mine this year.

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Definitely. As much work as it is, I still love doing it. Did my granddad's Mach and my grandma's Lightning over the last couple of months too, although not to the extent of my car (they didn't need it). I just really enjoy a nice looking car.

BurningRubber said:

NICE job man, that looks really good.

I have some detailing supplies waiting for a nice, free day. I imagine my clay bar will be DESTROYED after one use, hahaha.

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Yea, I was surprised at how much stuff mine got off. Because I did it only a short while ago, I contemplated not even doing it. Glad I did.

Jagerbeast said:

How long do you think it took to do all that? It def looks like it was worth every second though, that sucker looks brand spankin new

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I'd estimate around 20 hours. And yes, it was worth every minute.

PULMEOVR said:

Looks awesome! The LED licence plate bulbs look so evenly lighted. You've got the nicest LED licence plate set-up yet.

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Yea, they are the 5-LED bulbs, same used in the dash, and they do look really good, even better in person. I left one of the incandescent ones in just for comparison for a short bit; the LED bulb looked blue, while the incandescent bulb looked orange. It really does make the rear of the car look a lot cleaner, especially on the silver. Unfortunately, they are the same POS Ebay bulbs that were in my dash that only last about 3 weeks, and they've been in there for about 2 weeks already, so I'm expecting them to go out any time. I'll be getting some new ones from superbrightleds.com, which everyone says they have no problems with. I didn't know it, but when I changed the license plate bulbs for the LEDs, one of the bulbs were actually burned out. Lucked out on that ordeal. Cops around here would write a ticket for that in a heartbeat.

mazen189 said:

Your car is another one of those cars that ive seen transform on stangnet, and it looks really good.

As far as your LEDs, do u have a write up for how u did your dash n everything? I kinda hate the green coloring they offer in mustangs.

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Yes, the car has come quite a ways since I first got on here, which was actually right at 2 years ago. And to think, I was COMPLETELY stock then....and now I'm running a full bolt-on, PI cammed, FRPP supercharged car making 325 on the wheels.....man, how things evolve. The only thing left that I REALLY want to do is lower it; if I get the co-op that I want to get next spring, a year from right now it will definitely be lowered.

Here's the write up: SN95 LED Gauge Cluster

Only thing is, seems like I remember someone saying it doesn't work on New Edge cars. Don't remember for sure, though.

Edit: just remembered you had a 98 also. Here's the thread with the pictures of my LED gauge cluster. Be sure to scroll down to the second set of pictures; they are better. http://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/807500-latest-things-done-my-car.html Kinda makes me angry at how nice they used to look. I need to order some new bulbs asap.

Moon said:

There's a write up on sn95forums I believe. It's really not too hard to do; it's about the same as putting in white face gauges. I've done it before, and I'd rather put in white face gauges because I like the look better. Send me a PM if you'd like detailed instructions.

I'm going to be detailing my GT in the next few days and had a question- what is involved with clay baring? And how do you go about doing it? I already picked up Turtle Wax's Black Box (my GT is black) for only $14.99. It comes with black pre-wax cleaner and conditioner, deep black carnauba wax, and spray detailer. Is there anything that I'm missing? I've been told that I need a random orbital, but only if I want to finish faster.

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Clay bar is very easy. Detailing How To: Clay Bar Method Basically, use some form of lubricant (usually a mist-on type quick detailer), and just rub the clay bar over the area. You'll feel it working, especially if you've never done it before. When the piece of clay becomes really dirty looking, just knead the clay till it looks better, and continue on. If it doesn't easily knead away, use a new piece of clay.