2007 Chevrolet Colorado

Well I received a phone call from my little brother asking if I could detail a truck? As usual who am I to turn down a detail. The vehicle:

2007 Chevrolet Colorado

Here is how the vehicle was delivered:



















The interior was a little dusty.







I popped the hood open and here is what greeted me:




Well I had my work cut out, so I began with the interior and first up I gave the interior a full vacuum:




Next it was time to give the interior a full wipe down, for the wipe down I used eShines new APC diluted 20:1 with a yellow micro fiber towel and a Zymol brush:


First all hard to reach areas received a good scrub with the Zymol brush:


Then wiped down:


To insure that all water along with dust has been removed I used my air compressor:


This process is repeated to the entire interior:






Here is how the wipe down water finished off:

Just a tad dirty huh.

Well once the interior was completely wiped down and I was satisfied with it was time to concentrate on the door jams. First I sprayed some eShine APC diluted 20:1 then agitated with a Zymol brush:


Followed by a good wipe down with a micro fiber towel:




Well by now the interior is almost spotless, all that is left is to extract all carpets and cloth seats. So first with my heated extractor all carpet is given a quick pre-rinse, followed up with eShines APC and agitated with a Meg’s carpet brush. To complete all carpet is given a final extraction to remove all dirt and APC:


Well having the interior now spotless it was time to dress the interior, for this Zymol Vinyl is applied with the help of a yellow foam applicator:


In some areas I was able to apply Vinyl directly to the trim:


Spread with a yellow foam applicator:


This process is carried out to all Vinyl trim through out the vehicle, once all Vinyl trim was dressed it was time for a final wipe down with yet another micro fiber towel:




Well this takes care of the interior, next up is the engine bay. First the engine bay was given a quick rinse, followed up with the entire engine bay sprayed down with eShines APC:






The engine bay was given a good scrub with a Swissvax brush:






Once satisfied with the engine bay it was given a good rinse.

Well that took care of the engine bay and I didn’t realize how late it was but I wanted to have the vehicle completely clean on the first day so I moved on to the wheel wells, rims and tires.

First the wheel wells received a healthy coat of eShine’s APC:




The tires were also given a healthy coat of eShine’s APC:


I remember Chris saying how his APC is safe so I thought I’d use it on the rims as well, so gave the rims a good coat of his APC as well:




Well now it was time give all parts a good scrub, fist up with a Meg’s long handle brush the wheel wells are agitated:




The inside of the rims are agitated with my EZ brush:


Making sure to get all the way inside:


The face of the rims are also agitated with my Swissvax brush:


Lastly the tires are scrubbed with my Meg’s tire brush:


This process is carried out to wheel wells, tires and rims.

Once the shoes of the vehicle were taken care off it was time to wash the rest of the vehicle, for this the two bucket method is used with the Sea Sponge, as for shampoo I used Meg’s Gold Class Shampoo:


Once the vehicle had been washed it was rinsed off with the CR System to insure no water spots remain on the vehicle.

Once the washing process is complete the entire vehicle is clayed with Riccardo clay bar, for the most part the vehicle was in reasonable shape. However, all lower panels had some tar which took some time to remove but at least the clay bar was able to remove them.

Once the vehicle was completely clayed I gave it another rinse and first used my air compressor to remove as much water as possible, followed up with my waffle weaved micro fiber towels.

The vehicle was delivered a bit late so by now it was really, really late so this is as far as I was able to get to on day one.

Day two:

Day two began nice and early as I was looking forward on seeing the imperfections on the vehicle.

First up the entire vehicle was taped up, it took me about an hour to tape this vehicle up, but well worth it. Here is the vehicle all taped up:










Next, it was time to see how much clear coat/paint I had to play with, for this I used my PosiTector 6000 gauge:




The vehicle had plenty of clear coat, how ever the owner told me that on the rear passenger side the truck had been re-cleared and it sure was noticeable. The graph will show this much better:

As you can see the vehicle averaged about 172microns, plenty of clear coat and as you can see by the right side of the graph the readings increased and that was the area that had been re-clear coated.

I take quite a few paint gauge readings and the reason I do this is to insure the vehicle has plenty of clear coat for me to do the paint correction process. This vehicle had plenty f clear coat and I was looking forward to the paint correction process.

Well now that I know I have lots of clear coat to play with time to see what I was up against, for the paint inspection I use my 3M Sun Gun:







There is a nice long scratch on this section.


This was the worst spot on the vehicle.


As you can see it had a bunch of holograms and buffer marks. I was expecting this as this is the section the owner of the vehicle told me was re-clear coated.

