Porsche 911 Carrera - Page 8

[ardandy 0]

As I had an unusual weekend free from doing other peoples car, I thought I do what every other normal person would, my own car! :)

 

Sunlight was minimal and my camera isn't the best but here are some pre-clean pics showing swirls, there's more than the camera picked up believe me!

 

 

 

 

 

Started off by doing the wheels and the arches using AG Engine & Machine Cleaner. Blasted them with the Jetwash and give them a good clean and they were good as new! Following that I moved onto the engine bay, once again using AG's Engine & Machine Cleaner. I followed up the degreaser with something I prefer over traditional engine dressings, Meguiars NXT Interior Spray! If I'd remembered to take a picture of the engine bay I could show you!

 

Before washing the car I give all of the door/boot shuts a good clean, I even broke out the Johnson's Baby Buds for this one! It's amazing how much dirt the door shuts pick up!

 

Next I washed it with Autoglym Shampoo and also sprayed on Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner to remove any existing wax. Of course using 2 buckets (one to rinse and one with soapy water), and Meguiars Lambs Wool Wash Mitts.

 

Having a fairly recent re-spray I didn't expect the paint to be too bad but I decided to clay the whole car anyway. The only parts I found that it picked anything from were around the exhaust and on the top part of the rear bumper. The rest of the car was clean as a whistle!

 

 

Now to mask up all of the trim!

 

 

I now grab my Porter Cable and using Sonus SFX Polishing Pads (white) and some good old Meguiars #83 DACP, I begin working on the whole car.

 

The process I used was;

Speading on speed 1, then 2 passes on 3 and two more with moderate pressure on speed 5. I found this suprisingly effective, thinking at first I'd have to step up to Menzerna PG on VAG paint.

 

I took a paint depth reading a couple of weeks ago whilst visiting L200steve and there's an average of about 210-220 over the car, probably due to the respray.

 

Several hours later I'd done and decided to eat something before I collapsed!

 

Cracking on, I decided to seal the car with whats turning into my favourite product, Clearkote Red Moose Glaze. Applied this using the Sonus Finishing Pad (blue) on the Porter Cable and wiped off with some lush microfibres.

 

The final stage for the paint was to apply Meguiars #16 Professional Paste Wax, using applicator pads to do so. I find this goes on really easily but can be a tough one to get off. I forgive it the hard work due to the finish it made. It really seems to have brought out the flake in the paint.

 

Finished off by doing the windows with Autoglym Fast Glass and the trim using AG Vinyl & Rubber Cleaner. I also went around all the panel gaps and hard to reach parts with more baby buds to get rid of any wax residue.

 

Here's the pics! Thanks for reading!

 

These were taken at night under my halogen as it was getting dark by the time I'd finished, the rest are from the next day but even after heavy rain the night before (and during the picture taking!) you can see the improvement.

 

 

 

And now the next day shots!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my favourite beading picture I've ever taken.

 

[Guest]

ooooh, do mine, do mine 8)

 

very nice job mate, looks superb

[Stan 24v 0]

How come you had so many swirls, you only just had it painted???

[Walesy 0]

How come you had so many swirls, you only just had it painted???

 

That's just what I was thinking :lol:

[ardandy 0]

When I picked it up from the bodyshop the guy said "it'll be another 10mins"! Whilst I waited I got bored I decided to have a look at what he's doing, only to turn the corner and find him flying over my car with a sponge! I don't think it was the first time either! :mad:

[Stan 24v 0]

When I picked it up from the bodyshop the guy said "it'll be another 10mins"! Whilst I waited I got bored I decided to have a look at what he's doing, only to turn the corner and find him flying over my car with a sponge! I don't think it was the first time either! :mad:

 

You should have told him to go back over it with the spray gun!!!! :shock:

[ardandy 0]

Another one coming up!

[ardandy 0]

A Corsa arrived this dull Sunday morn in need of some TLC, no I'll say it how it is, in need of A LOT of TLC.

 

Lorna had never done more than a Morrisons Jet wash (yes even with the brush!) and of late done even lessw than that! She bought it from new 3 1/2 years ago and was duped into getting Diamondbrite, "as you'll never need to wax it for years again!", as the salesman told her! Well here's proof it's a waste of money! (IMO of course :) )

 

Please note the pink roof and god knows what on the bonnet in the third pic. It's like somethings being put on it to clean it and not taken off?

 

She also told me that for the first 2 years it was at her Mum & Dad's parked under a very big full of sap tree!

 

"Oh dear", I thought!

 

 

 

 

To give you a clue as to how dirty the car really was, here a pic of the floor after ONE wheel arch cleaning!

 

I used Meguiars Super Degreaser for the alloy wheels and Meguiars APC for the arches (a strong mix for this one!). All wheels and arches had to be done twice they were that bad.

