1999 Ford Mustang

Well this vehicle was quite a treat to work with, one of the two original programmers that helped me with Detailing Bliss finally called in the favor I owed. The favor was to detail a vehicle and the vehicle is a:

1999 Ford Mustang

Here is the vehicle as it arrived oh before I post the pictures my apologies for some of the pictures, the garage is still under construction and has poor lighting :shakehead: well on to the vehicle:











The exterior wasn’t too bad here is how the interior looked like:






The owner of the vehicle took good care of his vehicle and it showed, the interior was very clean just a little dusty.

Well I was eager to get going with this vehicle so first up the engine bay. First the engine bay is given a quick rinse, then P21S Total Auto Wash is sprayed on:


P21S Total Auto Wash is left to do what it does best and then agitated with a Swissvax brush:




Once satisfied with the engine bay it was rinsed off. Next to the shoes of the vehicle. First up P21S Total Auto Wash is applied to the wheel wells:


Next the rims, for the rims I used Menzerna Gel 7.5:




The tires received ARO:


Now it was time to scrub the wheel wells, with the help of my long handle brush I gave the wheel wells a good scrub:


The inside of the rims were agitated with my EZ brush:


The face of the rims were taken care of with a Swissvax brush:


Last but not least the tires were scrubbed with a Meg’s tire brush.

This process is done to all the wheel wells, rims and tires. Now that the shoes have been taken care of it was time to take care of the rest of the vehicle. First things first though, the CR unit is connected and Deionized water is ready to go.

The two bucket method is used along with a sea sponge and Pinnacle Shampoo:


Before I started washing the vehicle the soft top required some attention, first I sprayed some ARO on the soft top and scrubbed with a Meg’s brush:


Once the soft top was done and I was satisfied with the results on to the rest of the vehicle, once I completely washed the entire vehicle it was time for the clay process.

The clay of choice is Riccardo:


The entire vehicle was clayed and it sure had a significant amount of contamination :shrug:

The vehicle was once again given a good rinse and dried with the help of my air compressor and what ever water remained I removed with my waffle weaved micro fiber towels.

The vehicle was delivered a bit late so this is all I could get done on day one besides it was getting late so this ends day one.

Day two:

Day two began by taping up the vehicle:



I decided to cover the soft top, considering it was all clean and didn’t want to get any polish residue nor dust on it I decided to cover it al up with some plastic:







Once the vehicle had been taped up it was time to take some paint gauge readings, first up the PosiTector 6000 was used and the vehicle had plenty of clear coat.



Plenty of clear coat as you can see by the chart bellow:



Next it was time to use the PosiTector 200 as the hood, trunk and bumpers were all plastic/composite



Once again healthy readings as you can see on the chart bellow:



Now seeing as the colour is white I knew I was going to have a hard time capturing all the swirls/imperfection on this vehicle but I tried any ways and I actually managed to capture some of the imperfections with my 3M Sun Gun and my 1000W lights:








Well now that I knew what I was up against it was time to find the combo to take care of all swirls and imperfections. First combo was a Black 3M UK Polishing pad with Menzerna 3.02 this combo provided the following results:

Before:


After:


The clear coat on this vehicle was a bit tough and even though Menzerna 3.02 did quite well there were still some deep scratches that remained so I hit the same section again with the same combo and once again hardly any difference so it was time to bump the aggressive ness of the combo. Next up I bumped up the pad to the 3M UK Orange Compounding pad with 3M perfect-it III Extra Fine Compound. This combo took care of the deeper scratches and it was followed up with a 3M UK Black Polishing pad with Menzerna 3.02 and finished off with the 3M UK Blue Finishing pad with Menzerna 85RD, this combo provided very satisfying results and I continued to use it.

Here is a 50/50 shot..but due to the colour it’s a bit difficult to see the difference:

If anything the clarity on the right side is much better compared to the left side.

Well I proceeded a long with this combo on the rest of the driver side fender but like I said the clear coat on this vehicle was a bit tough and the rest of the fender proved to be yet another challenge, I used the exact same combo and here are the results:



As you can see the light on the left still deep scratches remained compared to the right side. Well it was time to yet again step up the combo, this time I kept the 3M UK Orange Compounding foam pad and bumped up to Fast Cut Plus followed up with a 3M UK Black Polishing pad with Menzerna 3.02 and finished off with the 3M UK Blue Finishing pad with Menzerna 85RD, this combo removed all swirls and deep scratches and proceeded to use it.

Here is an example of how severe the swirls were on this vehicle:



First pass with 3M UK Orange Compounding foam pad Fast Cut Plus, a difference but not quite satisfying.


A second pass was required with the same combo and the difference was once again not very satisfying. But I was persistent and give it yet another pass and that did it..finaly.

