Project: Restore 12 year old Flamenco Black Pearl to showroom condition *56k go fap
11-19-2008, 04:23 PM
#1
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Project: Restore 12 year old Flamenco Black Pearl to showroom condition *56k go fap
A little background on the car. Was ordered and purchased new in 97 by my parents and had a 'triple clear coat' dealer option sprayed on the car before delivery. Car was basically neglected and washed once a month via automatic brush carwashes and home washes with wash mits and regular towels. Needless to say, when I took over ownership of the car a little over a year ago I had my work cut out for me. I would always maintain the car regularly which 'temporarily masked' some of the damage with waxes and glazes, but even in direct sunlight the car looked horrific. So I FINALLY decided it was time to break out the porter cable and get to some serious paint correction to permanently restore the paint to better than brand new condition. Should be much easier to maintain now that the paint is 98 percent perfect and I have all the tools to keep the scratches/swirls away.
All inspection was done with a dual 500 watt halogen work light and plenty of angles.
Results are as follows:
I first started off by washing the car down with optimum no rinse carwash solution. For those of you who don't know about this stuff, it's epic. Basically a no pressure-wash solution where you just wipe down your car with a mit then dry it with microfiber towels. Keeping the car wet, I put some optimum no rinse in a spray bottle mixed with water (as quick detailer) and misted each panel and used a Bluemagic clay bar over each panel. What 'seemed' to be a clean surface actually turned out to be pretty damn contaminated with stuck-on road debris/industrial fallout:
After the car was thoroughly clayed and dried, I masked off all the rubber trim and emblems and got to work with the porter cable. You always want to start out with the least aggressive polish/pad combination, so I started off with the Sonus Sfx2 on a white lake country pad and got to work. Begin by spreading the polish on the area at speed 3 and then turning it up to speed 6 to thoroughly work in the polish.
sfx2 white pad:
Unfortunately I soon learned my car had such deep swirling and scratches that the sfx2 with a white pad wasn't really doing much at all. So I had to step my game up and go to sfx1, which is pretty much one of the most aggressive polishes you can get and is meant to remove 1200 or finer grit sctratches :eek3: . I wasn't too worried about it though since the car came with 3 additional coats of clear so I know I have some to work with. So I went over the entire car with sfx1 on an orange 5.5 inch pad to get out all the imperfections. I then had to follow up with sfx2 on a white pad to get rid of the hazing/micromarring/fishhook scratches the sfx1 was causing.
sfx1:
I worked a small panel at a time from beginning to end (sfx1 then sfx2) to make sure each section was defect-free before starting the next. Then topped off the entire car with the sfx3 polish to fully lock in the gloss/depth. I love the sonus line with the exception that sfx1 dusts LIKE HELL. In all of the pics you can see how much dusting it caused, and even after wiping it down you can still see a lot of the dust that remained before I quick detailed the entire car. Anywho, onto the before/afters: (just polish here, no glaze or wax yet...all results are permanent):
bumper before:
bumper after:
fender with HUGE/SEVERE scratches caused by my dad trying to take out scratches with scratchx by hand WITH A FREAKIN PAPER TOWEL without even cleaning the paint. lols.
fender after:
scrached fender before:
scrafched fender after:
drivers side final:
finished rear quarter:
The hood and trunklid on this car were absoultely HORRIFIC. Months and months of cats with long fingernails scratching the shit out of the clearcoat. Honestly I thought I had no chance in hell of correcting it since they were so severe/deep. But I was pleasantly surprised.
hood section before:
hood section after:
hood scratches on passenger side:
hood scratches on passenger side gone:
hood final:
passenger rear quarter panel done:
drivers side fender done:
rear lower bumper before:
rear trunklid before:
trunk after:
trunk lid complete:
rear completed:
Total time for everything: approximately 18 hours. lols...well worth it though since this is the one and only time i'll really ever need to do it.
All inspection was done with a dual 500 watt halogen work light and plenty of angles.