 

 

After the wheels and arches I moved onto the door & boot shuts, once again using Meguiars Super Degreaser. From that and with the Degreaser still in hand I went on to the engine bay, which I don't think she'd seen more than twice in 3 years! I used a radiator brush to agitate the built up dirt and grease before rinsing it down and finally giving it a dressing of Meguiars Interior NXT Spray, which I find is great for engine bays. :)

 

Here's a pic of the finished article!

 

 

I finally got the point where I could start actually cleaning the car! Usual method of 2 buckets, lambs wool wash mitts and spraying the car beforehand with Meguiars APC, to get rid of any existing wax. (Well, there might have being some!)

 

Following this good clean I deployed the Clay Bars, and boy did it need it! You could certainly tell it was under a tree for a while. One more wash and then I dried off the car using Sonus Der Wunder Towels, which are fantastic, and a spritz of Quick Detailer to help the water dry off without leaving any marks.

 

I'd already had a long enough day already but I hadn't actually started Machine Polishing it yet! Arrrgh! I had to tape it all up before beginning so that was done before I started the colour transformation.

 

Tried Meguiars #80 but didn't too enough so I stepped up to #83 using the white Sonus Cutting Pad. Apllied on speed 1, and the 2 passes on speed 3 followed by several on speed 5. This did the trick so I carried on doing the whole car. On some parts it did need a cople of passes though.

 

Here's a pic of the roof half way through, see the difference!

 

 

Once that had being completed I used Clearkote Moose Glaze Sealant on the whole car, which has become my standard sealant now, and followed that up with Meguiars #16 Professional Paste Wax applied with applicator pads and buffed off with Pakshak Microfibres, which I have to say are worth the extra.

 

The end was in sight and all that was left to do was to clean the glass with Autoglym Fast Glass and treat the trim using Autoglym Vinyl & Rubber Care. 8 hours of hard labour on this one, it was a bit of a bugger!

 

Lorna was happy and drove off with a big smile!

 

It was dark by the time I got round to taking the after pics so apologies for the lack of photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading!

[ardandy 0]

Lawrence drove over from Rochdale today in his A4 2.5 TDI V6 Quattro, a very nice car with full leathers, sat-nav, tv, mp3 screen and loads of other goodies!

 

Thought the bodywork was in good condition regarding swirls at first glance, as you'll see, I was mistaken!

 

Here's some pre-clean pics.

 

 

 

After I dropped them off at the train station, so they could do some xmas shopping in Leeds, we started cleaning

 

the alloys and the arches. Using Meguiars All Purpose Cleaner for the arches and Meguiars Super Degreaser for the

 

wheels.

 

This is a picture of just some of what came out of 1 wheels arch!

 

 

It was the door and boot shuts turn to be cleaned next, once again using Megs Super Degreaser. Carrying on with the

 

degreaser, we turned our attention to the engine bay. After spraying that all over and agitating the muck with soft

 

brushes, it was rinsed down with a gentle sprinkle from the tap. Finallly finishing by dressing it with Megs NXT

 

Interior Cleaner.

 

Once those were finished we moved onto the bodywork. A quick rinse down with the Power Wash first, we then sprayed

 

Megs APC onto the car, washing it with the usual Lambs Wool Wash Mitts and Meguiars Hyper Wash, which is pretty

 

potent stuff! 400:1 mix ratio yet it foams up constantly!

 

After rinsing it down once more, we then began to clay the car, using soapy water as the lubricant. The car was

 

pretty good apart from in a few places where it turned the clay bar nearly black! Take a peak!

 

 

One final rinse down with the Power Wash, the last thing to do was to dry off the car properly, using Sonus Der

 

Wunder Drying Towels (very plush!) and a quick spritz of Meguiars Last Touch.

 

It was now time to inspect the paint, and my god it was swirled! They covered the whole car and it also appeared

 

that the paint was dulled, having little shine to it. Here's some pics.

 

 

 

 

We then taped up the trim to avoid polishing and plastic or rubber parts.

 

Now it's time to break out the Porter Cable! Using Sonus SFX Cutting Pad and Meguiars #83 I started on the bonnet.

 

Although improved I could see it would take a while! So I swapped the pad for the SFX Polishing Pad and broke out

 

the Menzerna Power Gloss! As it's harsher than the #83 it did the trick after just one go. The trouble is, I had to

 

follow up the Menzerna with #80 to remove the holograms it creates! A lot of work but the finish was fantastic!

 

Here's a picture of the bonnet with half of it done, tape seperates the two halves! Remember this is before any

 

sealant and wax was applied!

