This was a treat, the vehicle has been heavily modified and most of all the owner just got this vehicle re-painted aranoia: and to top it all off the vehicle is to compete on the World of Wheels car show. Well the vehicle: 2007 Corvette Z06 Here is the vehicle upon arrival: Vehicle looks good doesn’t it. Well looks like the body shop left some free of charge gifts. All details begin with a wash, the vehicle was stationed inside an automotive performance shop called DavenPort and there is no wash bay at this shop so to wash the vehicle ONR is used with the two bucket method and a sea sponge: Once the vehicle had been washed via ONR it was time to move on to the claying process. The clay of choice was the Blue Riccardo. The clay picked up some contamination but considering the vehicle just came from the body shop there wasn’t too much contamination. Once the vehicle was clayed it was time to see how severe the correction process was going to be, with the help of the 3M Sun Gun it was time to go through the check list of imperfections: Polish residue, check. Sticky glue residue from taping, check. Buffer trails Holograms Last but not least: Sanding marks. Well plenty of imperfections to deal with on this vehicle. Next step is to take paint gauge readings to insure we have sufficient clear coat for the correction process. For this the PosiTector 200 with appropriate lubrication was utelized: With the help of the PosiTector Software you can see how much the clear coat and paint varies. From high spots to extremely low spots. The vehicle was then taped up, ready to begin paint correction. First, the appropriate combo had to be found for this vehicle, so a section was taped off and the first combo was going to be Menzerna 3.02 with a Black 3M UK Polishing pad followed up with Menzerna 85RD with a Blue 3M UK Finishing pad. Here is the section before: After: This combo delivered satisfying resutls, now you might be wondering how did that combo work on that Vett as Vett’s are known to have rock hard clear coat? Well the vehicle has been re-painted and during such cases the new clear coat is nowhere near as hard as the factory clear coat. Well now that a combo was found it was time to proceed with the paint correction. Here are some pictures during correction, oh please excuse the polish residue in some of the pictures: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: (As you can see on this picture one hit of Menzerna 3.02 was not enough so a second pass was required to obtain satisfying results, several panels required several passes) Some action shots: (Blue 3M UK foam pad partnered up with a Metabo and the 3M UK Yellow Backing Plate) (Red Ultimate foam pad partnered up with a Metabo and the 75mm 3M UK small Backing Plate. All tight areas were done with this small backing plate and the small foam pads(blue and red)) Well this concludes day one, hardly made a dent on the vehicle, barely made it through half the vehicle on day one for the most part this vehicle was relatively easy to correct but in some section several passes were required to remove random scratches. Day Two: Day two began with the continuation of the paint correction. The carbon fiber spoiler was polished, here is a 50/50 of the difference made to it: The entire vehicle was refined with Menzerna 85RD: Day two was spent on completing the paint correction and refining the finish to enhance the gloss to the vehicle. Before the day was over, the owner of the vehicle was kind enough to remove the rims for us: Now the back rims on this vehicle were shockingly wide :yikes: The picture doesn not do justice to the back rims, as they were extremely wide. Rims were off and waiting to be detailed: Well this concludes day two. Day two proved to be quite satisfying and best part vehicle was starting to show improvement. Day Three: Day three, the third day began with the rims. First of all the rims were set in a tool washing area. Here are the rims before they were touched: The tools for the rims were Red version of P21S, Tardis for the tar spots, the wool brushes along with a Meg’s brush: First of all the rims were given a quick rinse followed up with Red P21S: The entire rim was covered in Red P21S: Now for those that have never used the Red version of P21S it’s exponentially stronger compared to the Green version (available in the US), the longer you let the Red version sit on the rims the more potent it proves to be: This picture illustrates how the Red version of P21S is literally pulling the contamination off the rims, to say red versino of P21S is strong is an understatement. Well with the help of the wool brush the inside of the rim is agitated: Once the entire rim had been scrubbed it was rinsed and here are the results: It looks clean doesn’t it, well lets take a closer look shall we: (This is glue from the weights of the rims) So Red P21S did a great job at removing all the contamination off the rim but as you can see the rim is covered with tar. Notthing to worry about though, as Tardis will make quick work of these stubborn spots: Now what makes Tardis so effective? Well you simply spray the area, like so: And instantly it begins to break down tar: With a yellow micro fiber towel I simply wipe the inside of the rims and the tar is removed leaving a nice fresh looking rim, please note, in some cases multiple application of Tardis was required: Here is a comparison of a clean rim and a rim waiting to be cleaned: Once the rims were completed it was time to pay attention to the exhaust tips, here are the exhaust tips before: The exhaust tips were refined with the help of Autosol and various micro fiber towels: Here is a 50/50 pictures of the exhaust tips: The finished results: Now that the rims and exhaust tips were completed it was time to concentrate on the interior of the vehicle. The interior was in reasonable conditions here are some pictures to show how the interior was: As you can see, reasonable conditions