Well this is the last detail I would complete at my old garage, what a way to say good buye to it huh :thumb: Well this vehicle belongs to a co-worker of my sisters, she referred them to me so I had to make sure I lived up to the referral. Well when I saw the vehicle I knew I had my work cut out and not only that but I had a challenge, I haven’t been challenged for a wile so I was really looking forward to this vehicle. Well here is how the vehicle was delivered to me: Well as you can see I had my work cut out, the paint well in order to asses the condition of the paint I need to go through the proper steps first, so I’ll get to the state of the paint shortly. Well I always like to start my details off with what I like to call the shoes of the vehicle. Well here are the tools that I’m going to use for the shoes of this vehicle: First up, P21S Total Auto Wash is sprayed on the wheel wells: Then ARO is sprayed on the tires: P21S Gel is applied to the rims: The chemicals hard at work: Now it was time to scrub/agitate, first up with the long handle brush the wheel wells are agitated: The inside of the rims receive the EZ brush: Making sure to get all the way inside the rims: The face of the rims are agitated with a Swissvax brush: This process is done to all wheel wells, tires and rims, I refer to this section of the vehicle as the shoes of the vehicle and the shoes need to look good :thumb: Well on with the show, next up is the engine bay. First a quick rinse, then I applied P21S Total Auto Wash and agitated with a Swissvax brush: Once satisfied with the engine bay it was rinsed off and with the air compressor water is removed. Now for the rest of the vehicle, first the CR System is connected and ready to go. The vehicle is given a quick rinse and areas that I felt required P21S Total Auto Wash received it, such as: Yes, all the door jams needed Total Auto Wash. I let P21S Total Auto Wash sit for a few minutes wile I got the two bucket system going. To be honest, I didn’t have to use the two bucket system on this vehicle and you’ll see why but I did any ways, just used to it that’s all. The shampoo or choice is Meg’s Gold Class Shampoo with the sea sponge: I proceeded to wash the vehicle as I washed, all door jams were also scrubbed: Once the vehicle was washed and all door jams completed it was time to clay the vehicle, the clay of choice is: Here is how the clay finished off: The clay picked up lots of contamination and the surface of the vehicle felt like sand paper :shakehead: needless to say the clay bars was tossed afterwards. Next, with the help of my PosiTector 6000 I took readings around for the most part the vehicle was averaging a healthy 160microns. Well that was till I made y way around to the ¼ driver side panel: Quite the drastic jump in readings. Next it was time to take readings with the PosiTector 200. The graph will show what I found with the paint gauges: First up the PosiTector 6000 readings: Second the readings for the PosiTector 200 Well as you can see from the graphs the vehicle had some kind of body work done to it, I’m leaning towards a car accident. I say this because the passenger driver side door just wasn’t lining up properly with the rest of the lower panels but that’s just my guess. Any who on with the show. Next, the vehicle is taped up with some 3M green tape and now for the fun stuff. Time to see what I was up against and I was eager to see this…okay hold on to your monitors: Oh when I saw this I was literally going like this :wicked: this made me smile and giggle inside :woo: oh but there is more. Oh check this out, wet sanding marks :cheerl: Holograms :druling: Oh and more holograms :thumb: well what can I say I was like a kid in a candy store with this vehicle. I mean I haven’t been challenged this way for a wile and the owner of the vehicle said the magic words “treat this vehicle as though it was your own” woo I can still hear those words :chest: Well now what to try :thinking: well I would have gone with Menzerna but I checked and to my surprise I’m out of Power Gloss and I knew I was going to need Power Gloss so I went with all 3M products. Well as usual, least aggressive to most aggressive :thumb: so I started off with a Blue 3M UK pad with 3M UK Ultrafina SE 50383, but the results were as expected, not to my satisfaction, here take a look: Well to be honest it didn’t make a difference. So on to the next trial. Next, I used Black 3M UK pad with 3M UK Perfect-it III Extra Fine Compound 80349 followed up with a Blue 3M UK pad with 3M UK Ultrafina SE 50383 and once again the results were not satisfying: This helped, a little but as you can see many, many deep scratches. Now it was time to step up to compounding :cheerl: Orange 3M UK compounding pad with 3M UK Fast Cut Pluss 50417 followed up with a Black 3M UK pad with 3M UK Perfect-it III Extra Fine Compound 80349 followed up with a Blue 3M UK pad with 3M UK Ultrafina SE 50383 and here are the results: Well this removed majority of the deep scratches but some still remained, I gave it another pass just to see if perhaps two passes of compounding would take care of the deep scratches and the results were no better so now it’s time to step it up to the Menzerna wool pad. So the process was as follows: Menzerna wool pad with Fast Cut Plus 50417, followed up with a Black 3M UK pad with 3M UK Perfect-it III Extra Fine Compound 80349, and finished off with a Blue 3M UK pad with 3M UK Ultrafina SE and here are the results: Well finally a combo worth wile and best of all it gave me the results I was after. Oh by the way the paint on this vehicle seemed to be the traditional tinted clear coat. At first I thought it was single stage paint but I inspected the pad better and it was just a faint tint of black, so I assume that it’s tinted clear coat. I’m not a 100% sure but again that’s just my assumption :shrug: Well now that I know the combo, by the way finding the