70 hour restorative detail on my '02 Z06 by Immaculate Reflections

Last month I made a trip to southern california to look at this 2002 Z06 and if the paint was original and the rest of the car was in good order I would be taking it home. There were definitely issues with the car but it looked pretty good and I knew I could bring it back and up to my standards. This car is also going to be used to demonstrate to clients what can be done on their cars. So I pulled out all the stops on this one and gave it everything in my arsenal to get it looking the absolute best.

Some of the issues on this car were: hard water spots, greasy plastics and leather, heavy random isolated deep scratches (RIDS), swirlmarks, dull and hammered wheels, and heavy orangepeel


Products used:
-CG Citrus Wash
-Foamaster II Foam Gun
-2 Bucket Method with Grit Guards
-Sonax Full Effect Wheel Cleaner
-Daytona Speed Master Wheel Brush
-Swissvax Wheel Brush
-Meguiars APC 4:1
-#0000 Steel Wool
-Mothers Chrome Polish
-Zaino ZAIO
-Stoner's Tarminator
-Leather and interior plastics cleaned with Zaino Z9
-Optimum Opti-Seal
-Meguiars 105
-Meguiars D300
-Menzerna PO203
-Menzerna PO85RD
-Edge twisted ply wool pad
-LC PFW pad
-Meguiars MF cutting disc 5.5" and 3"
-Meguiars MF finishing disc 5.5" and 3"
-LC orange pad 5.5" and 4"
-LC tangerine pad 5.5" and 4"
-LC white pad 5.5" and 4"
-LC black pad 5.5" and 4"
-Meguiars 3" foam interface pad

Machines used:
-Makita Rotary
-Griots Garage 6" DA
-Griots Garage 3" DA
-Porter Cable 7424XP


LSP:
-2 coats of Swissvax Concorso applied 12 hours apart


I took the car along the coast on the trip back to the Bay Area. It seemed like a much more enjoyable drive than the dullness of I-5. So I took the opportunity to get some pics along the way home from so-cal.












I got it home safe, but it was right back to work for me. I took this on the trip to Napa where it rained and rained and then guess what..........? It rained some more! So it was a little rough looking by the time I got it home. This is proof corvettes don't melt in the rain, they just get dirty...








First up on the list after the wash and decon step was the exhaust tips and lower valence plate.











Looking better after some Megs APC cleaner followed by #0000 steel wool and Mothers Chrome Polish. Simple, but effective. Sealed with Zaino ZAIO to make future cleaning easy.












The exhaust needed some polishing as well. The same method was used here as with the valence plate.









Polished up and looking nice again















Next up was to tackle the heavy waterspots on the lower bumper sections. I've done many corvettes and I see issues on almost every one in these same spots, they just often get overlooked.











After.....










The other typically neglected areas....












Bam!! Application of products that WORK give results like this. Some Meguiars 105 on a microfiber towel followed with some Meguiars 205 to give it that glossy look again.











The reverse lights were in bad shape. After just trying some typical correction and it not being enough, I decided to wetsand out the heavy defects. 3M Trizact 1500 and 3000 grit were used then followed by M105/D300, M205, and 85RD were used to remove the sand scratches and return the gloss. I've seen a significant increase in brightness from the lights since this correction.















Next up was the center section behind the license plate and reverse lights. Yes, no one ever sees here...but the corners are very visible and trap dirt where its difficult to reach and clean. So in keeping with the "all out" theme on this car, measures were taken to really make this neglected area look great.












Yes I even corrected the paint in here....










After correcting the paint, it was waxed to lock in that shine and make it hard for dirt to stick to those hard to reach areas.











Tail lights were removed and the "flush mount tail light kit" was removed for good. Once the lights and kit were out and more of the paint would be exposed, it needed correction as well.









This was lurking under every light....












Correcting the paint to bring the gloss back with the Griots 3" with Megs 3" interface foam and the Megs 3" microfiber pad with the usual combos from above. The interface pad works great for the sharp curve that makes up the tail light openings and allows the pad and polish to do its job in those tight areas without putting excessive pressure on the edges.
















In my opinion the C5's look way better without a rear emblem, and as you can see it was filled with scratches and hard water deposits, so off it came!








