Gearhead........

Sheesh! I remember when the term "gearhead" meant some guy who was always tinkering around with his car. You know, putting on headers, dinking around with the carburetor, and burning rubber every chance he got to try out the new mods. Now it means:

"a person who is extremely interested and knowledgeable about computers, electronics, technology, and gadgets; also called nerd, geek" according to dictionary.com.

When did THAT happen?

Here I was thinking I was becoming a gearhead because I've been tinkering around with my vette (put on a new air cleaner the other day, and before that put in a Hurst shifter), but now I don't know what I am.

Heck, this car stuff is a real illness. Prior to getting the vette, I washed my Jeep about once every 3 years whether it needed it or not. Birds would build nests in the tire carrier, and last summer some rodents chewed up the wiring under the hood because it hadn't been touched for so long. I could see mouse droppings in the air cleaner, so the Jeep became some sort of local wildlife refuge for some critters.

With the vette, it's a whole different ball game. A friend of mine (who bought a vette a little while before I did (it really wasn't a splurge for him, his wife died from cancer Christmas before last, and he just needed something to try to lift himself out of that black hole he was in) told me that things are different when you own a vette. You HAVE to keep it clean and shiny. You HAVE to detail the wheels. You HAVE to wax the exterior and clean the interior. Birds become terrifying. Dust is your enemy. And rain is to be feared and avoided at all costs.

I thought the guy had lost his mind. But you know what, he was right. When I used to so my thrice yearly washing of the Jeep, I would just hose it down, suds it up, then rinse it off and I was done. But with the vette, OH NO, that isn't good enough. Ever hear of "water spots"? Well I vaguely remember hearing about them, I think in some commercial about dish washing detergent or something. Well, water, when it dries, leaves rings of salts and minerals on the surface. And you know what? They are darn HARD to remove. I never even NOTICED them before, and now I go into a frenzy trying to dry off the surface of the vette before he water dries. I found I am not fast enough. And this isn't even the heat of the summer when the heat will make evaporation so much quicker.

A few weeks ago I was taking a drive and when I went past some guy's yard, his darn sprinkler system squirted a stream of water all down the passenger side, across the roof, and down the trunk of my vette. I was livid! Can you believe the nerve of that guy for having water squirting uncontrolled into the air across a public street? Yeah, by the time I got back home, you guessed it..... water spots everywhere.

And rain? I'm sure you have heard of "acid rain", haven't you? Well yeah, it was something kind of distantly threatening like the death of the sun or something. There is someone out there worrying about such things, but for the average guy, who cares? Well "acid rain" does bad things just like you think it would if you thought hard about it when it lands on the finish of your car. Heck, I never noticed it before on my Jeep, probably because the mold growing on the north side of it obscured most of it, I guess. Yes, that is true, mold will grow on the north side of a vehicle, just like it does on trees in the woods.

When I was looking to buy a vette, I used to chuckle at the ads I saw where the current owner would snootily claim "My Corvette has NEVER been driven in the rain, under ANY circumstances." I remember showing those ads to Connie and us having a good laugh over them. Well, now I am committed to have to take my vette out in the rain, or suffer the pain of ridicule of becoming one of "them" that we laughed about in those ads. Well, maybe the pain won't be THAT bad.......... Sure beats watching the car melt down from acid rain, I guess.

But in case you are wondering, there IS a way to get rid of those water spots I mentioned above. It is via something no sane human being would ever have thought of. Matter of fact, when I first read about it, I thought it was some kind of joke. You know, catch the new guys to the auto detailing illness unawares and see how gullible they are. You know what they use? Clay. Yep, clay. Or more precisely, detailing clay. Evidently this was once some closely guarded secret over in California that the high priced car detailers used for people with more cars then I have fingers and toes. Any one of which could pay for a 5,000 square foot new house if I were to sell it to finance the new home. Those kinds of cars don't just get run through the local behind the gas station car washes. So anyway, the secret somehow got out and now this is the biggest rage for preparing the surface of your car for actual polishing and waxing. What the clay does is to remove everything but the paint. And I mean everything. If the original paint job left some overspray. That is gone. Water spots, rough spots from deterioration from sunlight or caustic atmospheric conditions. Bugs squashed against the front surfaces of your vehicle will become PART of the finish is left on for too long. And yes, detailing clay will remove that, no sweat. Well actually SOME sweat, because you do have to put some major elbow grease into the effort. But if you run your hand down the surface of your car BEFORE applying the clay rub, and then try it afterwards, you will feel a substantially noticeably difference right then and there. And that's before you ever put any polish or wax on. Matter of fact, you will probably think it looks and feels so good, you would be tempted to just stop right there and be done with it. But, heck, not a good idea.

