polishing axles w/ auto polish and waxes

[newpinehead]

Hey all, my son and myself were polishing the axels for this years car, and while doing this I was thinking of how to get them as shinny and smooth as we posibbly could.We did the very fine sand paper and the mothers metal polish( which is great stuff by the way).I detail cars on the side so we have all kinds of waxes and polishes. We then polished them with Meguiars auto polish and then followed that up with Meguiars gold series liquid wax. They were very shinny felt to be really slick or smooth. So what do you folks think is this beneficial or just a waste of extra time?
Thanks for all the info you guys put on this forum its been real helpful to us.

[terryep]

Polishing sounds great but I don't know about the wax. You need to do some testing to get these folks interested in axel wax. Can you prepare some axels and wheels with your wax and another set using silicone to compare how far the car will roll out?

Terry

[ranman106]

They were very shinny felt to be really slick or smooth. So what do you folks think is this beneficial or just a waste of extra time?

Nothing is a waste of time in gaining knowledge, whether it works or not!

My father runs a body shop so I have seen the wonders of Mothers . I would be concerned about the wax breakdown.

Would you need to lube the wheels and axles before the race? If so, what about compatibility between the products. Even if a little breakdown occurs, drag is still drag. But I'm not a PWD Scientist just my .02!

I'm a graphite person myself but I am willing to test something new. Would I use it in my sons PWD race? No, I might would try it in a WIRL proxy if I saw some data and read smoe feedback on how it performs

[newpinehead]

I did some testing ,although my testing is probably not to precise but from what I could tell there was no noticable difference between axels that I polished with mothers and the axels I did with all the auto polish and waxes.I was thinking that maybe the layer of waxes on the axels, if anything would make the surface so slick that the graphite might just slide right on out.Kinda like the nieghbors cat did on my truck after I waxed it not to long ago(whooosh).
Our pack race is still about 3 weeks away, so we got plenty of testing time left, we got it going about a car length and a half faster than last years car,And last years car won 1st at district and at the council race so we are plenty satisfied with it. My son got the first coat of paint on it yesterday.Almost there.

[terryep]

newpinehead, sounds like you have things under control! When you say wax are you talking some kind of liquid polymer? I was thinking paste wax!

Terry

[Stan Pope]

we got it going about a car length and a half faster than last years car,And last years car won 1st at district and at the council race so we are plenty satisfied with it.

That is major! Are you confident that last year's car hasn't lost anything since last year's runs? (axle corrosion, etc)

To what do you attribute the improvement?

[newpinehead]

We took last years car and set it on the display case, and did'nt remove it until beginning tests on this years car.I remove one of the rear axles and it was still shinny so we replaced it and did nothing else to it.

Last years car we did the front axle bend style of alignment for this was all we could think of to make it roll straight.This year thanks to derby talk we are honing our skills with the shimming with wax paper.I believe this is a major upgrade to our construction methods.Also we placed graphite on the wheels inside and out. By carefully placeing superglue in these places with a toothpick and then puffing graphite on it and letting dry.also on the car where the wheels rub. Also last years car's CM was about a half inch in front of the rear wheels, this year we went with an inch. So we're crossing our fingers and hoping for positive results.

[newpinehead]

Terry ,the auto polish I used was Meguiars liquid crystal and the wax was meguiars gold series liquid wax .Although these are high quality products I'm not to sure now after thinking about it how beneficial they would be on pwd axles because they are designed to leave a layer of protection to paint that is very slick and shinny and to repel water and protect paint agianst dirt and also uv rays from the sun, I think that once you apply the graphite to the axles that this layer would be removed quickly during the breakin period of the graphite, acting kind of like sand paper, now using nyoil might be a whole different story, I have never tried it, our district is dry lubricant only.
The slick layer the waxes and polish's leave behind might be beneficial to nyoil if it doesnt repel it like they do to water.
Using this combination on cars, especially dark color cars leaves astonishing results, something good ole' turtle wax can't hold a candle to .

Thanks for all your help on this forum guys.

[terryep]

I agree, the wax would likely be ruined by the graphite or worse, it might gum up the graphite. As for the flourinated oil, it wants to be applied to the bare metal.

Terry

[Derby64]

My son got great results using auto polish on axles. But I agree that you should avoid the auto wax. I worry about anything which can gum up.

[ranman106]

Hey all, my son and myself were polishing the axels for this years car, and while doing this I was thinking of how to get them as shinny and smooth as we posibbly could.We did the very fine sand paper and the mothers metal polish( which is great stuff by the way).We then polished them with Meguiars auto polish and then followed that up with Meguiars gold series liquid wax. They were very shinny felt to be really slick or smooth.

I am very interested in this process. If I understand correctly, after you polished, you did not add any lube. Is that correct?

Our pack allows polishing of the BSA axles and a dry lubricant. So, technically, all you are doing is polishing and not adding any lube. How does the car perform after several runs? HMmmmm.....
When is your PWD? Please post how you do. Ours is 2-15-04. I'm starting to get nervous already .

[asatxj]

My first polishing step is Griot's Garage Glass Polish. I then finish with Simichrome, then on to the Nyoil. seems to work nice after the wetsanding.
just my .02

[newpinehead]

We did use graphite ,I think with or without lube the wax would breakdown to quickly, sounded good at first but after more thought the negatives of it seemed to surfice in my mind.

Our race is 2-28-04 and districts is the following sat.. We are in southern Oklahoma, in the wolves den this year.

[Sssnake]

I've always polished the axles down 2000 grit aotu paper, then chrome polish, then clearcoat rubbing compound, then mothers. then i use never dull to remove residue and finally wipe with denatured alcohol. After this ipolish them finally with " Elmers Slide-All, Dry Spray Lubricant. Has anybody else ever used Elmers' ?

[dmadman43]

We polised with Klasse All-in-One polish, then Klasse Sealant Glaze, then a Nyoil film. All things being equal with car design, alignment and wheels, we were 1 second faster than last year with Mothers and graphite moly