Transforming My 27 Year Old Aluminium Fuel Cap

To remove, strip back, polish, protect and replace my metal fuel filler cap or not is the question. If I flake a bit of this degrading paint off, commit to doing that now, then that might mean I've got to go the whole hog and do the whole thing. Keep meaning to treat it to a clean because when I'm filling up at the station, which let's face it in this day and age is far less frequent these days, I notice all the compacted crap on both parts of it. Doesn't really matter I'm the the only one that gets to see that but at the same time it's one of the few things outside of maybe the underside of the car and the engine bay that haven't yet been tended to. So I thought you know it's a unique enough kind of dirt in a unique enough kind of place to warrant its own video and then I thought oh there's a few hex nuts there, a bit of research, yeah you can take that out fairly easily, maybe remove it for a bit more of a deep clean and that will make it a bit more of interesting video and then upon closer inspection the paint's starting to flake off it looks a bit tired around you know a few of the heavily worn places around the lock mechanism at the top it's sort of rubbed through so then i thought why not just strip it and polish it up because this so for those that are unaware this is a limited edition car an Lancia Coupe so this and these light cups and the wheels the mirrors a few other bits and bobs come in this metallic titanium color which okay on certain colors looks all right i'm not a huge fan of on a black car um but on all the other cars this is polished and i think you know it's it's a big feature of the car you know and it's a bit of a shame to just have it painted gray so i'm not too fussed these bits are all degraded in any way and need painting at a later date so this can always get painted with them at a later date but for now i just thought it was a bit of a weekend project breathe a bit of life back into this kind of area of the car without uh forking out too much money um why not now it might be the wrong decision i might regret it you might be screaming at your screen no that's sacrilege don't do that you know um but i just thought it might make for an interesting one i don't think i've ever done any um sort of dedicated paint stripping on the channel before let alone much metal polishing so why not give it a go um so i'll pull the camera in closer now and um so you can see what i'm doing in terms of attempting to remove it at least and then we'll go from there also i was a bit reluctant to clean it in situ as well you can sort of bung a towel down the spout to clean it properly you ideally want running water or at least to be able to spray some all-purpose cleaner or degreaser or something and but you're going to run the risk of contaminating the tank so i thought for the sake of four bolts and a bit of sealants it's worth pulling off one way or another and even if just to clean so yeah let's go ahead and do that before it gets too busy around here because it is saturday i'm just gonna bung a towel down the spout while i attempt to remove these hex bolts so we don't have any disasters okay that's loose that's loose that's loose they're all loose so i may well live to regret this but i just thought i've got a feeling with the right amount of time spent i might just be able to sort of transform this corner of the car and for me personally i'll prefer it in a fully polished up finish rather than as it sits at the moment i just think it's a bit of a waste to have a nice metal filler cap that isn't shiny and polished you know that for me that's the whole point let's pull that out pull this back a little bit give it a wiggle now i don't want to stress the hinge there i'm not sure how we're gonna Oh we are, looks like it's gonna come fairly easily. Do you know what, I'll heat it up a little bit just to be on the safe side. If you're not hair drying your fuel filler cap on a Saturday morning what are you doing? Let's just work a bit of safe heat to there and then it hopefully should uh prise off. Ironically that's got rid of most of the loose dirt. Give it a go. Cue them up. Maybe I should be ragging it with it locked maybe, not sure. let's have a yeah that's probably best technique try not to dink anything on the way out is that coming is it not i think it is oh that was easier than i thought pull this seal out as well i guess oh yeah that's bonded underneath that's fine probably should have the gopro on for this nice for now i'm just going to bung this up with a microfiber towel and there's no no rain forecast today so that should be ample for the time being i think and then uh i guess it's going to be a two day or so. Overnight I'll probably put a bit of a plastic bag and an elastic band over in case it does rain but I'll do for now I think. Grab these bits and take them in the back to hopefully strip and enhance. Right so I've just gone ahead and done two quick things off camera. The first one being to sort of further disassemble the cap. I've just taken a couple of little screws out which gets the the main clasp off so that'll just allow me to strip and polish that a bit better otherwise you wouldn't be able to get to all parts of it if it was still connected and I've then gone on to put a bit of butyl tape on the top of the lock there and just to try and prevent any other heavy chemical paint stripper from getting in there and potentially doing damage I don't think it will especially if I rinse it off so so soon after it's applied but yeah that's all I can think of really and then on the inside of the the cap itself there's a plastic plunger with a rubber seal which obviously creates the vacuum in the tank now i've