Here is yet another stubborn spot:



First pass with 3M UK Orange Compounding foam pad Fast Cut Plus.

Once again it took three passes with the same combo, this was getting a bit time consuming and I was just about to break out the Menzerna wool pad and then I got to the trunk and yet another stubborn spot.



Once again just not satisfying results but it only took two passes instead of three so it was a bit better.

Well I thought it would be best to try my luck with the tail lights and see if I could get some good results.

Before:


After:

Tail lights were done with 3M UK Black Polishing pad and Menzerna 3.02 finally something rewarding on the first go :cheerl:

By now quite a few hours have past and I was just completing the driver side of the vehicle now for the passenger side.

Here is the rear ¼ panel before:


After:

3M UK Orange Compounding foam pad and Fast Cut Plus followed up with a 3M UK Black Polishing pad with Menzerna 3.02 and finished off with the 3M UK Blue Finishing pad with Menzerna 85RD, this combo removed all swirls and deep scratches…finally I got a break and very satisfied with the end results.

Here is a reasonable 50/50 picture:

Lol..but alas one last scratched remained on the right side so had to do the whole combo again but regardless reasonable results.

Well it was a long battle, very long because when I finished it was just over 1AM :thumb: but like I said I was dedicated to achieve perfection on this vehicle and time was not a factor for me as I had the vehicle for as long as I needed it.

Here are all the tools I used and the Orange 3M UK foam pad finally packed it in. Not to bad though because I detailed quite a few vehicles with the same foam pad…the Black 3M UK Polishing pad is soon to follow :shrug: no biggie I still have a few of these pads in my collection and I got a bunch more coming :thumb:

Well this concludes a very long day two.

Day three:

Now for my second favorite part :woo:

First I wanted to make sure all polish dust was removed from the vehicle and for this I used my Zymol duster:


Next it was time to give the vehicle a complete wipe down, for this Menzerna Top Inspection was used:


Now the hard part, choosing a LSP…mmm…I wanted to use something..something that I haven’t used for a wile, so first up I applied HD-Cleanse with the help of the Red Ultimate pad and the Polishing pal.

Next I decided to go with Zymol Glasur, I haven’t used it for a wile and it felt so good to apply:


Let the man handling begin :cheerl:


This time around Glasur took a wile to cure, in the past it performed quite different where it only took about 10 to 15minutes to cure this time it took well over an hour here is the same spot after I applied Glasur still not cured:


Well no big deal as I still had to do the interior, the fun continues.

First up all floor mats are removed, the owner removed all his personal belongings :thumb: so first up I thorough vacuum:




Next I gave the interior a good wipe down, first some worm water was used and Meg’s APC was diluted 20:1. First a Zymol brush was used to agitate all interior:


Along with vents:




Then wiped down with a yellow micro fiber towel:


Last step is with the air compressor:


This method is carried out through out the entire interior. Once completed, the wipe down water was discarded and new hot water was obtained to take care of the leather seats. Zymol Leather Cleaner was used, agitated with a soft bristle brush and was wiped down with another yellow micro fiber towel with the help of the hot water.

Now the entire interior was clean and I was satisfied with the end results, now the dressing process can begin.

First up all Vinyl trims were dressed with Zymol Vinyl, applied with a foam applicator:


Next it was time to re-condition the leather, for this Zymol Treat is used. First the leather seats are heated up with my 1000W lights and Zymol Treat is massaged in to the leather by hand.

Wile both Zymol Vinyl and Treat were left to bond I wanted to make sure the exhaust tips were taken care off, so out with my go to tools:


Exhaust tips finished off nicely, now it was time to give the interior a final wipe down along with the leather seats, final wipe down was done with yellow micro fiber towels.

Well the interior took me about four hours and I still had not removed Zymol Glasur from the vehicle so by now Glasur had cured and was buffed off with various Cookie Monsters:


Once Glasur was buffed of it was time to take care of the last few bits. Tires were dressed with Zymol Tire:


All exterior plastic trim were protected with Black WOW:


All windows were done with Stoners Invisible Glass and various glass micro fiber towels.

Well this just about completes the vehicle..oh wait time to concentrate on the engine bay once again, all that was left was to dress the engine bay. For this I wanted to use something different, so I used Zymol Vinyl and it turned out quite nice.

The last and final step was to give the vehicle a Zymol Field Glaze with some more Cookie Monsters :thumb:

Now the vehicle was ready for delivery and best of all for the final pictures.

Lets start off with the engine bay:

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Like I said I was quite pleased with the way the engine bay finished off, Zymol Vinyl did a good job on the engine bay. Best part so was the owner :thumb:

Now for the rest of the vehicle:































Oh this is the owner of the vehicle, he was pleased with the end results so pleased that he started taking pictures of the vehicle too :thumb:

























Well that concludes another detail and even though this one was long I enjoyed every minute of it, hope you enjoyed the detail.

