Completed this car a few months back.. but felt like it deserved a good first post:

So when I first got the car, it was.. well. Trashed to say the least. It had been driven through the rain, and the car showed it. It was just filthy on the outside. I'll let the pictures do the talking.









The stock chrome wheels had also lost all of their gloss from the dust/dirt from weeks of on/off rain:







The engine bay, while relatively clean, needed a good cleaning and protection on it. And as per every detail this is where I started. With the usual P21S TAW Soak, with a combination of a Swissvax Wheel Brush, and a Meguiars Slide Lock Brush:











After that I turned my attention to the wheels. With a combination of P21S Wheel Gel on the rims, and P21S TAW on the tires and fender wells I let it sit for a few minutes before agitating with various brushes:



Next I moved on to decontamination. As the before pictures stated, it was quite bad on the outside. So I did a four step process. First it was a thorough rinsing with 1800psi Karcher filtered with deionized water. Then I foamed it the first time with a heavy dilution of Optimum Power Clean:



After letting it set in a pull dirt off for 5 minutes, I rinsed it again at pressure. I still wasn't satisfied with the amount of cleaning it had done, and I'm a huge believer in the less contact you make with the paint prior and post polishing makes for a better finish in the end. So I foamed in once more with a heavy dillution of Optimum Power Clean:



While the foam was setting, I went around the car and agitated all the badges, trim, and clear bra areas with a Swissvax Wheel Brush:






And again, it was rinsed at pressure to get the whole car suds-free for the final hand wash. For this I used a paint cleansing dillution of 2oz of ChemicalGuys' Citrus Wash and Clear with a genuine sheepskin mit, and the two bucket method:



This is how it looked:






(that isn't dirt, it's the reflection from the driveway)

Wheels starting to look better:



As you can see.. it was gloomy out. But look! I'm done! Paits all shiny and--





Wrong!! So it was brought inside to be further inspected under the halogens





Look under the light.. you can see the lack of gloss when under light:

 

And the dealership left these surprises all along the factory clear bra, and factory chrome trim:



So before claying, and after spending 15-20 minutes removing the dealership presents, I decided it would be smart to tape off the edges. If you've ever worked with clear bra, and got the clay got on an edge.. you KNOW how hard it is to get off. Been there, done that. Didn't want to go through it again. So some precise taping was in order:



Notice the tape JUST makes it over the edge of the clear bra, to ensure I get as much true paint exposed as possible

Then on to the claying:

I used meguiars professional white clay bar (medium) and CG Luber for clay lube



Then I decided I had enough with the exterior. And spend the rest of the day on the interior. Before:

















So the backseats were very soiled compared to the fronts because the owner is being a good husband and loving his kids: A black Lab, and a Golden Retreiver. Yes, the dogs even get generous amounts of seat time riding in style to and from their Aptos beach house. Never the less, I was there to make it look brand new again.

The first thing I did was dust and vacuum the entire interior with a boars hair interior brush, and my metro vac'n'blow:



The front carpets were a little bit dirty as well, probably due to the rain we've been getting. I used CG Citrus Carpet Cleaner, and a Swissvax leather brush to clean and groom the carpets. Yes, I have found the leather brush to do EXTREMELY well at agitating the carpets and grooming as well. In fact, I never use it on the leather, because I have yet to deal with leather bad enough to need to be scrubbed with a brush











After I had laid the carpets out to dry, I turned my attention to the wood trim. It definitely needed a little TLC, much like the entire car. I use PO16FA and then 85rd topped with Lusso Oro for all the wood. The trim received 303 Protectant, and weather seals conditioned with 1Z Gummi Plfedge





After:







All of the leather, was treated with Leather Masters Strong Cleaner, followed by Leather Vital, and then Protection Cream. It did wonders for the hide, and really deep cleaned and conditioned it:







That was it for day one. I finished with 10 hours total so far. The next two days would make room for paint correction, as you saw from the before pics it needed it badly!

My go-to first combination for testing is always SIP with 3M UK Green Pad at 1200-1500-1800-1500 I always use this as my base. Thinking, because of how bad the paint was, I would need wool, I thought nothing of this step, but continued on anyways, because you "just never know" .

After one pass with SIP+3M Green, this is what I got:



Yes, there is a little hazing, but nothing too bad. I was surely impressed by this! One thing I didn't like though, was the STICKY clear! I was very surprised at how sticky it was, tossing polish everywhere even with Gloss-It EVP on my side.

 

Anyways, I finished it down with M205+3M UK Blue pad at 900-1200-1500-1200:





Under "the light of truth":





After I had finished the whole half of the hood, I inspected more closely and found some surprises smack damn in the middle of the hood. I taped around them to mark as they were VERY hard to catch, and went to town. They were DA sand marks, either from the factory, or dealership. I used M105+3" PFW, then SIP+3M UK Yellow, and then M205+3M UK Blue. I had to break out the 70-200mm lense to capture them:





And gone!





What I had found, is I was getting better correction with M105+Green with EVP, then I was with the SIP+Green so I stuck with this for the rest of the car.

Hood all corrected:





Hood corrected, fender not:



The magic combo thus far was the 3M Green Pad+M105 and EVP x2, then 3M Blue Pad+M205 x2:





When polishing the A-Arms, I took car to not knick the paint, so some extra taping was in order:



Because the paint was so sticky, the 3M UK Green pad didn't like this AT ALL. It would not stop spitting, so I decided to try something different. I tried a LC Orange Flat pad, and was pleasantly surprised. It was still sticking, and throwing polish, but it wasn't anything near as bad as the Green pad. So that's what I stuck with throughout the car.

On the second day, I had saw the sun trying to appear out of the clouds, so I set everything down, ran around the car and pulled it outside. Unfortunately this was the best I could do:



So. I gave up and went back inside to continue work. I finished up on Monday at around 5pm, clocking another 7 hours to make the total at 17 hours as of then. The final day was just the last half of the car, rinse down, LSP, and final touches such as polishing rims, dressing tires, and cleaning exhaust tips.

LSP of choice was Swissvax Concorso. Rims recieved Turtle Wax Chrome Polish. The tires got Meg's HD 3:1 for a satin finish, and the exhaust tips were polished with Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish

Fortunately, while doing the final rinse on the third day, the sun reappeared!! (which is why you see water on the paint)





Before I continue with all the afters. The car was thoroughly rinsed at pressure filtered by a CR Spotless for a good 20 minutes. Then P21S TAW Was sprayed in all the jambes, and areas where tape adhesive remained, let sit, and then pressure rinsed down as well. This allowed me to have zero contact with the paint, to keep me from risking maring the perfect paint. Now, here's a slew of afters!!











Engine bay was dressed with 303 Protectant earlier on in the detail:





The rest:


















Alright done!

C/C welcome as always!

Aaron

 

Wow, you were not kidding about picture heavy

 

excellent work!!!!!!

 

hope that''s ok!

Thanks!

 

Man the car looks incredible. What a difference.

Thanks for the post and great writeup!

 

Thanks a lot! Where abouts in Arkansas are you? I lived in Russellville for two years.