paaka937

I did an acid wash on the drives and stainless steel to remove all the grime and hard water build up. It's a dilute hydrochloric acid with water that you just spray on (or wipe with a brush) and then use a brush to wipe/clean the areas (make sure you don't get any on you, if you do wash it off with water immediately). Don't leave the solution on for longer than about 3 minutes and then spray off with water. I repeated this 3 times and made sure to brush over all areas and then gave a really good final rinse with water to make sure all acid had been washed off. Topped off all the stainless steel with a stainless steel cleaner/polisher that I bought at Home Depot (don't remember the name).
Buffed and waxed the boat with performance boat candy wax which turned out really nice.

sprink58

I use a product called "Roll Off" to remove oxidation that sounds just like what you described. I want to try "Boat Candy" to see how it holds up on my fore deck. I have been using Colonite Fleet Wax for years every where and it does well on all put the fore deck on the bow. How does "Boat Candy" hold up?

Nice job BTW...your boat looks great. I know it's a lot of work...especially that top fore deck. It's like waxing the top of a van.

paaka937

This is the first year I have used boat candy. Bought the entire line of products at the end of last year and have been waiting to try it out. Judging from the first application of wax it seems to provide a great shine and gloss. I'm guessing the real test will be how it handles the rain and water. I did a lot of research and it seemed like many people on OSO were using boat candy and liking the results. Will try out the fabric restore spray next week when I detail out the interior.
I bought the entire line of products for around $100.00 which should last me a pretty long time.
It's been a lot of fun getting the boat back in shape. Saddly it needed a fair amount of TLC as the previous owner preferred to just put gas in the boat with no real care taken to wax, clean drives, or do much detail work. It looks night and day better now that it's owned by someone with attention to detail and a knack for cleaning...aka ME!!

Level III Chaos

iTrader: (1)

Boat looks great! LOTO sucks!!!!!!!

Donzi Dude

Wow boat looks like new!
Where are you at lake of the ozarks?

paaka937

7 Mile Marker, sooooo right in the thick of the "weekend washing machine water" on the summer weekends. Last year we stepped up from a 24' Liberator to a 31' Fastech and love the difference in the ride (not to mention speed/performance).
Where on the lake are you located?

cmkworm

Did you use said acid wash on the hull as well or just the drives? I have used muriatic acid before which seemed to stain my concrete a bit.

paaka937

Some day I will have the time (and $$$$$$) to haul a boat to CA and FL and experience true offshore boating...can't wait, looks pretty amazing from the pics!

paaka937

I just used the acid wash on the drives where the grime had built up pretty bad. Also used it around the exhaust pipes where some black coloring had started to set into the gelcoat (assuming from the many years of exhaust fumes).
The hull didn't need an acid wash because it was still in near mint shape, just needed to be cleaned and a couple applications of wax to bring back the shine. I had talked to the marine shop up the road from me and they acid wash the hull's on many boats but only really the boats that have a large amount of oxidation/discoloration or residue buildup on the hull. The guy took a look at my boat and said an acid wash wasn't necessary and I wouldn't gain anything from acid washing the hull. The drives, now that was a different story...they went from pretty ugly to looking brand new. I will definitely be performing an acid wash yearly on the drives to keep them fresh looking, plus it really only took at most 1.5 hours and I did 3 applications.

Audiofn

Don't worry about Nort he is just a bitter old man that hates the fact that the mid west farmers daughters like to take their cloths off!