Well, its been just about 2 weeks since had the brick painted-again. looks pretty good. I finally rinsed it, no soap no towel,just rinse and "drive dry". Sometime next week I will wash it, using a little Dawn dish soap. Dawn is very mild. After another week will repeat and that time will wax.

Bought a can of "Blackfire Midnight Sun Ivory Carnauba Paste Wax"; pricey, but has a good reputation. Everything I read reccomends using a high quality carnauba wax, and there's quite a few out there. I will resign myself to waxing about every 2-3 months. It's also reccomended using light coats, don't "pile it on".

And then off to Costco, got a good (sale) price on Michelins' Defenders for a set of 4.

Next, and this was surprising to me, I decided to really clean the underside of the hood, which I did. Then I spray painted it with "high heat" white spray paint, 2 coats. Reason was I wanted to try to reflect away the heat away from under the hood. Not only did it do that, but I noticed the engine noise became much quieter. BTW, yes, I thouroughly protected the paint job with heavy duty vinyl drop cloths. Too bad I didnt really think anout that until after the paint job. In any event, no spray paint got on the new paint job!