HiGB9 wrote:Thread revival - Lawrence, I bought the Meguiars All Metal Polish a while back and attempted to clean my exhaust tips with it yesterday. I used a micro fibre cloth to apply the polish and "clean" the exhausts, but the inner 2 exhausts did not come out close to what I had hoped. Would you recommend the use of #0000 grade steel wool to try and get a deeper clean? Furthermore, can you recommend a cleaning agent to use before using the Megs metal polish, or is the polish sufficient?
Often what I find is that people don't stay on top of maintaining the tips from the get go making it more complicated to then try and restore them, and sometimes, impossible to do so.
The steel wool can work but I am always a little nervous of those fine strands of wire blowing onto paint, so use caution - stay out of a windy environment. Also I like to 'wet' the steel wool with metal polish - I just feel it acts as a bit of lubrication between the steel wool and the metal surface, and limits dry strands blowing around.
Don't dive in scrubbing like a mofo - do a few light passes, inspect, repeat.
Typically I will try and wash away loose dirt on the exhaust with some APC and a soft brush when cleaning the car and the use the exhaust polish and protect as needed.
If the tips are really bad I suppose you could, after the initial APC clean, try some iron remover to help break down the buildup, but you need to be really careful if you try this, and it is at your own risk - I would imagine it won't play nice with all types of exhausts (think those blue tipped ones, and maybe certain types of metals? - there are documented cases of it staining some bare metals).
But your safest bet is probably just to clean with APC @ around 1:5 (depending on the APC, maybe even 1:3 or 1:1 again depending on the APC) and then to use steel wool gently.
Also remember that as far as actual metal polishes go, Megs (and almost all 'commercial' stuff) is relatively mild. Menzerna makes a more aggressive one (comes in a tube and is available at some Midas branches) but even that isn't too heavy. Companies specialising in metal polishing would have better suited options for exhaust tips that are really bad, but I've never really explored that side of it in too much detail.
Shout if there is anything else I can help with