 

Wow Carlos great job and your right ups are the best to read as well. I'm glad to see that you won the battle with the clear coat in the end. Great job again on that car, it looks amazing!!:worship2:

 

that looks good. where did you get your sprayers for you TAW? What thoughts on Tardis (if you used it)? The best write ups as usual.

 

great job as usual, just tell him to ditch the taillights and move the spoiler back and it will look MUCH MUCH better.

Carlos, I noticed you don't cover anything when doing the engine bay, it that okay?

 

Awesome job as usual Carlos. :worship2: Always a treat to see your work.

 

Great job, buddy!! That white looks awesome! I noticed you used three products on the tires, wheels and inner fenders. Can I send you a sample of something that will do all three and do it well? How much time total on the car?

 

what product would that be?

 

outstanding work! I like the look that Zymol Tyre produce...How do you like it compared to Swissvax Pneu???

 

That is some nice work there! Zymol Tyre leaves a very nice finish too; very classy.

Not sure about that "STALKER" part on the bumper though, haha.

 

Great job Nica.

 

Autoglym Custom Wheel cleaner. Its a non-acid cleaner designed for high end wheels but it does an amazing job on tires as well. I tried it on some tires immediately after using P21TAW, Menz 7.5 and ARO and each time it pulled even more crap out of the tires. I also used the AG first on another set of tires and the others second and they weren't able to do anything better. I pay around $100 for 20 litres(approx 5 gallons) and use it straight. Its expensive, sure, but I believe in the Keep it Simple way of doing things. It means two less products I have to carry on my truck. :thumb:

 

Looks good Carlos. :thumb:

 

looks great Carlos!!!!!!!!!!!! I always love seeing pics of clean Mustangs!

 

Very nice work Carlos, can`t wait to see your garage finished off. Nice with a garage attached to the house? hehe

 

Very nice Carlos! Looks like you getting your new garage ready for winter.

 

Carlos..Nice job on the 'Stang! That's a real compliment when the owner shoots pics too..congrats!

 

Thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated. Regarding the engine bay on this particular vehicle I didn't cover anything, I looked over the entire engine bay and it had a bunch of exposed cable, so what I did is I used a ONR system..um..kinda on the engine area. I sprayed P21S Total Auto Wash on the entire engine bay being as carefull as possible, agitated with a Swissvax brush and when it was tiem to remove Total Auto Wash I basically sprayed water by hand on the entire engine bay..it was time consuming but better then covering up the entire engine bay. On the write up I said I rinsed the vehicle but what I was doing was rinsing with a spray bottle and wiped with a bunch of old micro fiber towels. This process worked well for me as there were no issues starting the vehicle.

The reason I used a spray bottle rather then the hose is becuase on my 1995 Volvo, I tried using the regular house method with out protecting anything and when I was doen the vehicle started but the sparkplugs got too wet and was miss firying, so I had to replace the sparkplugs and cables wile I was at it....luckely that was the only damage I caused, so after that experiance. The only way I wash the engine bay on the Volvo is same mathod I did to this Mustang and like I said so far it's worked well for me.

Thank you doc, glad you enjoyed it eace:

Thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated and glad you enjoyed it eace: This vehicle took me about 28hrs in total, majority of it was spent on the exterior of the vehicle...you know I used to think white colour vehicles were easy to maintain :shakehead: no way white colour is just as bad as black, maybe even more difficult due to the fact it's harder to see the swirls.

As to the sample, I'd love some but just not right now, still trying to organize all my detailing products :shead: so I'm not saying no..more like save it for me for a few more weeks please eace:

Oh speaking of samples someone sent me a sample and I have no clue who sent it to me, I can't remember who it was, I feel bad becuase I should at least remember who sent it to me :doh:

Thank you super and yes I like how Zymol Tyre finishes off, as to compared to Swissvax Pneu I personaly prefer Zymol..nothing wrong with Pneu I just prefer how Zymol finishes off that's all. Both great products.

Thank you kaval, oh the "STALKER" is the name of the body kit the owner put on his vehicle, :shrug:

Thank you for the feed back eace:

Glad you enjoyed it eace:

 

Thank you Cooter, glad you enjoyed it eace:

Thank you pirex, oh I got a long way to go with this garage. I probably wont have it done till next year :shakehead: but like I said I have big plans for this garage :shh: Oh and yes there are advantages to have an attached garage...quick access to food is one that comes to mind :whistle:

:nod: yes I sure am and I just had a large heater installed in the garage, so I can detail all year round :thumb:

Thank you richy, the owner was very pleased with the end results, he takes good care of his vehicle and asked for tips and I was more then willing to share.

 

Nice work, Compa! Love that wet white shine! :thumb:

 

As always Carlos love the write up, very informative. The car looks great nice work.