2001 z06

This vehicle was booked for only a minor paint correction, owner only wanted to bring life back to the vehicle so the game plan was for a single pass. The vehicle:

2001 Z06

Here is the vehicle as it was delivered to me:


vehicle was in reasonable conditions.













Well like I said not bad conditions, so far :whistle:

First things first, I gathered the tools to take care of the rims, tires and wheel wells:


Rims needed some attention so I brought out my heavy hitter :thumb:




Red P21S working it’s magic:


The inside of the rims were taken care of with an EZ brush:


Face of the rims were scrubbed with a Zymol brush:


Tires, with a Meg’s brush:


Now the wheel wells, not much room so I had to do it by hand with the help of my degraded Zymol sponge:


Well this process is done to all rims, tires and wheel wells. Now on to the rest of the vehicle, now out of habit the two bucket method is used, it really wasn’t needed but oh well good habit to maintain :shrug:


Once the washing process was done it was time to clay the vehicle, during the washing method the surface of the vehicle felt some what clean but a few spots felt rough so the clay of choice is yellow Riccardo:


I taped up the vehicle and it was time to take some paint gauge readings with my PosiTector 200:

Even though I was only to be giving this vehicle a single pass I still take readings just in case.

Well now that I know there is plenty of clear coat to proceed with the polishing stage, with the help of my 3M Sun Gun I inspected the vehicle and here is what I’m up against:

















well lots and lots of swirls on this vehicle, I like it :woo:

Now considering the year of this vehicle and having done a few Corvette’s I had a feeling this combo would be the best combo for a single stage correction:

Menzerna intensive Polish partnered up with a Menzerna Polishing foam pad.

Here is a 50/50 of this combo:

Now due to the color of the vehicle it was a bit tough to capture the defects but I did my best.


Here is how the polished side looked like:

Now the picture is deceiving, this picture makes it look as though one pass of Intensive Polish left the paint flawless, in reality there were still some minor swirls left, I’ll show you what I mean later on.

Well now that I have a combo that delivered reasonable results time to start polishing, before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Here is a 50/50 well not perfect but hopefully you’ll be able to see the difference:


Before:


After:

Ah now if you look close at this picture you’ll see what I mean about what is being left behind. It’s no where near 100% but much better then the before picture.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:

Now these pictures do not lie, the tail lights were the only area that finished of quite nicely :thumb:

At this point it was time to get a fresh pad:


Much better:


Here is a 50/50 of the rear ¼ panel of the passenger side:


A closer look:


The rest of the panel, before:


After:


Passenger door before:


After:


Passenger side mirror before:


After:


All that was left to do is to polish the driver side, once that was done with the help of my Zymol duster I removed all polish dust from the surface:


Followed up with a final wipe down of Menzerna Top Inspection:


Now for protection, the owner is going on a road trip so this vehicle is going to need some good solid protection, so I went with my reliable combo:


The sealant was left to bond for several hours, I honestly can’t remember the exact time it was left to cure:

Oh I even applied this combo on the glass as well as rims and door jams.

To buff of the sealant I used various Cookie Monster towels:


Jus needed to finish of a few bits, like the exhaust tips. For this Autosol is used:

Tires were dressed with Optimum Tire, wheel wells were dressed with Meg’s #40 and that about does it, vehicle is done and ready to be rolled out to snap some pictures….oh but wait, weather says differently:

It’s raining, come on!! :wall:

Well at least I could admire the beading of my Volvo:


Well regrettably all after pictures are going to be inside my garage :sorry: Since I had some time before the owner came to pick up the vehicle I wanted to capture the true conditions of the vehicle and even though it took me a bit of manually focusing and lots of trial and error, I got one just right:

Remember how I said the pictures are miss leading, well this picture shows the true power of a single pass of Menzerna Intensive polish and Menzerna Polishign foam pad. Like I said not 100% but much, much better.