had a look i've tried to gently prise that off with a screwdriver i can't see any obvious way it will come off and i don't want to break it these are a four five hundred euros brand new or 150 quid for a decent used replacement that aren't in this color so i don't want to you know ruin it basically um so i've just covered it now i'm not too fussed about the the inside of it i will put some paint stripper there neatly you know but it's it's more this this outer area um so i think i should be all right there if i'm if i'm careful but um the stripper i've got which i'll show you now um apparently will will melt and ruin plastic if it if it comes into contact with it for long enough so yeah i've just covered that and we'll have to work around it for now now i nearly didn't go ahead with this because i remembered you know over-the-counter paint strippers they're not what they used to be are they Nitromors and the like they're all water-based now because of environmentalism so i pulled in a few favors and got hold of this Star Chem SinStrip which i'm assured um contains that um original ingredient or something very much like it and will will definitely do the job it's got all the warnings on the side that you want if you're to perform a job like this you know all your toxic skull and crossbones and stuff so uh that gives good assurances obviously you know all the usual things apply goggles mask hazmat suits well ventilated area you know permission from the government i'm just doing it in this back sink and i'm sure i'll be absolutely fine but yeah let's get cracking with it because i don't want this to take any longer than it needs to because i've got a feeling that the polishing will take quite a while so i'd rather just get cracking with this get the paint off in as quick and effective fashion as possible shaking bacon a little bit of decantage shouldn't need too much i don't think looks like uh yeah right let's just go ahead and get some of this slopped over the surface and see if it starts reacting because if it doesn't i'm wiping things down and putting it back on the car but fingers crossed this does job so i can tell you already that it doesn't smell maybe it starts smelling once the reaction starts taking place you know but that doesn't mean it's not harmful you know so get it slopped on in fairly generous fashion just over this first top half to start with i think and we'll see how we go yeah i can see that reacting already that's mega so i'm gonna pull the phone in now yeah that's gonna come off great i think actually see it bubbling up and wrinkling up on the surface which is pretty cool yeah pretty happy with that we'll let it soak for a little longer and then get uh get scraping just have a little um test scrape with a plastic scraper i've got here which isn't the really the right tool for the job but oh yeah that's come right off beautiful so i suspect this has probably been painted you know in recent years like the rest of the car has been and it wasn't the best job which probably makes my job a little bit easier now but yeah that's nice and satisfying so at least you know it's going to work this isn't really a scraper this is a trim removal tool but i've had it for years and used it for literally every job under the planet so obviously you know you don't want to be taking up a metal scraper and I have got some wire wool there that I considered using but it doesn't look like I'm gonna need it so crack on with this I think the ambient sounds of scraping paints off your 27 year old aluminium fuel filler cap hardly smells which is good I have got a door open behind behind the camera so there's plenty of ventilation fresh air coming in but don't really smell like you need it to be honest i've got a good chunk of it off there let's uh give it a recoat um and crack on i think you could probably get away with a single coat there if you um persisted with the scraping um i'll just add some more just to help us along i think a thorough soak and then a subsequent rinse would probably do it just working our fingers oh nice beautiful perfect yeah pretty much done so um let's basically repeat the process for the bottom section and um and then i'll probably do the awkward kind of underside off camera and then we can uh you know proceed to polishing that's not a bad shot so let's uh try and stick with that for this lower part i mean it's an old component isn't it so it arguably requires an old product with an old formulation so slop a good amount of this over i've kind of accidentally primed the brush with water there so it might not be as effective but we'll see it's a pretty messy process isn't it but you'd expect it to be you're not going to be able to get years worth of previously applied paint off a solid surface without a bit of a bit of slop so this isn't reacting the uh the base of the cap isn't reacting quite like the top did i've got a bit overexcited there i think that might have been painted um you know at a later date and this is original factory paint which is uh a bit tougher and more resilient oh i'm just gonna try a little bit of wire wool dipped in the uh in the treatment to see oh that's much better okay so a bit of medium grade wire wool primed with the stripper seems to be uh the best option for the base here which was a bit more resilient to the plastic scraper. I was planning to sort of wipe things over with the fine wire wool afterwards anyway and this is the base so it doesn't really matter if it inflicts some light marks of its own so long as I get the paint off but to be honest this doesn't look polished anyway from the factory this is separate so we might get away with not polishing this I'm not sure I can't remember how it sits in the car but either