5 day detail on a 993 turbo...

Some of you may know by now that I am rather fond of my Porsches, so when the owner of this one dropped in by a couple of months ago with a view to booking it in it goes without saying that I was rather looking forward to it

The car by the owners own admission has had a hard life up to now, it's done over 90,000 miles, gets driven daily (even in winter) and pretty much every panel on the car has been painted at some point (to be fair 95% of it was done well although the after prep left a lot to be desired which we'll see in a minute!). He basically thought that most of the car was going to need a re-paint but I told him to leave the car with us for a week and hopefully by the end he'd be pleasantly surprised :thumb:

Anyways, enough of the blurb - let’s see some before shots:


One tired looking 911:



Someone's cat obviously likes to go for walks over the bonnet:



Couple of bird bombs:



Very "milky" looking paintwork in places:













The "big reds" were looking more a sad pinky colour!





The interior was pretty grubby in places too:























First job was to remove the wheels to clean the arches properly:






For some reason I don’t have an after pic at this stage but you'll see later on that they were actually done :lol:


The wheels were put back on but not cleaned yet as the sealant I was going to use can't get wet for several hours so they would get done once the car was inside.


So, APC through the foam lance at a temperature of approx 60/70 degrees:



Then rinsed off thoroughly:






APC was then applied and agitated with Raceglaze Detailing brushes to clean all exterior trim/badge/shuts etc:















Engine bay was cleaned with Meguiars Super Degreaser:







Not the most exciting engine to look at really!


The car was then washed with the 2 bucket method, Autosmart Tardis was used to remove some large tar deposits and then Iron Cut was applied to remove any iron contamination - no pics of this stage as it was really heavy with rain by now.

Inside, the car was clayed with Meguiars Mild which removed a little bit of contamination but not a huge amount:




After drying with PB towels and the Black Baron I turned my attention back to the wheels:



Process was as follows:

- Gloss-It wheel gel (4:1)
- Autosmart Tardis
- Iron Cut
- IPA wipe down
- Nanolex Professional Sealant

Unfortunately, the wheels had all been refurbished at some point and while the faces were pretty good the inner rims were really rough and a lot of dirt was trapped under the clear

They came up pretty well considering:





However, you can see where old weight residue had been painted over:



Seriously, how difficult would it be just to give the whole wheel a clean before painting?? This is one of the things that frustrates me the most and it's probably the same for detailers up and down the country.


While the wheels were off I decided I needed to do something about those calipers, so we went from this...



...To this...




This was achieved by removing any flaking bits of clear coat (if there's any left!)...





Then touch in any chips (Ford Colorado Red is a 99% match for these by the way :thumb and apply several (think I applied 6 to each!) coats of lacquer...




Et Voila!






Once all 4 corners were done it was finally time to turn to the paintwork:

















That "milky" look on the roof was actually DA sanding marks!












Mmmmm nice!

Paint thickness readings were all over the place with this car, the lowest readings were mid 200's with the highest spots up and over 1000 microns!

With the roof being one of the worst places for defects I chose this as a good start for a test section to determine what polish & pad combo I would need.

In the end, 2 hits of Menzerna 3.02 with an Orange Lake Country Hydrotech pad @1800rpm's gave surprisingly good results...









That's the good thing with a resprayed panel, sometimes it won't always be as hard as the original paint would have been and this was the case with the 911 - I'd say it was of medium hardness over the majority of the car and not once did I have to go any more aggressive than 3.02

This was typically the level of defect left in:



Paint levels being what they were, it would have been possible to safely remove these if it had been a Ne Plus Ultra level of detail but the owner wanted it capped at 5 days to stay within budget so we had to find a good compromise :thumb:

 

Here's a before and after showing the difference in the clarity of the paint:

Before:





Milkyness gone





A few more before and afters:


Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Few 50/50's:












Bonnet under the Sun Gun:



And under the Aquartz light:




The paint protection film on the rear quarters were polished with Menzerna 203S @1200rpm's:

Before:



After:




The Passenger side one didn't correct as well as the driver’s side though. I tried a few different things with no change other than the slight increase of clarity:

Before:



After:




The smaller pads were handy as ever on this one:










Rear bumper after, again showing 1 or 2 deeper randoms which were left:




Before:



After:




The Turbo spoilers are always a 2 second job to mask up! Not...



The top part with all the vents can actually be unclipped but this one had the "pull me much further and I'm going to snap in half" feel about it so I left it in place

50/50:



Gloss-It Light Cut spot pad was used for these bits:




Before:



After:



I always try to get the masking tape as close to or even tucked under the trims where possible as it prevents you from leaving a slightly duller masking line once removed:



Top part corrected, lower part untouched:



Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




C Pillar before:



After:





Once all the correction work was done I refined the finish with a Lake Country polishing pad and Menzerna 85RE @1500rpm's:



The paint was then dusted down and given a thorough IPA wipe down...



...followed by an application of Nanolex Professional:




Nanolex was also applied to the exterior glass while 3M Glass cleaner was used for the interior:





The interior was then thoroughly hoovered and dusted:






The leather was cleaned and conditioned with products we can't name yet and any grubby marks on the carpets were cleaned with APC:








303 Fabric Guard was then applied:




Same process for the mats:



All Plastic and Vinyl surfaces were cleaned with APC and then protected with Werkstat Satin Prot and all the other various details such as the tailpipes (Raceglaze Alutec), shuts (Werkstat Prime Strong) & engine bay (303 Aerospace Protectant) etc were attended to.

A final wipe down of the paintwork with Nanolex Spray in the morning removed some light hazing and left us with the following:







Wheel bolts painted black again:

























































You may have guessed that I quite enjoyed this one and the owner was pretty pleased with it too :thumb:

Thanks for looking!

Clark

 

You my friend are a Guru. That is outstanding work. I wish you were near me, I have a BMW in need of that kind of effort and would love to watch and learn.

 

Those are awesome 50/50's

 

One of the VERY BEST detailers in the world! Your attention to detail is really amazing, and your work really enspires me! Thanks for sharing! Two thumbs up!

 

Another stunning job Clark. Owner must have been ecstatic!

 

Clark, you are awesome. That's all I have to say about that.

 

Outstanding work.
The 993 is the first high end car I was able drive. That was the day I fell in love.

 

beautifl car, beautiful color and a stand up outstanding job. as a yank i wonder why the steering wheel is on the wrong side. your pictures were amazing.

 

Fantastic work!

 

That's a great resto! :mounty:

 

amazing everything. This is still one of my favorite cars. Better looking then any of the new porsches to me. Amazing color on that car too.

 

great job!

 

wow amazing

 

Simply outstanding work Clark. Thanks for sharing. That car is dripping wet !!

 

Love everything about this correction......"supercleaness", also like the larger space Clark.

 

Awesome as usual!!

 

Outstanding work as always, what a transformation :thumb:

 

unbelievable turnaround, thanks for the super detailed writeup!

 

jesus lord that paint could not look any more glossy, wet and perfect than that. it looks like an almost completely different color! outstanding work, sir.