A few weeks ago the owner of this stunning machine (guess who )contacted me to breathe some life back into the paintwork. The front end was scheduled for a VPS film application and the paintwork needed to be flawless. Needless to say I was happy to oblige, and after 1 or 2 delays with some parts, the car was finally ready for me to attend to. In this installment I will only be covering the front end prep work, as the rest will be completed at a later stage when the vehicle is VPS'd and back at the owners residence

With the long weekend this past week, I elected to get started on Friday in order to try and have a weekend of sorts to spend some time with the SO and sort out a few other things that had bee left unattended.

Friday around lunchtime after popping into the office I headed over to get stuck into the car. Upon arrival I was greeted by this...






Under the garage lighting it was plain to see that the paintwork had some issues, as evidenced by these few quick close-ups.







With the overhead strip lights and spots highlighting a fair amount of defects, it was becoming obvious that despite the vehicles low mileage, the paintwork had been quite poorly maintained.


Anyways, with a quick initial inspection over the car was moved outside to be washed and prep'd for the paint correction to come. Here are a few quick snaps from around the car...


Wheels weren't too bad







Arches had some muck in them



Lots of dust and dirt in everywhere













Some gunk in and around the emblems





Polish residue in the shuts and panel gaps







Trim was looking tired and dirty

 

With the outdoor inspection complete it was time to get on with the cleaning. As usual the wheels were tackled 1st with the regular Sonax Extreme Rimcleaner and various brushes...

Sonax applied



Daytona brush getting to work


Fits nicely between the calipers and barrels of the rims


Long enough to reach all the way to the back



Mobile-Image detail brushes attending to some of the tighter areas





Meg's SL brush doing duty


Mothers wheel brush in action


And it's cousin the Fenderwell brush getting into the arches


Some areas were too tight for the Fenderwell brush so I switched to a spare Meguiars clone for the tighter areas.



After a thorough cleaning it was time to rinse the wheels and arches



With the wheels completed I foamed the car with a 10:1 solution of APC leaving it to dwell whilst filling the buckets, etc for the wash stage. After rinsing I attended to cleaning all the trim and between all the panel gaps...

Emblems





Panel gaps





Trim







And all the hidden bits





With the odds and ends sorted and rinsed, the car was washed with Sonax Hi Gloss shampoo and the 2BM before being re-rinsed and dried. As usual no pics from this stage...

 

With the prep work completed it was back inside to get a proper look at the paintwork under the lights now that everything was perfectly clean. To say I was shocked at the condition of the paint was an understatement

Apparently someone had attempted to polish the car 2 or 3 times previously after cleaning the car with 'his special chamois'

Who knows what was done, but this was the result of their handiwork...
















With the defects all captured it was time to tape up and make use of the opportunity to grab what would be, excellent 50/50's




In terms of process on this one I started out with the tried and trusted 3M yellow pads and some Menz 106FA. Now some of you may be wondering why I didn't go with Scholl's S30 on this one, but the reason is simple. As I mentioned I haven't spent much time with the S30 and as a result, didn't want to waste time playing around on this one with limited time to get the work done.

After a test section was worked with FA, the results were mediocre at best. Whilst the lighter swirling cleaned up nicely, the deeper RIDS remained defiant. Not wanting to do multiple passes with FA, I elected to give the Scholl S17 a go. Considering the results the S17 has been delivering of late, along with having gotten the technique down quite well, it was the logical next combo to attempt.

Working the S17 at around 1800rpms for a few brief passes before slowing to around 1000rpms for the final 2 passes yielded the following results...












I decided to see what the finish looked like under some intense light so I snapped a shot with the camera's flash. This would give me a good idea as to the extent of any holograming left by the S17 without having to pull the car back outside.

As you can see the finish is not 100% hologram free, but with a little more working time at slower speeds I am sure it could be achieved.



Happy that the S17 was cleaning up the paintwork to a satisfactory level, I set about trying to finish the 1st stage of polishing.

Other half of the bonnet before...






And after S17





With time running out I packed it in for the day and headed on home. Day 2 started by completing the 1st polishing stage on the front end, before moving onto refining the finish.

Fenders got the S17 treatment, turning this




Into this





With the compounding stage completed the car was dusted down with a new lambswool duster I've been playing with, before getting started on refining the finish. Once again polish and pad combo of choice was the 3M yellow and Menz 106FA. Before finishing up the car was dusted down again and given a quick IPA wipedown to remove all traces of polishing oils in preparation for the VPS film.

 

Some finished pics indoors under the lights...(excuse the fine traces of lint from the MF towels evident in some of the pics)











Under the halogens











Flash to check for any missed areas or holograms



Reflection self portrait



With everything looking perfect indoors, it was outside briefly to make 100% sure in the sunlight, as well as to grab some quick pics.

Stunning!











Some cool reflection shots...







Happy that everything was completed to my satisfaction the car was parked back inside. As a result of the film that was to be applied, the car was left sans LSP in order to ensure that the film guys don't need to 'clean' the paintwork, and the surface is perfect for the film to adhere to.


Final few shots before leaving...Sorry I couldn't resist :str8pimp:








As I found her, only significantly better


And all tucked away ready for bed



Part 2 will follow at a later stage once the VPS is completed and the car is back home...Thanks for looking

 

My jaw always drops to the floor when I see a great detail (and when I see the poor shape some cars come in from the factory!)! It's insane how much more alive the car looks. Great job!

 

Nice work

 

Outstanding work. I'm surprised Mike doesn't have a clear bra on this car.

 

The car looks incredible! Fantastic work and thanks for the post

 

Carn is a true master of his art! Won't let anybody else near my cars.

It has clear bra on now. The car I bought brand new, only has 40 miles on the odometer. This was a result of the dealers cleaning the car the normal method.

Speaking of which, pics to follow tomorrow. Finally getting time to stretch its legs

 

Excellent work as usual Carn.