way. I don't know if this is a go-to technique it's just an idea i had um you know i thought what can i use outside of a plastic scraper and i thought so wire wool might be a might be a viable option you know that seems to be working perfectly yeah bit of an awkward one to sort of satisfactorily film if i'm honest with you you know i would guess at this point i've probably grabbed enough shots for you to have a decent idea of uh you know what's involved or what was involved so i might whip the camera off now so i can just focus in on me you know myself um get it stripped off and then come back in once it's done give you an idea of how long that took um and go from there oh god what a nightmare look at this absolute shiz show with the gloves so there's one little tip your standard source of nitrile gloves aren't really up to it um source something a bit more robust i'd say and don't wear any decent clothes when doing this wear your absolute scrags because they're going to get battered so i'm just going to treat it to a final rinse now after having spent uh that extra time off camera to be fair i don't think there's much if any paint left on it i'm happy with where we are there it's pretty much back to bare metal so we're ready for polishing enhancements i've done a little test section with a bit of wire wool i think it'll come up okay so i'm uh i'm happy to uh to continue on with it so i was going to go ahead and fine grade wire wool this first but you run the risk of inflicting micro scratches i've done one little section to be honest it might not need it it looks and feels fairly smooth there's a bit of mottling from the previous process there but i think it's probably best to just go in with a mini machine spot polish first do a test section see how it comes out now i've just put that in but the rear part here it looks more roughly cast it sits recessed in the car so it might not be an issue but unfortunately i don't think that's going to come up as well as that so that might need a bit of wire wool in but obviously the top clasp is the the main focus so um you know we'll cross that bridge when we come to it with that but for now i just want to see what sort of standard we can get this this top part looking um so as i say i'll just get me a micro polisher a bit of a traditional also salt polish because you know period correct product for a component of this age or a part of this age and yeah we'll just do a couple of test sections one on an area that i haven't wire wolled one on an area that i have see how it looks see if there's any difference and go from there i haven't used also sol for a while let's try uh this mottled bit first one inch um mini rotary let's hope it doesn't splatter and make too much of a mess spread it over slightly higher speed looking good already apologies if the lights are flickering here i'm not sure if we've got the camera on the right settings but i haven't really got the uh time or energy to start faffing around so you just have to make do. It's going to be a bit of an awkward one to get around some of the tight spots, there might be a few areas that need doing by hand instead but I'll get as much of it done with this micro polisher as possible. Just a bit of trial and error isn't it you know, still see some staining and mottling on there so I have to go in a bit faster and heavier I think. Right I've decided rightly or wrongly I'm going to commit to gently wire wool it first and then it'll at least get rid of any light mottling and staining that the polisher alone can't and any marks inflicted will at least be uniform and not one-sided I've just had a look at it outside in the sun and it looks all right for the most part you know you're really going to have to get up close and personal or at the right angles to to get finicky with the finish but yeah it just makes sense to me for something this age and that's never probably been done before um to give it a once over with this fine grade wire wool a bit of auto sol um not too much pressure you know this is just fingertip pressure just to sort of deep clean maybe exfoliate smooth out and give it more of a uniform finish even if some of the marks are left behind there is some linear scratches because as i say i don't know exactly what grade this is halfords call it fine but it could be far from fine compared to uh to other brands you know um so i'll just continue on with this and catch up with you in a bit probably going to be a bit of a mishmash video this you know i'm not really trying to remain conscious of exactly what i'm saying and doing and without in what order again the approach now is saying do enough and you should have uh enough bits to snip and splice together to to create a watchable video so we'll just crack on in that manner i'd rather probably not what you want to hear but i'd rather focus on the job at hand more so than trying to professionally to professionally present to a camera and constantly think about what i should and what i need to be saying i'll just vocalize what's going through my head you know whether that's verbal diarrhea or not and hopefully you'll get the idea to try and work over these final little corners and edges last thing you want to do is is commit to polishing and see a little flat spot where you've missed so it's trying to be as sort of detailed and methodical as it realistically can be so i haven't got to go back and repeat the process so i've just had a quick look on the car and thankfully pretty much the whole width the depth of this sits recessed in the body you can't really see it so i'm just going to fine grade wire wool treat it to one polish and then it's done but as i say you can only really see this top part here um which is great we