Detachable Exhaust Tip Polish

Do you even detach your tips bro? If not you need to step your game up as I routinely put my five inches in a rusty old vice so that I can polish them up to perfection. So I've been rocking these short tail tips on the Nismo for about 10 months now and aside from a quick wash haven't really done much to them but following a few recent long drives they needed a bit of TLC to prevent any embarrassing public poo shoot shaming. Due to the fact they're detachable it made sense to get my hands in behind the back bumper, crack the nuts and whip them off so that they could be treated to a private polishing session in the shed. So with rain forecast that's exactly what I did. While these particular items were hardly caked in carbon it still pains me to see decent cars with neglected tips that are too far gone so I've always tried to keep on top of mine and it only really takes some basic products to do that. However I would be making use of an old cordless drill and some foam polishing bits here just to eliminate the need for any excessive elbow grease. Before getting to grips with my five inch tips though their already rusty brackets and bolts were soaked in some WD-40 to slow down the rot and make reassembly the following day a little bit easier. With that out the way the stainless tips were given a quick wipe down, first using some all-purpose cleaner to remove the traffic film, grease and general exhaust grime, then with some adhesive remover to dissolve the light peppering of tar spots they collected over the last 10 months. They could of course have been cleaned prior to removal but the weather was a bit naff, the backs of them can't be properly accessed on the car and I did do a dedicated in-situ poo shoot clean and polish on the Volvo last year so wanted to do it a bit differently here to keep things fresh. Once sufficiently wiped down it was time to clamp the first five incher in the drying towel cushioned vice so that I could safely attack it with the drill. After smothering the surface with polish and of course priming the part as you don't want to make a polishing related detailing vid these days without doing that, hit the outside of the tip with the red mother's power comb first with the intent to use the smaller power bolt on the inside of it. So nothing overly advanced with the old drill then, just pull the trigger and work it over the surface as best as possible until the polish turns black and the residue pretty much disappears on the surface which is your cue to buff off with a general purpose towel to hopefully reveal a brighter and more effective finish. In order to properly access the riveted rear of the tip which was in a bit more of a state I flipped it in the vice before hitting its backside in pretty much the same manner. It didn't have to be spotless as it won't be seen once back on the car but because I'd gone to the effort of removing them it still made sense to treat even their unseen parts to a relatively thorough going over so I knew that everywhere had been rejuvenated to a certain standard. Once the outer surfaces had been given a good going over the smaller polishing ball was then used to buff up the inside of the tip and while understandably this metal isn't finished to the same standard as the exterior I was still confident that I could make a noticeable improvement. I then repositioned the tip once more to allow me to really attack the inside of it on the level first going at it with the ball from behind and then employing the larger cone to access the tight spot of the inner rolled lip which can serve to quickly accumulate stubborn soot. Now if you're watching and thinking some of the shots look a bit awkward bear in mind that when filming I'm almost always positioning myself at unnatural angles to prevent getting in the way of the camera so you can see what's going on. For the second tip I switched the old school auto solve for the creamier works polish from Auto Brices although in my experience it's hard to distinguish one metal polish from another still thought it was worth swapping to see if I could and while I won't bore you too much with the same extended shots as it was essentially the same process you can rest assured it was still tended to in much the same manner. The polishing bits do unfortunately get contaminated quite quickly so having a couple of each would help but I'd forgotten just how fat these tips were and hadn't thought that far ahead here so just had to make do with the two and hope the first didn't turn out noticeably shinier than the second. With some life drilled back into all areas of both tips and with the metal polish residue thoroughly removed then it was time to seal in the shine using some sweet smelling wheel sealant I found lurking at the bottom of my bag. It was applied with a simple foam applicator pad and lightly spread over the surface to ensure even coverage before being buffed off with a fresh general purpose towel to reveal a slightly shinier and freshly protected finish and although it was buffed pretty much straight away here I did treat both tips to a second layer which was left for a good half an hour or so while I took a break. While a dedicated metal sealant would technically be a better solution for exposed tips like these a wheel sealant is probably the next best thing. I'll be maintaining them on the regular so don't need anything ridiculously durable and if you think you'd do the same then really any kind of protective product you'd use on a car's paintwork can be slapped on metal parts to give them a bit of extra pop and slickness too. Once all areas of the tips have been sealed up including the rusty bits they were buffed off one last time to get them as shiny and residue free as possible for some shed based after shots to illustrate what a couple of hours of cleaning polishing and protecting had achieved. Not quite polished up to perfection then as there was still a bit of hazing and a few deeper marks here and there that couldn't realistically be removed but they certainly looked a hell of a lot smarter than before so I was happy to leave it at that knowing they'd still likely be the freshest tips on the block. All that was left to do now then was secure them back in place for another 10 months or so and show you how they look sitting in the sun. Now the car's not a dirty decatted example so all I'll do from now on is simply give them a light wash whenever I'm giving the rest of the car a maintenance clean maybe a ceramic spritz here and there but in my experience so long as you don't neglect them that'll be enough to keep them looking pretty sharp for months or even years to come. So as always cheers for tuning in hope you enjoyed my first bit of 4k content live and direct from the shed let me know if you're rocking detachable tips yourself and how often you tend to them in private and I'll catch you with something non-Nismo related next time.