My name is Brent Dicesare.
I'm one half of WD Detailing.
And today we're going to be cleaning
a 1978 Sterling Nova that sat in a barn since 1985.
So, a Sterling Nova is a kit car
which is on a Volkswagen Beetle chassis and engine.
And it's really unique because of the way it looks
and the way that the top opens.
There's no doors on this car.
The way that you get in and out
is literally by the whole top lifting up.
We had to take the top off of this car
because it actually couldn't hold its own weight up
and we didn't want to risk it falling on one of us.
As soon as we took the top off of the car,
we found this mouse nest right on the backside of the dash.
It was made out of insulation or carpet
or parts from the seats.
Any random fibers that they can find in the car
they'll take and make a nest out of.
And then we sanitized the area afterwards
with TriClean, which is a cleaner
that will kill all the bacteria.
Cars attract mice because
they know that it's a dark space,
and when these cars sit in a barn
and nobody's touching them for 30-plus, 40-plus years,
they're not going to be bothered,
so they're going to take advantage of that.
And then after that
we were able to take the seats out
and really get in there and clean everything.
We found that these carpets
were completely disintegrated,
and they're definitely going to have to replace them.
And we actually haven't really seen
carpets this bad before.
So if I had to make an assumption
on why this happened,
it's a combination of them sitting over time
and the mice getting into them and eating them up.
And under the carpet, as soon as we pulled it out,
I looked down and found a nice surprise
of a dead mouse.
We disposed of it off camera,
but we just had to pick it up with our gloves
and toss it in the garbage can.
There's no nice way to throw away a dead mouse.
We started vacuuming the floor pans,
and then we sanitized them again with our TriClean.
And then we used our steamer behind it
to kill anything else.
And then we wiped it all away with microfiber towels.
So, this dashboard was covered in dust completely.
And at this point we're still using TriClean
to clean the interior,
because we want to disinfect everything.
We knew that this car isn't going to be started
for quite a while, because it doesn't run
and it needs a lot of repair work,
so if cleaner gets inside the buttons
or inside of the switches,
it's not going to be the end of the world,
because it'll definitely dry up before
there's any kind of electricity running through this car.
So, if you want to get a barn find,
a good way is searching on Facebook Marketplace.
The people that we work with
specifically search for these cars,
and then they bring them to us
because they sat for so long.
A lot of it's word of mouth.
So, for these seats, they were covered in
anything that the mice could put on them.
So the first thing that we do is vacuum them,
and then we'll go ahead and extract them.
So we use our extractor soap,
and then we'll use our drill brush to agitate the soap
and really work it into those fibers.
And then we'll use our extractor,
which shoots hot water into the fibers
and also sucks it away at the same time.
So it's a vacuum, but it's a vacuum with water.
The exterior of this car was covered in dust
from front to back,
and then there was some wood chips
and other stuff in the headlight crevice,
which, I'm pretty sure on this kit,
there's supposed to be a headlight cover,
but for some reason they were missing
on this specific car.
And here we're vacuuming out some of the jambs,
which we like to do before we pressure wash off the car,
because if there's any wood chips or anything,
it might scratch the paint.
So, on the wheels,
they were covered with some sort of green substance,
which, I don't know if it was mold or not.
And to clean this tire, we'll go ahead
and pressure wash everything off of it first.
And then we'll use our P&S Brake Buster
on the tire and the rim,
and then we'll use an assortment of brushes,
usually soft-bristle brushes and a tire brush.
And then we'll pressure wash it all away.
The paint on this car was in pretty good condition.
The only thing that we noticed was deteriorating
was the black paint.
So, what we're spraying on this car
is a paint-safe degreaser
so we can loosen up all that dirt
before we pressure wash it away.
And what that's going to do
is minimize any kind of swirl marks or scratches.
Paint chips can be damaging to a car,
only because it can cause rust to form
if there's metal underneath where the paint was.
But there was no rust on this body at all
because it's made out of fiberglass.
So, we're starting to foam the car here
using our pressure washer and foam cannon.
And this is the part that a lot of people
find the most satisfying in the whole process.
And there's two reasons why people use foam cannons.
The first one is as a presoak,
so they can loosen up all the dirt
that's on the surface of the car.
But also, instead of just putting soap in a bucket,
it helps you put soap over the entire car,
which makes the process safer for the paint and easier.
And after foaming the car,
we'll use microfiber mitts on the entire car
to wash it down.
And now we're using our Rupes buffer
to take any of the oxidation off
the top layer of the paint,
which will make it a lot shinier, less dull,
and give it that overall wow factor at the end.
So this is just, like, a paint correction.
And when it came to the black paint,
we didn't even polish it at all,
because it was starting to come off of the car
and we didn't want to ruin or take away
any of that paint that was already there.
There wasn't too much that we could personally do.
It's something that would have to either be redone
or just left as is.
And after the whole car is cleaned
and we're ready to do the finishing touches,
we'll do a tire shine.
And as that dries, it leaves the tires
looking nice and matte black,
and it just gives it that overall wow factor
for the customer.
And the absolute last thing we'll do
is spray a ceramic sealant over the entire car.
It'll protect the paint just a little bit,
but it'll also give it a nice shine
and just complete the detail.
And that's it.
I was super happy with the way that this car turned out.
I actually personally want to buy it myself.
We'll see how that goes in the near future,
when it's done being fixed up.
When it comes to cleaning barn finds,
if I can give any advice,
it's just to take your time
and really do your research.
That way, you don't make any
super-detrimental mistakes.
Because the last thing you want to do
is find something that has original paint
or an original interior and damage it.
But also, have fun with the process.