91 hr extreme detail - EXTREMELY pic heavy 280+ you've been warned
12-04-2009, 05:35 PM
#1
Drifting
Thread Starter
91 hr extreme detail - EXTREMELY pic heavy 280+ you've been warned
This is an extremely long writeup with a LOT of pics. Just a warning for those with slower connections. This is the most intense detail I've ever done.
I wanted a seriously challenging detail earlier this year, and I set about looking a for a car and owner who wanted to bring their car back from the brink of death. I looked at many cars, but settled on this 98 Trans Am that lived a VERY hard life. Before the current owner bought it, it sat in a field for 2-3 years with no engine or transmission in the Chico area where it's super hot. Also has been in Oklahoma and Reno, so all dry, hot and dusty places. Rodents lived in the engine bay and would climb in through the missing fender vents. Plus when it was sitting nobody really kept the car up, just was on the back burner for the owners. Current owner bought it for next to nothing as a roller and began to rebuild it.
He brought it to me with a new engine/trans/wheels along with realigning some of the gaps that were pretty bad. The doors were scraping the back and bottom edges, and drivers door cracked the paint where it met the driver fender and the clear was chipping away. Every single panel on the car had been repainted at different times and different quality (all poorly done), except the roof and spoiler. There were fisheyes everywhere, overlapping clearcoats, and runs too. The paint was so bad, decided to do a full wetsand on it, which was all done by hand. I learned a lot more about wetsanding durning the process and improved my skills at it as well. I've done some before but never this many hours.
This car is NOT perfect. There are many paint defects, chips, cracked clear etc. However, it is a shocking transformation for what it came from.
Total time invested: 91 hours
Process:
Exterior
-Foamed with Dawn
-Rinsed and Dawn wash x2
-Megs APC 4:1 on wheels/tires
-Swissvax Wheel brush
-Clayed with Z18 and Megs LT as lube
-Tires with Zaino Z16
-Glass Zaino Z12 with PC and LC orange
Wetsanding
-Meguiars Unigrit 1500
-Meguiars Unigrit 2000
-Meguiars Unigrit 2500
-Meguiars medium sanding block
Interior
-Vacuumed
-303 Carpet Cleaner
-Scrubbed with various brushes
-Leather with Megs APC 5:1
-Lexol Leather Conditioner
-Stoner's Invisible Glass on windows
-vents and console cleaned with various brushes/qtips
-Interior panels cleaned with Megs APC 5:1
Correction
-Menzerna Power Gloss on Meguiars W4 wool
-Meguiars 105 on Meguiars yellow SOLO wool
-Menzerna SIP on LC yellow
-Menzerna SIP on LC orange
-Menzerna 106FA on LC white
-Menzerna PO85RD on LC red
LSP
-Swissvax Cleaner Fluid
-Swissvax Concorso by hand
When current owner picked it up
Condition of the car when it arrived to me
Graphic images of swirls....
This is where the rodents would climb in and out of the engine bay. This actually cleaned up very well.
Some pics showing the overspray covering the back half of the car
more overspray
Glass polishing
Taillight restoration
After wetsanding
After polishing
Compare that reflection to the other side shown here....
Untouched
Finished
You can see the extreme overspray here
After doing a quick test section from claying and Menz SIP LC orange to get a feel for the paint
Side molding removal and debadging process
You can see the overlapping clearcoats here, it built up a ridge here unfortunately.
More clearcoat overlap....
Hatch area
Test section on pass side fender
After wool and orange LC (both with SIP)
After compounding, no polishing yet
Rear spoiler removal and hatch restoration
You can see the massive overspray dulling the paint. Almost looks wetsanded, but its only overspray.
Underside of spoiler
Starting the wetsanding
Some hope in sight...
Finished wetsanding (55 hours by hand)
Started compounding....
Compounding is finished and about to go for a wash
I put a coat of Zaino on the hatch since I had a LOT of work left before I would get to the LSP on the rest of the car. Look at it bead!
After a nice wash, its ready for polishing, but a few pics first.
Interior needed some work... So we took it all out. Replaced the carpet with a slightly less nasty one from a donor TA and cleaned every part before going back in the car.
This carpet had to go!
Owner helping scrub and rinse the floorpan
Workin on the seat....
After reinstalling the interior, here is the carpet before/afters.
At this point the polishing was about half done and the owner needed it back to fix a few motor issues, dents, lower it, some interior bits, and tint the windows. There are some light holograms as the polishing isn't done at this point, and I put a quick coat of P21S 100% to protect it until it came back. Here are the pics
I love the clarity of the paint in this pic. All that wetsanding paid off.
So a while later the car comes back to me and I finish the polishing and jeweling. The only time we could get pics was at night with both our schedules being so busy. But you can see the transformation already brought the paint near perfect before it came back for the final touches. Here are the final pics.
Applied the Swissvax Concorso as it sits next to my 427 Z28 in the garage...
If you made it this far, THANK YOU for looking and reading!!!! I appreciate any comments you guys have
I wanted a seriously challenging detail earlier this year, and I set about looking a for a car and owner who wanted to bring their car back from the brink of death. I looked at many cars, but settled on this 98 Trans Am that lived a VERY hard life. Before the current owner bought it, it sat in a field for 2-3 years with no engine or transmission in the Chico area where it's super hot. Also has been in Oklahoma and Reno, so all dry, hot and dusty places. Rodents lived in the engine bay and would climb in through the missing fender vents. Plus when it was sitting nobody really kept the car up, just was on the back burner for the owners. Current owner bought it for next to nothing as a roller and began to rebuild it.