considering it was at a body shop for several weeks. The owner of the vehicle replaced the two seats with some razing seats. The rest of the interior was given a thorough wipe down, interior carbon fiber trims received some HD Cleanse followed up with Vintage. All leather interior was cleansed with Zymol Leather Cleaner and the small amount of vinyl trims were treated with Zymol Vinyl. Leather was then conditioned with Zymol Treat. Glass was done with Stoners Invisible Glass and a glass micro fiber towel. More pictures of the interior to come, now it was time to concentrate on the engine bay: The engine bay was given a thorough wipe down with ONR, once again the engine bay was relatively clean, minus the polish residue left form the body shop. Luckily, all it took was ONR to remove all the polish residue. The chrome peaces were polished with Autosol and the rest of the engine bay was dressed with Aero Space 303. Pictures of the finished engine bay are to come This concludes day three, a very satisfying day three. Day Four: The forth day was the day the vehicle was to be moved to the car show, there was one part in the engine bay that was replaced and the front bumper had it’s carbon fiber peace installed which needed to be polished. The vehicle was being transported to the car show, so all finishing touches would have to be done at the car show. One thing to note about this vehicle is that no wax or glaze was applied, the vehicle was freshly re-painted and it was discussed and decided with the owner of the vehicle that it would be best to do all the paint correction followed up with a final wipe down and no wax or glaze, owner agreed. Rather be safe then sorry, so no protection on this vehicle, even though Vintage was at arms length reach. So day four was interesting as the vehicle had been transported to the car show and it was time to insure the vehicle was as pristine as possible, once the vehicle was moved via trailer to the car show it was once again inspected and some finger prints along with some micro marring was found so at the show the vehicle was refined yet some more with Menzerna 85RD. After several hours of refining the vehicle a final wipe down was done, with the help of Menzerna Top Inspection the vehicle was given a final wipe down. Well several hours past and all that was left to do is to swap the loaner rims with it’s own rims and here is the vehicle all ready to be judged: Well that concludes this vehicle, there were three more vehicles waiting. These vehicles have been entered in the car show as well but were not competing, thank goodness for that. The following vehicles received an ONR with a thorough interior prep (vacuum, wipe down and dressing) and finished off with a coat of Vintage. Now due to time restrains documentation of the following vehicles was limited, but here is one of the vehicles after it was washed via ONR: Rims received Red P21S: Here is the interior all done, fortunately the vehicle had been garaged since purchased. As the vehicle’s interior was quite clean. Engine bay was also given a quick wipe down and dressed with 303: This concluded day four. There were still two more vehicles that needed to be prepped. Day five: Day five was left off right were day four ended, the rest of the vehicles had to be finished. On these two vehicles there was no time left to be takign pictures as the vehicles were due at the car show within hours. The two vehicles were a Escalade and another Vett (not just any Vett though). Both vehicles received the same treatment as the Shelby. Here are all the vehicles at the car show: This Shelby was modeling some very nice shoes/rims :thumb: The Escalada modeling yet another fine pair of shoes/rims (Here is that Vett, such a lovely colour and this Vett is heavely modified as well) (Yet another pair of nice shoes/rims, detecting a pattern yet?) Well allot of hard work went to all these vehicles, best of all the Vett that was competing in the car show won Best of Show :applause: A big congradulations to the owner of the vehicle. Hope you enjoyed a lengthly write up.
Amazing work! Looks stunning. And you're using all the goodies that aren't even available here... So, any idea why the Corvette was repainted?
I just can't believe a body shop messed it up that BAD. You did some great work. you deserve a (AT a Boy) for that one
Wow after that polishing that first vette it looked like a completly different car!!!!! You guys worked real hard and all those cars look stunning. :worship2::worship2:
The owner has great taste in mods, and the car truly looks stunning in person. 707 HP, and tracked regularly. There's some pretty nice suspension work done too that can't be seen in the pictures Yeah, the car was definatly in need of a polish. It ended up winning best of class!!:giggle: Thanks! It's surprising how bad it really was, the clear was extremely soft. Thanks for the compliments. To be honest, it's not the owners fault at all. He's very meticulous about his vehicles, every single one of them is black, and the rest look just fine. A rather awesome off-road excursion at the track, some rather high(extremly) speed runs through the desert to las vegas, and plenty of track time. Thanks!! You know how carlos is with his products, and we sure put them to good use! Check previous reply above this for reasoning, its a rather spectacular reason :yikes:
WOW! Xtreme makeover on those wheels! Looks like that P21S red wheel cleaner is just as powerfull as Megs Wheel Brightener, but is still safe!!!:applause:
Great detail and write up...Amazing the time you spent on it...It's a beautiful car... I love Corvettes...:thumb::thumb::thumb:
Thanks, its a gorgeous car! Thanks Pirex! Haha, those wheels were fun to get clean; and te red wheel cleaner was truly awesome! On a side note, it smells like dirty diapers! Thanks, it did take quite the little while, but then again, it was in rather dire needs of a good detail after the paint job!