Results are as follows:
I first started off by washing the car down with optimum no rinse carwash solution. For those of you who don't know about this stuff, it's epic. Basically a no pressure-wash solution where you just wipe down your car with a mit then dry it with microfiber towels. Keeping the car wet, I put some optimum no rinse in a spray bottle mixed with water (as quick detailer) and misted each panel and used a Bluemagic clay bar over each panel. What 'seemed' to be a clean surface actually turned out to be pretty damn contaminated with stuck-on road debris/industrial fallout:
After the car was thoroughly clayed and dried, I masked off all the rubber trim and emblems and got to work with the porter cable. You always want to start out with the least aggressive polish/pad combination, so I started off with the Sonus Sfx2 on a white lake country pad and got to work. Begin by spreading the polish on the area at speed 3 and then turning it up to speed 6 to thoroughly work in the polish.
sfx2 white pad:
Unfortunately I soon learned my car had such deep swirling and scratches that the sfx2 with a white pad wasn't really doing much at all. So I had to step my game up and go to sfx1, which is pretty much one of the most aggressive polishes you can get and is meant to remove 1200 or finer grit sctratches :eek3: . I wasn't too worried about it though since the car came with 3 additional coats of clear so I know I have some to work with. So I went over the entire car with sfx1 on an orange 5.5 inch pad to get out all the imperfections. I then had to follow up with sfx2 on a white pad to get rid of the hazing/micromarring/fishhook scratches the sfx1 was causing.
sfx1:
I worked a small panel at a time from beginning to end (sfx1 then sfx2) to make sure each section was defect-free before starting the next. Then topped off the entire car with the sfx3 polish to fully lock in the gloss/depth. I love the sonus line with the exception that sfx1 dusts LIKE HELL. In all of the pics you can see how much dusting it caused, and even after wiping it down you can still see a lot of the dust that remained before I quick detailed the entire car. Anywho, onto the before/afters: (just polish here, no glaze or wax yet...all results are permanent):
bumper before:
bumper after:
fender with HUGE/SEVERE scratches caused by my dad trying to take out scratches with scratchx by hand WITH A FREAKIN PAPER TOWEL without even cleaning the paint. lols.
fender after:
scrached fender before:
scrafched fender after:
drivers side final:
finished rear quarter:
The hood and trunklid on this car were absoultely HORRIFIC. Months and months of cats with long fingernails scratching the shit out of the clearcoat. Honestly I thought I had no chance in hell of correcting it since they were so severe/deep. But I was pleasantly surprised.
hood section before:
hood section after:
hood scratches on passenger side:
hood scratches on passenger side gone:
hood final:
passenger rear quarter panel done:
drivers side fender done:
rear lower bumper before:
rear trunklid before:
trunk after:
trunk lid complete:
rear completed:
Total time for everything: approximately 18 hours. lols...well worth it though since this is the one and only time i'll really ever need to do it.
11-19-2008, 04:25 PM
#2
Staggered 1st Gen
Thread Starter
And now the completed photos. Fenderwells were treated with optimum and all rubber trim was permanently dyed with Forever Black. Dunlop sp's are now up front, very very nice tire that stretches nice and is REAL stiff on them turns. Definitely see why they were so expensive when new...very worth it. Pics are with about 4 coats of danase wet glaze applied over a 2 day period and then finally topped off with NXT. Hopefully get to mess with some victoria red wax here sometime soon to see what all the hooplah is about. Thanks for lookin!
11-19-2008, 07:03 PM
#6
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Looks incredible flip, I've been waiting to do this to my whip as well, just picked up a full pad set and have been debating on what products to go at the paint with to get the best results. Once you buffed all the products on with the pads, did you remove them with mf's? How did you remove all the dust without scratching the paint? Air?
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11-19-2008, 07:25 PM
#9
Staggered 1st Gen
Thread Starter
Looks incredible flip, I've been waiting to do this to my whip as well, just picked up a full pad set and have been debating on what products to go at the paint with to get the best results. Once you buffed all the products on with the pads, did you remove them with mf's? How did you remove all the dust without scratching the paint? Air?
What kinda products are you planning on going with?
Thanks again for the kind words guys...unfortunately looks like the car will be in the garage and wont see much love for the next 3 or so months as winter looks like it's coming early
11-30-2008, 04:49 PM
#34
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11-30-2008, 06:08 PM
#35
CL in lawnmower status
11-30-2008, 10:14 PM
#37
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I would take that challenge in a second
12-01-2008, 05:54 AM
#38
Staggered 1st Gen
Thread Starter
lawls thanks a lot guys really...much appreciated!!
funny you ask about the gold accents...I recently purchased a 24k gold plating machine and am going to be replating each individual rim rivet back to their dark gold luster...as well as redo both the front and rear emblems and perhaps some other things
as per the spacer pics...I'll try and get some soon of the fitment....weather's just been real shitty and I've been extremely busy
thanks again for lookin
funny you ask about the gold accents...I recently purchased a 24k gold plating machine and am going to be replating each individual rim rivet back to their dark gold luster...as well as redo both the front and rear emblems and perhaps some other things
as per the spacer pics...I'll try and get some soon of the fitment....weather's just been real shitty and I've been extremely busy
thanks again for lookin
12-01-2008, 08:17 AM
#40
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do it, that would look incredible