How long does it take to clean and proof a hood?
It depends on how dirty the roof is and how thorough you are. When we clean a roof, we keep going until, when we shampoo it, the suds remain bright white and when we rinse, the water runs crystal clear. On a very dirty roof, we may have to shampoo, scrub, rinse and repeat six times. And bear in mind that we are using machines that speed up the process considerably.
If the roof is well maintained, and cleaned regularly, you might only have to do it twice. Twice is the minimum we recommend.
The next stage is to weatherproof the hood, and to apply a waterproof coating properly, your soft top needs to be bone dry. Water and waterproof coating don't mix, so if there is any moisture in the roof, it will prevent the coating from adhering.
The time take to dry a roof depends on the temperature and humidity. In the summer, we can dry a soft top in half an hour, using air lines to blow out the excess water, and parking the hood under a fan. But in winter this can take a few hours even for us.
We also recommend that once the weatherproof coating is applied, it is given time to dry before using the car.
So in concluding, we have a system and equipment that allows us to clean and weatherproof a hood within a day, but if you are doing it yourself, it could take far longer. So we recommend treating it as a project that you do over several days, rather than a chore you can tackle in an afternoon. It is far better to take your time and do it properly.
Written by Danny Argent. Last updated 25/08/2022 17:49