 

 

Having found the process I was going to use I carried on working my way around the car. Whilst I was doing that,

 

Harry started dressing the tyres, applying Rim Wax to the alloys, vaccuming the interior, waxing the door/boot

 

shuts, dressed the inside of the arches and cleaned the glass inside and out with Autoglym's Fast Glass. Phew!

 

Once the polishing was done we turned our attention to applying the sealant and the wax. Clearkote Moose Glaze was

 

the sealant we applied and Meguiars #26 Paste Wax, both with applicator pads and buffed off with Pakshak Plush

 

Microfibres.

 

The last thing to do was to dress the rubber and trim on the car with Vinyl and Trim Cleaner.

 

8 hours later, here are the results!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

More pics of the whole car should be coming soon.

[ardandy 0]

A special detail for everyone here today! Alex dropped off his Alfa Romeo Spider after

 

travelling all the way from Luxembourg! He was visiting family over here and wanted us to

 

make his drop top, drop dead gorgeous! Our international reputation proceeds us. :)

 

The cars around 7-8 years old with 130,000km (ish) on the clock so you can imagine it's got

 

a bit of wear over time, as well as the drive back from Luxembourg too!

 

This is how we took the car on a very cold boxing day.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can imagine you don't travel thousands of miles for a quick wash, this was for a full

 

de-swirl and a fabric hood clean and protect.

 

The first job was to wash the car down with the Karcher Jet Wash, blowing off all the loose

 

European dirt that had stuck to it over the past few days. Following that up with Meguiars

 

Hyper Wash, 2 buckets, a couple of Lambs Wool Wash Mitts and cold hands.

 

That got the bodywork up to a much better level. We also started on the alloy wheels and

 

arches, using Meguiars Super Degreaser on both. This was also a good time to try out our new

 

C&S Bullet Shaped Alloy Wheel Brush. It seemed to do the trick around the wheel nuts and

 

smaller hard to reach places but we carried on with our larger brush for the main part of

 

the alloys. The arches were scrubbed with a long handled brush as well and the came up a

 

treat!

 

 

Whilst cleaning the bodywork and wheels we also started work on cleaning the Fabric Roof.

 

This looked ok but was absolutely filthy judging by the water afterwards! This is the bucket

 

after cleaning the fabric roof with Renovo's Fabric Cleaner.

 

 

The final part of the washing phase was to clay the car. Using Sonus Detailng Clay for this

 

(Blue) we covered the entire bodywork. Most of the car was pretty clean but some were

 

horrific, take a look at just 1 of the segments we used!

 

 

Another once over with Meg's Hyper Wash, Wash Mitts and the Karcher and she was ready to be

 

dried off so we could move her indoors and get a little warmer!

 

Standard drying procedure, a couple of Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towels with a spritz of

 

Meguiars Last Touch. The car was nice and clean now but unfortunately it was hiding the

 

state of the bodywork! Eeek!

 

 

 

Knowing what we were up against and the fact that Alfa paint is usually reasonably soft, we

 

opted to go for Meguiars #83 in combo with the yellow Sonus Pad on the Porter Cable. We

 

tested an area on the bonnet and it worked well, so decided to carry on around the car using

 

this combination.

 

Here's me in action.....

 

 

......... and here's the pre-wax but post-machine polishing result!

 

 

 

During all this polishing, we also treated the roof with some Renovo Colour Restorer and

 

once that had dried, Renovo Proofing, to make it, well waterproof!

 

After speaking with Alex earlier, he wanted to go with longer lasting protection, rather

 

than full on shine. For this we chose to use good old Collonite 476, or rather 2 coats of

 

it! The first coat was put on top of a layer of Clearkote Moose Glaze Sealant, the second

 

coat was applied the next day, giving the first time to dry properly. Should see him through

 

the snowy European winter thats approaching!

 

Amongst all of this (in no particular order), we also treated and protected the tyres using

 

Meguiars Hot Wheels, give the alloys a coat of rim wax, treated the rubber and all plastic

 

trim (inc under the bonnet) with Meguiars #38, blinged up the exhaust with Megs NXT Metal

 

Polish and cleaned the glass using Autoglym Fast Glass! Phew!

 

Here are the final results and thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:)

[Jim 1]

I'm guessing that was one very happy owner? Looks like a different car compared to how it got to you!

[ardandy 0]

He's coming back to us in about 4-5 months when he's in this country again to get the interior done. Nice car.

 

Wouldn't have one though! :)

 

 

I don't suppose as a mod theres anyway you can put this on another page without deleting the other posts. It's just this page has 3 details on it and is probably huge!

[Jim 1]

Yeah.. can split this off. Will do it in a bit! :)

[A-J 0]

Top work there, that pic of the beading on the C is impressive.

[Mave 0]

Fantastic work Andy! You're good at this

[jedi-knight83 0]

nice work on that alfa.

 

you kept saying WE? have you taken on someone else?