haven't got to really worry about that though but that's why obviously uh Pininfarina or Fiat i haven't bothered properly finishing that at the factory because uh just be wasted time effort money but yeah even if you can't see it you know it's nice to know that everything's been tended to so obviously before i replace this i'll go back to the car and thoroughly clean the the recessed area where this sits the the seal as well and then so you know you've got three different materials and components sitting on there that have all been thoroughly cleaned enhanced and protected and it's just good to know it's not you know sitting on compacted dirt and um this isn't covered in crap and that is uh this is covered in crap and that isn't it just makes sense to um to make sure pretty much everything has been tended to, to a point at least, to an extent. Right, I've wirewheeled till I can wirewheel no more off camera. So I'm just going to treat the lower part to a quick machine so that's done, and then finish off up top. So as I say, this part is just a very quick once-over, just to say it's been done. A bit pointless because you don't get to see it, but while we're here, it makes sense. I'm going to finish up with a bit of a dual action going over I don't know whether it makes any difference to the finish on metal compared to paintwork but I don't know I think it makes sense there's still a fair amount of swirls and things there from the rotary so I think it just makes sense to give it a dual action going over you know finesse it as best I can and then just leave it at that so let's give that a going over and see how we get on I want to make that make sure that's sufficiently secure I'll go with a final fresh towel for that just to be on the safe side light light buff and that's about as good as we're going to get I think which actually doesn't look too bad so I've just had a look at it outside in the direct sun and it doesn't look too bad to be honest so I think the dual action has definitely made a bit of a difference just in knocking back any rotary inflicted swirls so I'm just going to finish up around the edges with that and uh i think that'll be about as good as we can realistically get it so stick with me because we're getting there now i think this piece is small enough thankfully to not have to worry about um dual actioning so that's something so at least i can just treat it treat it to a few passes in rotary mode and that'll uh that should do it it didn't take quite as long for this part as i feared it might do so that's something and that in terms of polishing and enhancing i think will have to be that i'll give everything one last inspection off camera and then we'll return with a bit of a wipe down and a ceramic coat which as i say i can hopefully leave to cure overnight and then we'll finish up tomorrow day number two in the big guru house so because i'm an absolute car cleaning guru that knows exactly what he's doing every step of the way and is fully equipped for every stage of the job i'm going to wipe this down with a glass cleaner because that's all i've got prior to protecting but the alcohol in it will you know strip back any and all residue hopefully whatever's left behind won't get in the way of a ceramic coating bonding but yeah there you go you heard it here first but i think i'm right in thinking that the alcohol content in it will probably be enough to eliminate any residues and leave pretty much a finish free from anything, really. That's what you want on your glass, isn't it? You want nothing left behind. So, a little tip for you there. Obviously, I don't recommend prepping your car with glass cleaner prior to coating. But if you're coating a random part or a component like this and you find yourself caught short, then utilise the alcohol in a glass cleaner to strip things back and naturally flash off. instead. So I'm just going to make use of a previously opened bottle of Avalon Kings Armour Shield here. Not necessarily because it's my favourite or I think it's the most suitable for this but as I say it's already opened so I don't really think it matters what we use on this because as I say I haven't got a huge amount of confidence in it taking anyway. It's just a bit of sacrificial product but the bottle certainly matches the finish so why not. Just trying to ensure it's on all the top sort of facing areas you know that are exposed to the elements and your fingertips not too fussed about the underside if that dulls or even the uh the bottom portion i will coat that as well just in case but if that dulls you won't notice when it's on the car so apply a fairly healthy amount of that let it sit for a minute and then we'll give it a wipe over and that's that pretty much i just gently wipe over there i'm not looking to absolutely remove everything we've just applied but neither do i want any sort of permanent smears so i want to be fairly um fairly detailed and methodical um but that seems to be seem to go on fine it seems to be coming off fine that's what i like about this this uh product you know it's super easy to use pretty foolproof um so it just takes that stress factor out of coating things that are a bit of bit awkward like this to begin with I think that should about do it give this a little going over as well I mean how many people have um ceramic coated like a locking mechanism and a clasp like this I don't know probably not very many very hard to see on the surface which ceramic coatings can be on on a lot of surfaces that's why the uh where the recommended methodology comes from it's not about um it won't work if you don't apply it in a crosshatch manner it's just it's the best approach to ensuring you you get everywhere adequately covered you