combo took just over two hours, but well worth it :thumb: Now that I knew the combo, I proceeded to simply compound the entire vehicle and I took some pictures as to how the compounding process went: Lets start off with the worse part, you remember this pictures: Well here is the exact same area after I compounded it with a wool pad: Oh by no means did I finish LSP wile compounding as I’m sure you can make it out from all the holograms and swirl marks but what I’m trying to show here is how all the deep scratches are now gone. Wool pads do an incredible job at flattening down the paint and removing most if not all deep scratches :thumb: Here is a 50/50 of the compounding process: Compounded side: Not compounded side: Hood 50/50: Driver fender 50/50: Driver door 50/50: I did my best to try to finish LSP with a wool pad but to be honest I just couldn’t :shrug: besides I’m compounding :wicked: Well I compounded the entire vehicle and this took quite a few hours, in fact, by the time I was done it was close to mid night so I finished the compounding and called it a day. Day two: Well day two carried over and now that all the deep scratches had been removed through the compounding process it was time to bring life back to the vehicle. So it was time to polish the entire vehicle with a Black 3M UK pad with 3M UK Perfect-it III Extra Fine Compound 80349 and here are some pictures to show the difference this process made: Passenger pillar 50/50: Polished side: Non polished side: Oh check this out, passenger pillars, between doors before: After: By the way this was done with the small Ultimate foam pads with the small backing plate with the 5/8th adaptor :thumb: oh and don’t mind the polish residue, no wipe down just yet as I still have a long way to go. More 50/50’s: Here is the entire area polished out, again excuse the polish residue: Passenger fender: Hood: Polished side: Non refined side: Driver door 50/50: Driver lower panel 50/50: Driver side rear tail light before: After: I gave the tail lights another pass to completely remove the swirls but you can see the difference. Here is a 50/50 of the spoiler: Well after 5hrs I completed the second stage and now time for stage three. Stage three was a Blue 3M UK pad with 3M UK Ultrafina SE, this process just gave the vehicle that extra glow and just in case I missed any holograms I went a head with this process. I how ever didn’t take any pictures of this process as it was getting a bit late. Well 4hours went by and the I was finally satisfied with the vehicle. Once again it was getting a bit late and called it a night. Day three: Well day three began by removing all the tape on the vehicle and with my Zymol duster all dust was removed: Now for the final wipe down. When I removed the tape I noticed there was quite a bit of polish residue left over, like this: I sprayed all the areas with Menzerna Top Inspection: Well the final wipe down took a bit but well worth it as there were spots with plenty of polish residue :shakhead: Well now the choice of wax, this was completely up to me and I choose to go with Victoria wax (red), first I applied Victoria Lite Cleanse then Victoria Concours Red Wax. I let the wax sit for several minutes, wile the wax was left to bond to the paint I got started with the interior. First up the entire vehicle is given a good vacuum: Once satisfied with the vacuum it was time to give the vehicle a thorough wipe down, for the wipe down I used Meg’s APC diluted 10:1. With the help of my Zymol brush the vents were cleaned: Then wiped down with a yellow micro fiber towel: Lastly, finished off with my air compressor: Well the wipe down continued and it took quite a bit of time, when I was done this is how the water finished off: Quite dirty huh Well once the wipe down was done it was time to shampoo the interior, first the carpet was given a light mist with the help of my HP-60. Then folex was sprayed on to the carpet: Then agitated with a Meg’s carpet brush: Finally the carpet is extracted with worm water from the HP-60: Well this process is done to all interior carpet. Now it was time to dress the interior, for this I used Optimum with the help of a yellow micro fiber towel. The leather seats, now the leather seats took quite a bit but to be honest what ever I through at it, it just wasn’t strong enough. I was tempted on using Meg’s APC but there is no way I’d do that…to harsh for it :shakehead: Any who, leather was cleansed as much as possible with Lexol and treated with Lexol as well. Well this just about concludes the detail, glass was completed with Stoners Invisible Glass with a glass micro fiber towel. Exhaust tips were done with Autosol and steel wool# 0000. Victoria had been removed after 30minutes or so with a bunch of Cooke Monsters :thumb: Well this concludes this vehicle, and the only complaint I have is the leather seats. They were just really bad :shakehead: Well here is how the vehicle finished off, lets start off with the engine bay: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Oh by the way the engine bay was dressed with Optimum as well. Now for the interior: Well like I said, my only complaint was the leather seats, they jut didn’t finish off like I hoped :shakehead: Well here is the exhaust before: After: Well here are a few pictures I managed to take a few pictures of the vehicle outside, but the sun was going down :shrug: Sun was hiding behind the cloud :sorry: Well all in all I was thrilled with the end results, the owner of the vehicle was very pleased with the vehicle as well, you should have seen him and his wife go over the vehicle. I was happy with there facial expression, worth every sweat..oh and I’m not kidding my garage was really, really hot over 30C and I sweated buckets. Well as always, hope you enjoy the detail, I know I did :cheerl:
These write ups are fantastic, I learn from them every single time! Gorgeous work on reviving that paint Nica!