Now I taped several section to be able to do the 50/50 comparison. I started off on the rear and considering the colour of the vehicle I knew it was going to take at least a two stage process. So first up Menzerna 85RD3.02 with a Blue 3M UK pad with Metabo at 1500RPM, this combo was leaving some micro marring so it was followed up with another Blue 3M UK pad, Menzerna 85RD and with the Metabo at 1500RPM. The flares of the wheel wells required a smaller pad so I used my UK small backing plate with the blue and red Ultimate pads:




Here is how this combo was finishing down for me:


I used the exact same combo as mentioned above on the tail lights but with the 4inch Ultimate foam pads, here is the driver side tail light before:


Here’s me polishing with the Blue (Polishing) Ultimate pad with the UK Baking plate:


Here is how the tail light finished off:


Much better now. Well as you can see this combo was providing satisfying results for me, so I proceed to use this combo for the rest of the vehicle.

Here is how the rear driver side finished off:

I had not given the vehicle a wipe down just yet so sorry for the polish residue.

Well I came to the driver door and here is what I saw:

The owner told me that a soccer ball hit the driver door and here is the damage of the soccer ball.

I tried the combo mentioned above and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be enough so I added an extra step and that step was a 3M UK Compounding pad (Orange) with 3M UK Fast Cut Plus. Here is how this section was finished off:

Still had a deep scratch but the owner told me he would like to keep the truck for quite some time so I thought it would be best to leave it at this point.

Here is a 50/50 of the passenger side door:

(Again sorry for the polish residue)

Passenger door also had a nice deep scratch:

This one was a bit deeper then the soccer ball scratch oh and this door there was this scratch as well:

So once again I added the third polishing step using the 3M UK Compounding pad (Orange) with 3M UK Fast Cut Plus, this of course induced quite a bit of micro marring along with holograms:

So it was followed up with Menzerna 85RD3.02 and finished off with 85RD both with a Blue 3M UK pad.

I wanted to see if I could capture the difference Menzerna 85RD made so I taped up the passenger door again and obtained this 50/50:

The left side is the one that received 85RD and the right side has 85RD3.02. It made a significant amount of difference but I should have wiped the area down a little better as you can still see polish residue on the left side.

The passenger fender also was covered with holograms and micro marring from just a 85RD3.02:




I too taped it up to show the difference 85RD made to it:


Right side had been polished with 85RD3.02:


Left side finessed with 85RD:

(but had not been given it’s final wipe down just yet)

Here are all the items used during the paint correction process:


Well as you can see a significant difference was made. Well the paint correction process took a significant amount of time, day two was once again another late day but before I called it quits it was time to remove all the tape and the dust from the vehicle:


For this my Zymol duster was used:

Once all dust had been completely removed it was time to give the vehicle a final wipe down with Menzerna Final Inspection and various micro fiber towels. The paint was once again inspected to insure I didn’t induce any micro marring during the final wipe down.

The owner requested a sealant and was after durability so I used Duragloss. First up a coat of DG#601 is applied:


Followed up with DG#105, I gave the rims a coat of DG#105 as well:


Here is DG sealant left on the vehicle:






I left the sealant on the vehicle over night to bond and this concludes day two. The paint correction process took 16hrs, with breaks for lunch and dinner.

Day three:

Day three was quite simple, removed the sealant, dress the engine bay, dress the tires and wheel wells oh and my favorite part, take care of the exhaust tip.

For the exhaust tip my favorite tool was used, Autosol:


Here is the exhaust tip before:


After:

I tried removing that black film around the edge but it just wouldn’t budge, I even tried steel wool 0000 and no go

Well here is how the vehicle finished off, lets start off with the engine bay:
Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Now for the rest of the vehicle, oh one thing I should note and I completely forgot about this, as you will see by the pictures it was a gorgeous sunny day and I forgot to change the setting on my camera so the pictures will appear extremely bright.






(See what I mean about bright :shakehad: )





































Seeing as I didn’t adjust my camera accordingly to take the pictures I’m glad I made this walk around video, hopefully it will show the end results much better then the pictures:



Well hope you enjoy, the owner of the vehicle was thrilled with the end results and most importantly I lived up to my little brothers expectations, in other words he spoke very highly of me and my detailing abilities and I’m glad I was able to come through and deliver :thumb:

Hope you enjoyed the detail.

 

looks good

 

Very nice of you to detail your little brother's truck like that, looks amazing!

 

Thank you for the feed back eace:

Oh sorry, I forgot to say that this truck belongs to a friend of my little brothers. My little brother spoke very highly of me and I wanted to make sure I came through for him...so not my little brothes vehicle but his friends. Sorry for the confusion. But thank you for the feed back P1et eace:

 

Fantastic job.

