Hi all,
This was last weekends work and is the reason i am looking forward to a free weekend this week coming LOL
The car was bought a few months ago from a Coopers main dealer. On colection of the car there where a few things that the owner wanted sorted! The wheels were so badly refurbished that the outside lip of the wheels was not straight! This results in 2Ks worth of wheels under warranty!
Next was the rear of the car was covered in cement dust. This is where BMW excelled themselves! All the repair consited of was a blow over and not actually removing the cement dust!!! More on this later in the thread!
Finally, on the drivers door there were a couple of chips that needed attention. Again BMW did there finest Stevie Wonder repair LOL
The car itself is a very well spec'd Works and when brand new cost in excess of £25000!
Anyway on to the detail...
Initial inspections revealed the car to be very clean and in good condition.
A very nice 5ft car however an initial rinse with water revealed this:
No protection and the flash shows nicely what condition the paintwork was in. Luckly i'd set aside a couple of days so that i could get everything as good as i could and feel happy when i left.
Wash
The car was foamed with Megs APC, left to dwell for a couple of minutes, then sprayed off with the hose.
The car was then re-foamed with Megs Hyper Wash and wash via 2BM with Megs Hyper Wash. The car was dryed using Sonus Der Wonder towels and Last Touch as a drying aid.
As the wheels were brand new they needed very little attention. Megs APC cut 10:1 and a Swissvax Wheel brush dealt with the nicely (no pics)
The door shuts and sills were treated to APC and a wipe during the wash stage:
As were the side vents, grills and badges:
The car was then clayed using CleanYourCar Poly Clay with Last Touch as lube. This is where i hit a snag! Remember where i said about the cement dust on the boot? Well where BMW blew over the cement the clay did its job and nipped off the tops of the paint revealing the cement dust again
MAGICAL!!! This topped with the wetsanding marks left by BMW i knew i'd have to spend a while on the boot.
Clay after the drivers side:
Polishing
The Mini paint was of a medium grade which is very suprising! I've done a fair few Mini's now (including my own) and the paint is rock hard. This meant that 106FA worked on the Black 3M polishing pad @ 600 -> 900 -> 1800 -> 900rpm gave a 99% correction rate. On the deeper marks i used 3.02 and the Megs cut pad to either soften or completely remove the marks.
The paint readings were fairly good averaging between 130 and 140 microns. The edges of the bonnet were fairly thin in comparison!!!
So with alot of care and 106FA on a 3M Black Polishing pad i achieved this:
Lucky for me the defects were very light and only needed 2-3 microns removing.
With the rest of the car having fairly healthy paint i knew i would be safe (albeit taking regular paint readings) in getting the correction level i desired.
Good examples of this are:
Rear Quarter Panel (3.02 on Megs Cutting Pad followed by 85RD on 3M Blue Finishing Pad)
Bonnet
Boot
Now the only before i can find is after a bit of wetsanding (Megs 3000 grit paper) and i just can't find the ones i took of the cement dust.
Where BMW had done the repair there were alot of wetsanding marks in the clearcoat along with the remaining particles of cement dust. The process i used to remove both was:
- Clay with CYC PolyClay
- Wetsand with 2500 grit
- Follow up with 3000 grit
- Polish using Megs Cut Pad and Menzerna 3.02
- Refined using 85RD on a 3M Blue finsihing pad
With this method i was able to remove 99% of the defects and still leave a healthy 140 microns worth of paint (only able to read the metal). Worth pointing out as well that the plastic bumper only held wetsanding marks and these were removed with a great deal of care.
Pictures:
(I'll be going back in a couple of weeks time and i'll make sure i get some photos of the boot)
As time went on the pictures got a little thin on the ground.
The exhausts received a bit of special treatment. The insides were incredibly "coked" and nothing would shift it. I tried Megs APC, Megs Wheel Brightener (neat!!!) and AG Tar remover. After a bit of though and a suggestion from the owner i tried Oven Pride!!! We removed the exhaust tips and applied Oven Pride to the inner of the tips. After 4hrs and a once over with Megs NXT Metal Polysh we went from
This:
To this:
Very impressed with the cleaning power of Oven Pride but i would not use it on anything else other than exhaust inners.
With time running out and moisture in the air increasing i applied Megs #7 followed by Dodo Juice Purple Haze.
Afters (taken by Dawn the following day):
A very rewarding detail overall and i feel i've improved my machining skills from it.
Thanks for reading. Any comments are welcome, also any tips or hints would be greatly received.
Thanks
Andy