Thank you P1et, glad your enjoying the write ups, they can be a bit long but hopefully worth reading. Thank you for the feed back eace: Thank you sal329, glad you enjoyed it :chest: Thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated :thumb: Thank you, glad you enjoyed it eace: Thank you for the feed back Carn, very much appreciated eace:
GREAT work Nica... Wool is just amazing isn't it!! Changed it up this time and did exterior 1st I see.... Hmm, maybe time to try leatherique... it would fit with yiour schedules since you have the vehicle for 3 days... OR maybe just a steamer...lol Anyhow, nice work!
Yea, the owner of the vehicle first wanted only exterior. After the first day starting on the second day he phoned me asking for the interior as well. Usually I start on the interior, as it really needed quite some attention and felt that if I had a few more hours with the vehicle I would have done much better in the interior...specially the leather, this was the first time I got stumped with leather to be honest. Yes, I'm already looking in to a steamer, well have been for the past months. I just need to purchase it now, so this just gave me even more motivation to purchase it. As for Leatherique, I'll be definetly purchasing some of this product, I've been wanting to get my hands on this product for quite some time now. Glad you enjoyed the detail and thank you for the feed back eace:
Great job. You should consider a portable a/c for the garage! They vent to the outside and are around $300.
you were sweating buckets with 30c heat? try putting up with 40-43c/104-110f in this texas heat...... its summers like this when i am envious of the people who live north of me as i do like the cold weather
Maybe if you weren't buying pallet fulls of stuff out of the UK you'd have that steamer by now, eh? That interior was nasty. Lexus seats can be a PITA when the owner lets them go like that. Beauty job on the paint. I've always shyed away from wool but now I feel obligated to try it. Damn you, damn you all!!! One more item on my van. I noticed that you use 3 products on your tires, wheels and inner fenders. Try some Autoglym Acid free wheel cleaner. It works very well. I've seen it pull dirt out of tires after using P21S, Menz7.5 and AG Powermax2. I'll send you some to try if you like.
Thank you pirex, glad you enjoyed it buddy. To be perfectly honest it does take a bit to do the write ups but I work on it on my spare time, I enjoy doing the write ups like that, it helps me and it helps others. It helps me in the sense of seeing the transformation and well so far it seems to be helping others. Glad you enjoyed it eace: Really there such things, portable huh, can't say I knew that..I thought they were all fixed location food for thought for sure...actually come to think of it richy has air conditioning in his garage..mmm...I should ask him how he did it. The new house has AC...mmm..it's nice :thumb: lol..yea what can I say I sweat easy..no really I do, it doesn't take much to get me to sweat, oh you should see me after playing soccer, shirt is completely drenched in sweat..lol..ur on second thought maybe you don't wan to see me after a soccer game lol. I love the heat, I just sweat a lot :shrug: but I don't mind, I don't mind the cold but I prefer the heat. Glad you enjoyed it doc, thank you for the feed back eace: Thank you Lance :chest: lol..yea I've been holding off on the steamer for a wile now, I'm just afraid I wont use it, like I said this has got to be the worse leather condition I have seen to date, usually I can get the job done with Lexol or Zymol and hot water and a yellow microfiber...but this one..boy it was stubborn. Mind you I could also use the steamer in the engine bay, wheel wells, on the rims too..it would be a drastic change for me though as I'm used to using all the chemicals..mm...food for thought tough. As to wool pads, they work really good, I don't use them very often, only when the vehicle calls for it but they are nice to have...you know just in case. As for the three products for the shoes of the vehicles, to be honest it's just personal taste...i could do just with P21S Gel and P21S Total Auto wash..but I choose not too...as for trying Autoglym Acid free wheel cleaner, can't say i've used it just yet...a sample..um..sure..but not right now...I've got lots to do at home for the time being and if I get items sent over to me right now I might loose them, so if you don't mind just save a small sample for me...give me a month or so. I should start trying new things, start opening up my mind a bit more. Lately I've been narrow minded and stubborn and don't want to change my routine...not a good place to be in, variety of the fruit of life if you ask me.