Well now that you know the true conditions of the vehicle I can now unleash the rest of the pictures I took inside my garage, I got creative so hope you enjoy the pictures:





It can rain all it wants, inside my garage is nice and bright and most of all dry :thumb:






I like his plates :lol2:


The owner noticed the exhaust tips right a way, mission accomplished :thumb:

Here is where I got creative and used my wide lens, hope you enjoy them, I know I did taking them:

















I had to bring my Lexus indoors, no way my garage queen is going to get wet, no sir :thumb:




Sorry I couldn’t choose between these two so I just posted them both :shrug:




Um..same thing :whistle:





Well owner showed up and rain let up and he rolled out the car and I managed to snap these last few pictures:














Well that concludes this detail, hope you guys enjoyed it I sure did and best part the owner was pleased with the results :thumb:

 

Looks great Nica :mounty:

 

Looks Fabalous, Terrific write up and great pics.....:applause:

The only thing I missed was you Steaming the Vents/Interior :giggle:

 

Phenomenal job as always even if you weren't going for full perfection. Car looks tremendously better. Didn't this customer know that you were the best interior guy in North America?!? Can't believe he passed on having you do the interior but what you did on the exterior was top notch. Oh and I love the composition of a lot of those pics.

 

Great detail Carlos, always love you're 50/50s

 

Dang looks good, I loved your write up, very enjoyable read. :thumb:

 

Glad you enjoyed it eace:

Glad you enjoyed it flash, it felt odd not reaching for the steamer but oh well maybe next time :shrug:

Thank you for the feed back JL and glad you enjoyed the pictures, I took so many but only the ones I posted here turned out :shrug: It was nice putting to practice all that I've learned though from the photography courses. Actually the owner of this vehicle knows first hand what I'm capable of doing to a vehicle inside and out but he only wanted a quick spruce up on the paint, we chatted a bit and he said he was actually considering having parts of the vehicle repainted, but after I've polished it he said it can wait. He was pleased but that color is really odd, if you stare at it for too long everything looks red...I had to look a way a few times just so my eyes could adjust and make sure I was looking at what's really there.

Glad you enjoy the pictures, thank you for the feed back eace:

 

Glad you enjoyed it, I some times think I make the write ups too long but so far no complaints :hippie: Thank you for the feed back.

 

looks really nice!

 

I actually enjoy huge, step-by-step write ups. The only downside is that I have a slowww internet and the pics take forever, but well worth it in the end :thumb:

 

great work nica

 

Another great job! :yikes: <- My face when I didnt see a steamer! haha...Like always a well written writeup.

 

Awesome job! If i was the customer i would have paid for the 2 step correction...but thats just me being OCD :/

 

Nice job. When do you get to do the Pewter Vette?

 

I just really enjoy your threads sir!

 

VEry nice detail in there, Carlos! And yes, that licence plate is funny!!!

 

Glad you enjoyed it eace:

Yea, that's the only downside the amount of time they take to load...but I agree well worth it :cheerl:

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it :chest:

lol yea it felt odd not using the steamer but I enjoyed my self polishing :righton:

I agree, the second pass would have given the paint some extra humph but one pass is all he was interested in :shrug:

Oooh you saw that one huh, I was actually supposed to do that one first but owner couldn't leave it with me so the red one got a head of it...but it's coming, it's coming :tiptoe:

Thank you, glad you enjoy the write ups. Thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated eace:

When I saw the plate I :giggle: a bit, when he told me the story behind it I :rollinglaugh: :rollinglaugh:

 

Killer job!!! That Vette looks 100% better.

 

Great job Carlos. I hate it when you have to give it back less than 100% but oh well. Car looked really nice.

 

Thank you for the kind words, not quite 100% but definitely an improvement :thumb:

I always prefer when they say 'I leave it up to you, you do what you feel is best' but customer gets what customer wants :thumb: Besides, owner of this vehicle drives his vehicle as it was meant to be driven, so I can understand why he didn't want a full blown detail. I'm sure I'll be seeing this vehicle in the near future