He brought it to me with a new engine/trans/wheels along with realigning some of the gaps that were pretty bad. The doors were scraping the back and bottom edges, and drivers door cracked the paint where it met the driver fender and the clear was chipping away. Every single panel on the car had been repainted at different times and different quality (all poorly done), except the roof and spoiler. There were fisheyes everywhere, overlapping clearcoats, and runs too. The paint was so bad, decided to do a full wetsand on it, which was all done by hand. I learned a lot more about wetsanding durning the process and improved my skills at it as well. I've done some before but never this many hours.
This car is NOT perfect. There are many paint defects, chips, cracked clear etc. However, it is a shocking transformation for what it came from.
Total time invested: 91 hours
Process:
Exterior
-Foamed with Dawn
-Rinsed and Dawn wash x2
-Megs APC 4:1 on wheels/tires
-Swissvax Wheel brush
-Clayed with Z18 and Megs LT as lube
-Tires with Zaino Z16
-Glass Zaino Z12 with PC and LC orange
Wetsanding
-Meguiars Unigrit 1500
-Meguiars Unigrit 2000
-Meguiars Unigrit 2500
-Meguiars medium sanding block
Interior
-Vacuumed
-303 Carpet Cleaner
-Scrubbed with various brushes
-Leather with Megs APC 5:1
-Lexol Leather Conditioner
-Stoner's Invisible Glass on windows
-vents and console cleaned with various brushes/qtips
-Interior panels cleaned with Megs APC 5:1
Correction
-Menzerna Power Gloss on Meguiars W4 wool
-Meguiars 105 on Meguiars yellow SOLO wool
-Menzerna SIP on LC yellow
-Menzerna SIP on LC orange
-Menzerna 106FA on LC white
-Menzerna PO85RD on LC red
LSP
-Swissvax Cleaner Fluid
-Swissvax Concorso by hand
When current owner picked it up
Condition of the car when it arrived to me
Graphic images of swirls....
This is where the rodents would climb in and out of the engine bay. This actually cleaned up very well.
Some pics showing the overspray covering the back half of the car
more overspray
Glass polishing
Taillight restoration
After wetsanding
After polishing
Compare that reflection to the other side shown here....
Untouched
Finished
You can see the extreme overspray here
After doing a quick test section from claying and Menz SIP LC orange to get a feel for the paint
Side molding removal and debadging process
You can see the overlapping clearcoats here, it built up a ridge here unfortunately.
More clearcoat overlap....
Hatch area
Test section on pass side fender
After wool and orange LC (both with SIP)
After compounding, no polishing yet
Rear spoiler removal and hatch restoration
You can see the massive overspray dulling the paint. Almost looks wetsanded, but its only overspray.
Underside of spoiler
Starting the wetsanding
Some hope in sight...
Finished wetsanding (55 hours by hand)
Started compounding....
Compounding is finished and about to go for a wash
I put a coat of Zaino on the hatch since I had a LOT of work left before I would get to the LSP on the rest of the car. Look at it bead!
After a nice wash, its ready for polishing, but a few pics first.
Interior needed some work... So we took it all out. Replaced the carpet with a slightly less nasty one from a donor TA and cleaned every part before going back in the car.
This carpet had to go!
Owner helping scrub and rinse the floorpan
Workin on the seat....
After reinstalling the interior, here is the carpet before/afters.
At this point the polishing was about half done and the owner needed it back to fix a few motor issues, dents, lower it, some interior bits, and tint the windows. There are some light holograms as the polishing isn't done at this point, and I put a quick coat of P21S 100% to protect it until it came back. Here are the pics
I love the clarity of the paint in this pic. All that wetsanding paid off.
So a while later the car comes back to me and I finish the polishing and jeweling. The only time we could get pics was at night with both our schedules being so busy. But you can see the transformation already brought the paint near perfect before it came back for the final touches. Here are the final pics.
Applied the Swissvax Concorso as it sits next to my 427 Z28 in the garage...
If you made it this far, THANK YOU for looking and reading!!!! I appreciate any comments you guys have
Last edited by GoFast908Z; 12-04-2009 at 05:38 PM.
12-04-2009, 09:21 PM
#4
Drifting
Member Since: Jul 2005
Location: Tampa FL
Posts: 1,650
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Wow that is spectacular work, that car can serve as a rolling billboard of your work. If you ever make iit out to Florida, I got an 06 GTO that could use your attention...lol.
12-05-2009, 12:16 AM
#5
Le Mans Master
excellent job! you my friend have patience!
12-05-2009, 05:24 PM
#9
Melting Slicks
Wow. Wow.
I still remember the transformation on my Lexus (which obviously wasn't that bad, but it was neglected dark blue metallic paint none the less). When that thing finally got Lemon Lawed they were amazed what great shape it was in.
Sorry I flaked with my Range, I still want to get it done.
Amazing amazing work.
-TJ
PS- makes me want another NBM 4th Gen sooooooooo bad.
I still remember the transformation on my Lexus (which obviously wasn't that bad, but it was neglected dark blue metallic paint none the less). When that thing finally got Lemon Lawed they were amazed what great shape it was in.
Sorry I flaked with my Range, I still want to get it done.
Amazing amazing work.
-TJ
PS- makes me want another NBM 4th Gen sooooooooo bad.
12-06-2009, 01:23 AM
#11
Instructor
Amazing job!! How much clear is left now that you had to do all the wetsanding? The owner is going to have be religious about maintaining it to keep it looking that nice.