know um but something like this is just a bit of every every which way isn't it maybe a metal sealant would have been a better approach I could have bought a bottle of that and is it black black fire or something I can't remember from back in the day there was a go-to metal sealant that was pretty good um maybe that would have been a better approach I don't know but we could always do that in the future off camera you know if this doesn't take okay so a bit of a gentle wipe over and realistically I think that's as good as it's gonna get my working environment here obviously is far from ideal and far from clean there's probably stray wire wool strands and you know polish splatter and blood from my finger and all sorts but it is what it is that looks all right and it's technically now protected so there you go but i don't think that looks too bad so i'm happy to leave it there for the time being and pick it up again in the morning hopefully get it boxed off tomorrow so catch you then that's definitely a new lease of life it's completely different than it looked this morning so that was kind of the aim of the game whether it stays like that or not you know remains to be seen but uh i'm happy enough for the time being don't want to touch it now you know there we go underneath so i'll just properly plonk that down and we'll just leave that overnight um come back in the morning maybe one final wipe down as i say clean the recessed part of the car clean the um the rubber gasket thing i don't even know where i've put that i'll have to go and find it now um and then reseal it and reseat it right so it's the next next day now because i jibbed it off yesterday i just couldn't be bothered with it um it was sunday it just wasn't doable for various reasons so instead of potentially lose something or force something and damage um you know a surrounding area i thought it was better to just put it on hold get a head start with the editing and then finish up this morning so obviously it's the start of the working week now monday morning i've got a job this afternoon um a scratch to try and knock back out the side of an old lady's car so i can't be turning up with a plastic bag covered petrol tank so i need to commit to getting things put back together now yesterday i did go ahead and clean this rubbery plastic gasket in the sink just an all-purpose cleaner um soft dish bristle brush rinse and then i let it soak in a water-based dressing just to try and get it as rejuvenated as it realistically can i also swished out this rear quarter where everything sits with rinseless wash which worked fine. Now there's still a bit of sealant residue there which I'm not too fussed about because I've had to bung a bit of extra butyl tape of my own back in just to try and replicate what was already there because I guess this is kind of an ingression point for water and I don't think it's been leaking up to this point so the last thing I want to do is start a new leak of my own. So that isn't pretty but it's clean if that makes sense but this sits over the top anyway so I'm just going to go ahead and plonk that in hopefully get it seated um correctly and then i'll pull the camera in to show you plonking the uh the freshly enhanced petcock cap back in which i'm hoping will go in fine and it wasn't fully tight to begin with was it so it doesn't have to be i mean it was wasn't jiggling about in the car but the nuts weren't um weren't fully nipped up now i've again i've replicated what was there to begin with which was a bit of butyl sealant around the underside of the head i guess that's just to seal things hopefully that doesn't clog up the threads but yeah we'll see so i'll pull you in for that now and we can uh finish up and i'll share my thoughts as i'm doing so right so let's offer it up making use of this uh locating pin on the base there which is all we've all we've really got to go by so there we go that's better so this little rear section's centered within the seal now so right i think that's it so in retrospect i could have uh sanded the heads of these these bolts off because they're going to let the side down but obviously I can do that at a later date and we're not going to see that when it's closed but let's just see if we can get them in to begin with that's going in okay by the by the look and feel of it I think with the butyl tape we're not going to get it fully nipped up that feels okay it's probably best to put them in by hand first and then follow up bit keyhole surgery like this but it'd be nice if i didn't have to take it out again once it's in you know yeah it's looking all right so i think i shall uh pull the camera back and uh yeah as i said just conclude my thoughts as i'm uh as i'm finishing up last couple of bolts and i can give it a little wipe down and uh grab some after shots for you i think it's gonna look great it's far from perfect but it's not too bad either it's a bit better a bit better than i thought it was gonna be if that makes sense um so that's good quick wipe over with a damp towel although it is starting to uh to rain again so that might be a bit counterproductive but you know i've got to try haven't i this kind of job was the exact reason i bought this car so yeah i don't feel like i'm i'm really going out my way to do anything i shouldn't be this is exactly why i got hold of it but i'm chasing my tail here because i'm wiping things down as it's as it's raining so for now i think i'm gonna have to leave it there and uh yeah get some after shots as and when to overlay so as always cheers for tuning in let me know what you think i would be interested to hear your thoughts should i shouldn't i would you wouldn't you have and uh yeah see you again soon with something else