Restoring a tired 2003 motor home to its former glory

Its March 2020, seventeen years after our motor home was built. My big task ahead of me is to remove all the fungus, moss and green, and return some gloss to the faded gel coat.

The first part of the process was to wash the whole motor home with a chemical which combats organic mass. This breaks down the tree green and mould which can be difficult to remove from caravans and motor homes roofs especially.

Delicate areas were soaked in non caustic product and where necessary agitated before rinsing clean. The engine bay and door shuts were treated with high powered caustic cleaner as were the wheel arches to remove heavy soiling and built up dirt. Those surfaces were pressure washed appropriately there afterwards.

The wheels were soaked in a diluted from of hydrochloric base wheel cleaner to remove rust staining and ingrained stubborn brake dust.

Gel Coat Polishing For Caravans and Motorhomes

Once rinsed cleaned I went about machine polishing using mainly Presta ultra cutting creme with a fully twisted 200mm head for the larger areas mounted on a dewalt polisher. Starting at low rpm to break the product down, slowly working my way through to high speed producing high gloss finishes.
This procedure was echoed with 160mm heads in the same wool, and with foam on diamond glide cutting pads.  These loaded onto milwaukee ap12e and a hand help milwaukee cordless on a 95mm heads also.

Proceeding the cutting stage a complete and full panel wipe down with nanolex Ex and a refining stage with both rotary with a blended presta wool pads. Then a foam pad loaded onto a force driven Flex VRG to remove any aggressive polishing marks and possible buffer trails, thus resulting in a high finish to the gel coat on the motor home. This was completed using Malco epic medium compound.

Headlight Restoration

The headlights although not too badly discoloured definitely benefited from revitalisation. The lamps were sanded down with 800, 1500 grit wet and dry paper and then polished to a high finish with Presta headlight restorer using a foam 120mm orange diamond glide head.

Acrylic Window Polishing On Motorhomes & Caravans

It is possible to obtain almost flawless finishes of plastic caravan and motor home acrylic windows and is a service that we can provide. However considerations have to be made with real world eventualities. Meaning how long could it be that vehicles are forced into overhanging undergrowth down tight lanes and mark surfaces once again. So in this case and aggressive wool head and headlight restoration polish was used to cut and restore abrasion scratches across the the windows. It was then refined using a blue blended presta wool pad.

Gel Coat Protection and Final Finish

One final wipe down with nanolex ex to remove all waxes and oils to enable our gloss booster sealant to adhere to the surface for maximum longevity. Our motor home is now restored and is holding hydrophobic and uv protection to assist with potential premature ageing, maintain a high gloss and enable easier future washing.

The tyre were dressed with long silicone dressing, not only to enhance appearance, but to assist in prevention of rubber deterioration. All the black plastics were also treated the the same dressing with Nanolex Tyres & Rubber Restorer.

Windows were cleaned with nanolex reactivating glass cleaner, not only to clean, but to act as a rain repellent. The inside of the windows were cleaned as per usual.

Our motor home is now completely cleaned, polished, sealed and looking fantatsic. 

For prices to get your caravan or motor home cleaned, polished or rejuvenated please click here

For purchasing Nanolex product check www.nanolexstore.co.uk