Faded front cap restoration, what I did.

As some of you have seen in a prior topic of mine, our 250RS has the dreaded oxidized and faded front cap. The upper section had dry powdery gray oxidation all over while the lower half was still shiny but had patches that had just turned gray. I’ve tried various products to clean it up without success. After getting bids in the $3k range to strip the graphics, paint the cap and install new graphics, I decided that I needed another option. It didn’t have to be perfect. I just couldn’t stand how bad it looked.





Now that I’ve finished working on it, I thought I would share what I have done and the products I have tried to maybe help out some of you that are in the same situation. It doesn’t look new, but it looks a whole lot better than it did before.

All the products I will be mentioning came from Amazon. This isn't a commercial for Meguiar's. I have used their products for quite a while and decided to stick with them. For those of you not familiar with Meguiar’s products, the model number is Mxx followed by the ounces in the bottle. I started off trying Meguiar’s M6332 Flagship Premium Marine Wax. I’ve been using it on the sides and back of the trailer for years and have always gotten great results with it. Unfortunately, it would touch the oxidation on either the upper or lower sections.

Next, I bought a Meguiar's M4965 Marine/RV Fiberglass Restoration System along with their drill mounted “DA” G3500 Dual Action Power System Tool. The DA comes with a yellow pad for polish application. There are also red pads for oxidation removal and black pads for wax. The M4965 kit includes M4916 oxidation remover, M4516 polish and M5616 pure wax. Although the oxidation remover did take a little of the oxidation off when used with the DA and a red pad, it wasn’t nearly as much as I had hoped for.

I then had the bright idea to use my go to cleaner, a Mr. Clean magic eraser. That really took off the powdery stuff but didn’t do anything for the discolored shiny areas. The darker section is this picture was using the magic eraser.




Looking for advice, I called Meguiar’s and talked to one of their service people. He recommended M6732 Marine/RV One Step Compound. This stuff is supposed to have a more aggressive grit for removal of oxidation along with polish and something that helps restore the color. I tried using it on a section where I had already used the M49 (red pad) and M45 (yellow pad). It took off more oxidation and left the finish darker, more like the original color.

In the end, I went over then entire cap with the M67 (red pad) and M56 wax for added protection (black pad). See the image below.




For the LP gas cover, I decided to try a Cerakote Ceramic Trim Coat Kit. I’ve used their ceramic coating kit for headlights with great results and thought it was worth a try. I also applied the coating to the plastic cover on my Huskey Brute 4500 power tongue jack.






The final result.




As far as the sides and back go, since the trailer is almost ten years old, the graphics are starting to peel. To avoid damaging them more, I tried Meguiar’s M5916 Marine/RV Quik Wax Clean & Protect. It’s a spray on/wipe off product and added a nice shine to the trailer after a wash. Will just have to see how long it lasts.