 

Great job Carlos as always, no wonder your brother was happy your work is top notch.:worship2: And Carlos on friday the pads finally arrived now I just need some kind of smaller backing plate to use the small ones, i thought they would be larger. Thank you again for the pads!!!!

 

In one word = SOLID

In 3 words = Better than new

another great detail!

 

Thank you er1k024

Thank you Smith and glad to hear the pads arrived :cheerl: as for the smaller backing plate I need to get back to Rich with the 5/8th small backing plate, just like the one I have but the ones I have are M14 that's why you see me using the adaptor on my Metabo. The only thing is that with the move coming up I can't order aything else becuase the house is a mess and ordering more items would just make it worse :shakehead: so till the move is done I wont be able to order the small 5/8th backing plates :sorry:

Thank you my friend, very much appreciated, glad you enjoyed it eace:

 

great job Nica, that is a cool little truck.

 

Man I just keep getting blown away by your work Nica. Man your attention to every single detail and the meticulous work is soooo impressive! Even if the camera settings weren't what you wanted the truck still looks incredible.

 

Thank you Asphalt, very much appreciated. As for the truck, yes, quite the nice looking truck, can't say I've seen trucks like this one :thumb:

Thank you JL for the kind words my friend, very much appreciated. First time I forgot to adjust the camera and I didn't realize till it was too late :shrug: oh well lesson learned. But at least some of them turned out okay, so I was able to use them.

 

I gotta say this is by far my favorite detail that you've done... I'm just a sucker for lifted trucks!!!!

 

Superb job once again Carlos:applause2: Your always so thorough in you process and write ups, its nice to see a detailed step by step. Must have been nice been able to polish panels that were a bit closer to eye level, I would love to get my butt of the garage floor once in a while. BTW you really do love the phrase "a healthy coat" lol. Again superb job:thumb:

 

As Always Carlos great job, i was wondering way you used to dress the engine bay after it was all cleaned up with the APC?

 

Incredible work.. truck looks amazing! :worship2:



I have a similar black truck that I plan to detail.. if I ever get the chance. If I could get it looking 85% as nice as that one I would be pleased.

I also have decals like the Z71 4x4 on the sides of my truck bed (except mine says NISMO ). I noticed that you did not tape over them? Did you polish them with the rotary?

I have heard that you can take off pinstripes fairly easily with a rotary.. is this also that case for decals?

I have considered removing the decals from my truck anyway.. so if I messed them up polishing then I could just remove them.. Is that a bad idea? Has anyone done this before? Once upon a time (before I ever even knew you could polish cars) I removed the pinstrips from my previous car and it left a noticable shine difference in the clearcoat.

BTW.. I have been rear-ended 3 freakin times in my truck and the left side decal has been changed 4 times.

 

Carlos, your pics, descriptions, and detailing ability are all top shelf. Good Job!

 

Thank you for the compliment Dust2Glory, very much appreciated. As for the truck, yes I have to admit it's a sharp looking truck, I like the spare tire rack it has in the back, gives it a nice touch :thumb:

Thank you dsms, yes I have to admit working on this vehicle was nice, not that much need to bend the knees too much...lol..as for the phrase, well what can I say I enjoy applying everything in large quantities lol..I'm a little :crasy" that way lol. Glad you enjoyed it.

Thank you for the feed back, as to why I dress the engine bay, well I find a well dressed engine bay looks much better. It's all a personal taste really, you don't have to dress it but it will look better just personal taste that's all.

Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the feed back, as far as the decals go yes I polished right over them, no issues here I just didn't allow too much heat to be generated on the decals that's all. Yes, if you are not careful you can remove pinstripes, I've accidently done it once but it didn't really matter as it was an old beater and I could do what ever I wanted to it. As for removing decals with the rotary, well it could be, I've never done it my self but I mean if you allow the rotary to generate enough heat directly on to the decals then yes I can see it removing it but again that's just my theory, I've never done it. Usually removal of decals is best done with a heat gun but then again I honestly haven't done it my self.

Hope this helps.

Thank you integrity, very much appreciated, glad you enjoyed it...i'm still working on the pictures, I'm still kicking my self for forgetting to change the setting on the camera though. I mean I always do it, today I just forgot :wall: Oh well live and learn I suppose :shrug:

Thank you for the kind words :hug:

 

Carlos...what a great, great job for your little bro!! C'mon now, be honest, when you did this, you wanted to write "Wash Me" in the dust, now didn't you? I love the time you take to outline your jobs..thanks!

 

Someone doesn't keep his vehicles up like his brother. Nice job Carlos.

 

Ok since my previous post vanished into the internet black hole, I will ask again. Two things, how does the eshine APC compare to others you use like Megs. And second, when you mix up your bucket with water and APC for your interior work how much water and APC are you using?