After doing that chore, get something on the finish to help protect it and preserve it. There are so many types of waxes and polishes out there that you will become quickly overcome by the choices available. And they ALL say they are the best, hands down. What is even worse, most people will say that whatever it is that they are using IS the best, regardless of the fact that they never tried anything else to compare it to.

Ah, OK, it's about 3:20 am, so I think I have typed enough to be tired enough to go to bed and fall right to sleep. Kind of nice having this forum where I can just type about any dumb topic that comes to mind when I just want to do nothing even close to resembling WORK. Like taxes, or answering emails, or fixing something, or whatever........ Heck, I'm not even going to proof read it. Just rambling anyway, so who cares if I don't make any sense?

And if you read this far, man, what in the WORLD did you waste all that time for?

Originally Posted by Rich Z

And if you read this far, man, what in the WORLD did you waste all that time for?

You were talking about cars, so of course I read the whole thing.

I've never tried the clay thing. I think my brother has used it on his Viper, but he's used so much random stuff on that car it's hard to keep track. You're right, there are a LOT of crazy auto detailing products out there though. I used to have a black SUV, and before selling it my other brother bought this "black wax" stuff that was specifically made for black vehicles and had to be kept in the fridge. It had a really great paint job on it for 60,000 miles, but WOW. After he waxed it with that stuff, it was really hard to let it go. ...but then I spent $72.00 filling up the tank and said "see ya".

Here's a little trick I learned for those damn water spots. Just get yourself a gallon of distilled water and fill a spray bottle, then using a soft detailing cloth you can do little touch-ups without leaving major streaks or over-spray. Works pretty well. Oh yeah, so do those "California Car Dusters". Don't buy one from the TV ads though, Wal-mart has them for like $8.

Yeah, the big thing around here this time of year is pine pollen. It is literally everywhere. Putting a greenish yellow laminate over everything. I have heard that pine pollen is highly acidic and can actually damage the finish of your car. It is also very abrasive, so you can't just take a rag to wipe it off with. Then if you hose it down, you have to be careful of those danged water spots again, while trying to dry the finish before another coating of pine pollen settles in and you are right back where you started.

Pretty soon the forest service around here will begin doing "prescribed burns" where they light fires intentionally in the national forest to burn off the accumulation of tree litter and debris. This puts a lot of ash into the air, which naturally comes down to rest whichever way the winds are blowing at the time.

I think I am beginning to yearn for my pre-Corvette attitude about car care......

Don't they have those covers you can put on cars when they are not garaged, but parked?

If your car is the blue car in your avatar, it is really, really beautiful.

Perhaps you can sell a few more snakes next year and with the extra funds hire a carsitter who will visit daily and detail the car, take care of any spots, patrol the property and kill off any pine seedlings, and build attractive bird structures on your property far from the car so that the lil varmints will not think of any fly by mischief.

LOL.

Here's a photo I took of the Z06 a little while back.



BTW, I didn't fully realize it at the time, but I got this thing for an absolute STEAL when I bought it. The Z06 is the hot tamale of the Corvette clan. Comes from the factory with 405 horsepower on tap. Runs like a scalded dog when you punch the accelerator!

Before I bought it I heard all kinds of horror stories from people. Rough ride. Poor handling. Bad turning radius. No luggage carrying capacity. No leg room. Bad gas mileage. Etc., Etc., Etc. NOT TRUE at all. It handles like an absolute dream on the road. Has a fair sized trunk, and unless you are a giant, you have plenty of room in the driver and passenger sides. The wife commented that when going around sharp curves, you don't even feel any movement inside the car at all. As for gas mileage, get this.....

31 miles per gallon average on the highway!

When I first heard that, I thought for certain that someone was pulling my leg. But I was shocked to find out that it is absolutely true. How GM pulled that off is beyond me.

