White haze on my Carbon Fiber hood

[tron66]

Removing Oxidation from a Carbon Fiber Hood


I wanted to remove the oxidation on my carbon fiber hood with a clear coat finish but the crystal cleaner left a white haze on the hood after I washed the car the next day. The hood looked great immediately after I finished up with the cleaner.

Anyone have a clue on how to remove this haze?

[Mike Phillips]

Hi tron66

Here's your picture,



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When you say you used the "crystal cleaner", do you mean, Meguiar's Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner?

If so, after using this product you need to polish and wax the hood. You only started the process of removing the oxidation and restoring a crystal clear finish.

Do you own any polish or wax?

[Mike Phillips]

How did you apply the cleaner?

It looks like you need to re-apply the cleaner more thoroughly to the entire hood. Paint cleaners are not, wipe-on, wipe-off products, especially in the case of an oxidized finish.

You need to work the product against the finish with a little passion behind the pad in order to remove the dead, oxidized resin. In your case, you might also try using a piece of terry cloth towel, the nap, (little cotton loops), will act as a mild form of an abrasive giving the paint cleaner a little more bite and making it and your effort more effective.

You might also consider getting a more aggressive paint cleaner, such as ScratchX, or even ColorX as these two product offer more cleaning ability than the Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner as it is a very, very gentle, chemical paint cleaner only.

[Mike Phillips]

Here's a quick question,

What did the hood look like to start with, before applying the cleaner?


Do you have any photos of it in its before condition?


Also, how have you taken care of this hood in the past?

Wash it only?

Wash and wax?

Nothing?


Some carbon fiber hoods are not clear coated and as such have no UV protection in the resin coating that makes up the hood and it could be that this hood is too far gone to repair.

[tron66]

Thanks for the input Mike,

I used a 100% cotton terry cloth towel to apply the deep crystal cleaner and a second terry cloth to wipe it away. I have the step 2 polish and step 3 wax but I didn't want to make a bad situation worse by applying more chemicals to my hazy hood.

I think I'll try reapplying the cleaner to the hood and if it still leaves a white haze I'll try using ScratchX or ColorX.

I've used the 3 step deep crystal system on the paint with excellent results. It takes a while with terry cloth and elbow grease. I've thought about getting a polisher but I'm worried about swirl marks in my black finish.

[Mike Phillips]

How bad did the hood look to start with?

[yellance]

Re: white haze on my CF hood

what deep crystal stuff are you talking about i have the same issue i have yet to use anything on my cf hood it was a clear coat hood that faded in the sun any help would be great thanks

[tron66]

Re: white haze on my CF hood

I was using the Deep Crystal System polish (in the maroon plastic bottle). If you look at the picture of the CF hood up near the latch, that is how the entire hood looked "before." Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture of the car. I went ahead and purchased some Meguiar's ColorX (in the black plastic bottle) but before I could try it out I rear ended a Jeep and totaled the CF hood. I had the body shop replace it with an original metal hood so I'll never know if the ColorX would have done the trick. If you fix the white haze problem, please post. To this day I wonder if wet sanding away the clear coat and redoing it was my only 100% effective option.

[MDetail]

Re: white haze on my CF hood

Mike, would the Marine/RV line up be good for projects like this? I figured the fiberglass cleaners might help with the CF.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: white haze on my CF hood

Mike, would the Marine/RV line up be good for projects like this? I figured the fiberglass cleaners might help with the CF.

Maybe.

There are two general categories of Carbon Fiber components,

1. Straight Resin
2. Clear coat paint over resin


If you're working on Straight Resin, be it some type of polyurethane, polyester, or epoxy resin, and it has sever oxidation then hypothetically you could use an oxidation remove from the Marine line. Two things though...

1. It's likely one of our automotive products will do the job.

2. By staying inside our automotive line, we can prevent confusion and the potential for the accidental use of one of our Marine products on painted parts of the car, which would/could potentially scratch the clear coat paint finish.


We fix this type of problem all of the time with M80 Speed Glaze by machine, and ScratchX by hand. In the below thread the problems being addressed are primarily swirls and scratches, but the same approach for removing these will work for oxidation on Straight Resin Carbon Fiber.

Carbon Fiber Hood - How to work on?


Note: Anytime you're working on a Carbon Fiber component that has an automotive clear coat finish, you want to treat it like a clear coat finish on the rest of your car and that is to use non-abrasive products starting with the least aggressive product to get the job done.

Hope this helps...

[Trpeski]

Carbon Fiber hood white spots and its not shiny

Hey i have some white spots on my CF hood and the hood is not shiny like it used to be, what can i do to remove these white spots and make it shiny again?

[Trpeski]

Carbon Fiber hood white spots

Hey i have a question, i have some white spots on my CF hood. What can i do to get rid of them? Also what can i do to make my hood shiny again and about how much does it cost? Thanks so much

[VonLego]

Re: Carbon Fiber hood white spots

Looks like water marks of some kind... what have you tried so far?

I'd wash, then clay. Not sure what products are safe to use on carbon fiber after that.

[eyezack87]

Re: Carbon Fiber hood white spots

I polished clearcoated CF with #83 and an orange LC pad with great results. Then followed up with Menzerna Final Polish II if that helps you in anyway

[Murr1525]

Re: Carbon Fiber hood white spots

That came back after the #83 and Menz.?