Well this detail is a started as a bit of a nightmare. The car in Question is a 1991 Mercedes Benz 300SL in solid red. The Car has been sitting in a garage for the past 10 years and has not driven in the past 5 years only to be started, driven out, washed using a brush and then returned to the garage for another 6 months. When I collected the car the wheels were badly flat spotted so 4 new tyres had to be purchased before moving anywhere. The car was very badly marked with hundreds of deep RDS with tens of them on each panel. The paint was also very dull and some rust spotting had broken out on both front wings. So a challenge was set. This car was to be made as pristine as possible without making use of the paint shop (yet anyhow). This is going to be a challenge as I can honestly say it’s the worst condition of paint I have worked on yet. Just as a footnote. This will be continued in a second post as the car has been invited to attend the Annual Mercedes and Porsche National day as a result of the pictures. The Competition will be on the 5th June so I have a lot more replacing of parts etc to finish before then thank goodness Mercedes keep stock right back to the 1930’s Here is the before pictures of the car just after it arrived Clean with a bit of shine. Now time for the OCD magic to take over: Stage 1 Cleaning. Car washed using a 1 bucket method as it is in for full correction and I personally I feel my wash process allows me to do this. Method used • Car pre-soaked in citrus degreaser. Then my own blend of citrus prewash snow foam applied and left to dwell. • Car rinsed and refoamed with PH neutral snow foam again using my new snow foam blend. • Rinsed then sprayed with Tardis a panel at a time to remove tar. Then rinsed. • The car was then jacked up to remove wheels and do arches but the nuts had been tightened using an impact gun and would not budge not even with the breaker bar so to avoid damage I left them on and climbed under to was the back of the wheels. Then washed the wheel arched removed all mud and tar and years of greasy deposits to leave them shiny and new looking • Refoamed and washed with my trusty noodle mitt and Megs gold class I my bucket all horizontal panels first then vertical panels starting at the top and working round. Next up door shuts then bumpers washed and finally the side skirts. • Next up I retreated the car with tardis and used a foam pad to work any stubborn areas. • Refoamed and rewashed to remove all residue. • Next was the clay stage. I am using bilt hambre Autoclay. I think this stuff is simply amazing and much better than any other clay I have tried. After claying the car was relatively free from contamination which makes a nice change. The car was given one final wash to remove all remaining crud. The car was then pulled into the garage and dried off ready for initial inspection. A few process pics: Stage 2 Assessing the “damage” and highlighting areas of concern. The paint was fully measured with an average thickness of 160microns. However the bumpers wings and boot have all seen paint. The wings have bad orange peel from the repaint but also have rust blistering so full correction is not going to be possible so a happy medium and a lot of water will be needed to keep things cool. RDS RDS RDS did I mention RDS!!!! This car is virtually covered in hundreds of deep marks so this is going to be fun. Also there was some rust blistering on the front wings and a few scrapes as well. Stage 3 Taping up and correction. I tried several combinations but settled for • Gloss-it Yellow polishing pad with 3M Fast Cut Plus 2 pea sized blobs. The reason for this was to allow me to cut through the minor defects leaving the major ones to allow me to then concentrate on them rather than just a general paint thickness reduction exercise. • For the more damaged panels I used a Reflection Perfection Compounding pad with 3M Fast Cut Plus 2 pea sized blobs. Initally Refined to remove work marks with Menz 85RD on a Gloss-it Yellow. pad My routine for correction was: • Spread at 600rpm • Begin working at 1200rpm, light pressure to get residue evenly spread to start correction. • Work at 2000-2100rpm, medium pressure working up to heavy pressure towards the end. • As residue began to go clear, reduce pressure for a couple of final passes at 2000rpm. • Reduce speed to 1200rpm. In process pics. Boot lid: Silicone spotting from a poor respray. Badge removed as it was starting to peel off Badge had not been removed for respray leaving a voided area in the paint. Finished Front D/S wing: The wing was corrected in 2 sections; the rear section was given a mild sanding to reduce the orange peel from a poor repaint. I was unable to remove it due to the rust on the front of the wing so took it to a level that I could carry out over the whole panel. Rear section corrected. Panel paint thickness Over rusted area. Care is needed not to heat up this area causing more paint damage!! Plenty of QD applied to Mop the panel and keep temps to a minimum. Front section corrected. Bonnet Before. 50:50. After. P/S wing Before. 50:50. After. Door Before. After. Mirror 50:50. After. Rear Quarter Before. After. Rear Bumper Before. 50:50. After. Rear Panel. Rear Quarter Front Bumper. Stage 4 Refining ready for LSP and Final inspection After all of the initial correction work was completed the car was rewashed, then brought back into the studio for the first of its refining stages. Because of the amount of heavy working and level of correction needed I decided to 2 stage the refining Process. I know to some I am making extra work with an unnecessary process, but I really did see a noticeable difference in the finish so in my opinion it was worth it. Stage 1. For this stage I used Menz 85RD on a yellow Gloss-it polishing pad using the same process as above Stage 2. Finally to sharpen the Finish I used 3M Perfect-it Machine polish mixed with Lime Prime on a Blue 3M waffle pad using the following method. • Spread at 600rpm • Start at 1200rpm, light pressure and slow movements evenly spreading the polish • Work at 1500rpm, medium pressure with steady movements. Then finally reducing pressure whilst speeding up machine movement • Refine at 1200rpm, light pressure and slow to medium movement. • Finally, burnish at 900rpm, with slow machine movements, with very light pressure. During the Detail we got the invite to the Show, so the decision was taken to finish the detail a week or so before to ensure it’s looking its absolute best. This will include the interior detail, new engine sound deadening and plastic trim from the engine bay and a few interior pieces that have been broken. • LSP at present is Reflection Perfection Carnauba Wax Polish. Then a coat of Ultra Mint, topped with Final finish. • The Wheels were Sealed with Rim Wax • Tyres and rubbers dressed with Reflection Perfection Rubber dressing. Enjoy the pics so far and as usual C&C welcome. Time taken so far 60Hours Correction Time and counting.. Final pictures. Many thanks for reading Rollo..