So yeah, I like this car. A LOT!

As for killing off the pine trees, Lucille, uh, I live on 50 acres down here. And I am only three quarters of a mile from the eastern edge of the Apalachicola National Forest, where there are LOTS of pine trees.

I do have the Z underneath a car port, but pine pollen doesn't fall straight down. It's kind of like a pervasive mist everywhere. If you have allergies, this is NOT the place for you to be.........

Rich, what type of wax do you feel is the best?

What a beautiful car!!!!

Are there any stretches of road where you can take and see how fast it will really go?

my father bought a corvette and took it out only in nice weather....it was in a garage 99% of the time. The other 1% he was busy getting tickets for speeding...he even had his license revoked at one point LOL

Originally Posted by NiCoLe L RuSSeLL

Rich, what type of wax do you feel is the best?

Heck, I don't know. I haven't tried them all, and nearly all of them claim to be the best.

Actually I don't really use a wax, I am using what is more accurately a polish.

Zaino is very highly recommended on the Corvette forums, and I have been using it. It seems to work very well, and no real complaints about it. But I think like most other situations like this, preparation of the surface is the key to an excellent final result. I have some stone chips on the hood, and Zaino didn't do anything for them. It did help to fill in some swirl marks, but anything drastic like chips or deeper scratches need to have a lot of prepatory work beforehand. Unless you have a lot of time and a real good helping of elbow grease (plus REALLY know what you are doing) in most cases I would say to turn it over to a professional to let them get the prep work done for you. The rest will be MUCH easier. Honestly I wish I had known this beforehand, but I thought "Heck, how tough can it be?" Well, REAL tough.

Just remember that even after you get the finish perfect, it will not STAY perfect. You will likely find a new stone chip or some magically produced scratch every other time you take it out for a ride. I have come to the conclusion that air is hard enough to be abrasive and cause those things. Otherwise I don't have a clue where they come from. In my previous vehicles, I am sure it happened as well, but darn if I ever noticed it.

But anyway, there may be some other waxes out there that are better, but it would probably take you a lifetime to try them all. Adam's Polishes are highly rated as are some of the Meguiar's products. I am playing with a new type of polish called "Rejex" that seems really nice, but it does not fill in anything. But it WILL make your rock chips and scratches definitely shinier.

I think the important thing is just protecting your paint. If you paint has a clear coat, that is EXTREMELY helpful. Use a wax or polish that blocks UV to help keep the paint from fading from exposure to sunlight. Every several washes and waxes, use a claybar to smooth out the finish and remove the contaminants that will adhere to the finish over time. Remove squashed bugs from the finish AS SOON AS YOU CAN. The acids within their squashed guts WILL etch into your finish. Love bug season down here is going to be a problem, I can see that now.

Oh yeah, if you are going to be spending any significant time polishing or waxing your car, get one of those Porter-Cable random orbital polishers. Doing that kind of stuff by hand will wear you down after a while. Stay away from the rotary kind until you get REAL experienced otherwise you may wind up burning your paint off on edged surfaces of your vehicle.

Originally Posted by lucille

What a beautiful car!!!!

Are there any stretches of road where you can take and see how fast it will really go?

From what I can recall, the Z06 has a speed limiter programmed into it. I think it is 175 miles per hour. Most tires are not rated beyond this speed, so it's a safety factor, I guess. But there are ways to work around it, from what I hear.

I got it up to just a hair over 100 mph and it took nothing flat to do that. This car will go 0 to 60 in 4 seconds, so going on to 100 doesn't take long at all. The gearing in the transmission will allow you to get to 50 mph just in first gear. The Z06 was designed to go fast. This is a genuine race car designed from the ground up to be run on the street. They even go through additional testing beyond the regular Corvettes for a racing environment. Actually I've learned one hell of a lot of fascinating information about this car that I never realized before I bought it. The gratifying thing is that I made the RIGHT choice with getting a Z06. Everyone says the difference between a C5 Corvette and a C5 Z06 is night and day in nearly all respects.

But to answer your question, Lucille, as far as I know there are no stretches of road around here where I can legally take it to its limits. If I were to do that on a public road, I don't know if the "gas pedal got stuck" defense would work very well......