[ardandy 0]

Me and Harry (he was briefly on here - dirty Hari on DW). We work at the same place.

 

It's being 'us' for a few months now.

[ardandy 0]

Had a few peeps on here ask me about interior cleaning and what to use etc, so here's a write up for you! B)

 

----------------------------------------------------

 

After a bit of a break for Detailing due to moving house, we were back on the band wagon with a belter! A 13 year old Mercedes 180E that's being smoked in for most of it's life. Mike, the new owner, had just bought it and wanted to be able to drive it without the need for nicotine patches every time he got out!

 

Our task was to completely clean the interior and get rid of the nasty yellowing that has stained pretty much every surface, from the dashboard, to the headlining. The outside was to have a basic wash and wax.

 

This is the state the 180 arrived in, just take a peek at the interior! Eeek!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started off by cleaning the door/boot shuts and the wheel arches, thankfully no alloys to do this time!

 

For the door/boot shuts we used the ever flexible Meguiars Super Degreaser and a couple of soft bristled brushes to agitate the muck off. This was followed up with a gentle rinse from the Jet Wash. The foaming head was used for this as the De-Greaser tends to stick better when all foamy, thus cleaning the surface for longer. The 3rd pic along is the result.

 

 

The outside was then treated to a lovely soapy wash using the Gilmour Gun. For the solution we mixed up 3 plunges of Meguiars Hyper Wash (the gel type, not the new stuff) with warm water and stirred in with a fork!

 

Here's Harry squirting his load over the Merc! (Ahem)

 

 

After the mix was left to do it's work, we followed it up with another wash using Wash Mitts, 2 buckets and a few squirts of Meguiars APC in parts. We followed all this up by drying the car off with the usual spritz of Meguiars Last Touch and the lovely and soft Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towels.

 

Now the outside was clean we decided we couldn't put off the interior any longer! The first thing we did was take out the front carpets, boot carpet, floor mats and air vents (from the dash) to make it easier for us to clean, and ultimately dry!

 

This is when our friend George came into play! But before he could work his magic we sprayed Chemical Guys Fabric Clean onto the more stubborn stains and agitated them with a Meguiars Interior Brush. Following on from that we filled up George with carpet shampoo mix and started work!

 

Here's Harry working on the boot carpet and a picture of the water George sucked up after the front carpets were done! As the front was taken out of the car we could dry those inside next to a radiator.

 

 

 

As only one of us could use the wet/dry vac we also started working on the headlining and dashboard. For the headlining we used a mix of Meguiars APC or CG Fabric Clean with the Meg's Interior Brush, followed up with a clean damp cloth. For the dashboard we used Meg's APC and a Meguiars Slide Lock Brush, liberally coating it with foamy APC and wiping it off with a damp cloth. The door panels were done using the same method.

 

As some parts of the interior were really yellow they required a little more time and a second application of APC.

 

One dry, the dashboard was treated with the fantastic Einszett Cockpit Premium, which I have to say we're well impressed with. Imagine your typical interior spray but take out the silicone shiny effect and this is what you have!

 

Another product that we used to great effect (which smells great too) that we'd like to introduce to the forum is Holts Odor Kill - Anti Tobacco (in Peach). It just sprays on and does the job, kind of like Febreeze but in a range of different smells.

 

Here's some pics of the usual suspects mentioned above, as quite a few people will just scan through and never know whats used.

 

 

After working on the interior alone for some hours, we finished off the exterior with a layer of Meguiars #20 Polymer Sealant, followed by Collonite 476S, both put on using applicator pads. The tyres were dressed with Meg's Hot Shine Tyre Spray and the black plastic and rubber with Meg's #38. The glass was cleaned using Meg's Glass Cleaner.

 

Here's the pics and thanks for staying awake through all this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phew! Job done and a very happy (and soon to be returning) customer!

[Mave 0]

Bloody fantastic job Andy!

[Jim 1]

Awesome work mate! :)

[CorradoVR6-Turbo 0]

Good work,cant imagine the smell!!

[ardandy 0]

If you've ever being in an old persons office (that smokes), then add old person smell to it, it was like that!

 

It's the first detail I've worn gloves for!

[vr6storm 0]

WOW !!!!!what a difference!!!!!

 

 

 

*anorak mode on* its a 190E not a 180E,even if its got a 1.8L engine *anorak mode off*

[Goldie 2]

Good work Andy, smoking in cars does make a mess!!

 

I used to smoke in some of my old cars and it was bad but not as bad as that, he must have been on about a million a day!!

[ardandy 0]

WOW !!!!!what a difference!!!!!

 

 

 

*anorak mode on* its a 190E not a 180E,even if its got a 1.8L engine *anorak mode off*

 

I was just seeing if anyone noticed!