This area was HEAVY with defects and would require 1500 grit and 3000 grit wetsanding to full remove. A special thanks goes to Bob from Auto Concierge for lending me his Defelsko 200 paint depth gauge to check the paint consistency before purchasing the car. A very kind favor to let me take it 500 miles to check out a car. Much appreciated!














All better....

 

At this point in the detail over 10 hours had already gone into the car. Even with 10 hours in, I wasn't ready to call the rear end done....not by a long shot! So what did I do? I decided to knock down the heavy orangepeel that corvettes are known for. So these wetsanding pics comprise another 5 hours just on the bumper.























After compounding out the sanding this is what was left behind. Its corrected down to D300/MF pad at this point. 3 more polishing and jeweling steps are to follow this later.












Some orangepeel was purposefully left in this section as the paint is thinner here and there were many edges to safeguard so only minimal wetsanding was carried out here.













The condition of the threshold behind the trunk lid was in very poor shape. Many RIDS and swirls, so many in fact that this area was wetsanded as well.







50/50 shot

























Ever had your car detailed and later found deep marks through the paint on the underside of the fuel filler door? Many cars have screw heads around the edges. If those are not covered, any vibrations will horrifically scratch the underside of the filler door. I couldn't count how many times I've seen this, so I take measures to protect the paint.


Multiples layers of tape create a cushion that will not hurt the paint.






























Some kind of adhesive residue was all around the trim on the top. Some Stoner's Tarminator handled this nicely.

















The roof had.....issues....









Handled!














Pillar needed some work too.....*after pics further down the line*













Returned to tail lights to correct and reinstall them. They were pretty rough also in pretty poor shape.







Side by side difference!










LED light pics show the truth
















Hood and fender issues....




































Door compounded out....finished pics to follow










I have never seen a set of the Z06 "Speedline" or "Alcoa" wheels in good condition. They are painted and cleared, but few owners take care of them the way they should be. So I put the lights on them and went hunting for issues. It didn't take long to find them. 2 steps of correction were carried out...about 1 hour per wheel, then waxed with Meguiars D301 for some crazy gloss. Not the easiest part to photograph, but I wanted to show the potential of these wheels.



Spokes dull and full of swirls





50/50 shot











50/50 shot on another wheel









"Dialed in"









Bob @ Auto Concierge let me borrow his steamer to get the door hinges and tight panel gaps cleared out 100%. An amazing piece of equipment that gets the job done!



























Another corvette area that never gets cleaned. The shape of this gap will feed a towel into the fender and never actually clean the visible area. Some q-tips with some Meguiars 205 handled it nicely. To protect that paint, Optimum Opti-seal was misted into the gap and it came out very nice.














Took a break from the many many hours of paint work to handle the interior. Didn't take many before pics, just kinda shiny from the dealer doing their usual thing.... After cleaning it up here is how it looked.


50/50 on the door....greasy coating applied by the dealership being removed.

 

I returned to the paint and finished the correction with Menzerna 203 on a LC tang pad then followed by 2 jeweling steps with Menzerna 85RD on LC black pad. Here are the pics following the correction.
































The wax of choice....my favorite. 2 coats applied, 12 hours apart.














After 70 hours of work here is the end result, with lots of sun pics!



















































































Typically I like to close with what I believe is the coolest picture, but this time I thought I'd do it differently. Some of you may remember the 35 hour detail on my Dad's C5:

Well when I was all done with mine, we got the cars together for a couple pictures. These two cars represent 105 hours of work together. But more importantly it was a special moment with my Dad, so these are my favorite pictures. Love you Dad!









Thanks for reading and making it this far!

 

Jeff, by and far the best write up of the year IMO, such attention to detail and that thing came out AMAZING, its gorgeous. Congrats on the purchase and congrats on such a great looking beast!

 

Congrats on the car Jeff and extremely nice work bringing it back to 100%!

-Kody-

 

WOW. Great write up. Your attention to detail was great. Greatly enjoyed reading. Quite the journey from start to finish. You had to feel good after wrapping this one up.

 

Speechless! Great Job!

 

That is a massive undertaking and I applaud you in your attention to all the small things. It's write ups like yours that not only makes us happy to see such meticulousness in others but make us feel better about our obsessive hobby. The car is gorgeous now and your work is immaculate. It's amazing how much more satisfying it is when it is your own car isn't it? I probably did the same amount of work you did when I bought mine but spread out over a period of a year or so, a little at a time. Amazing work.

 

Excellent work and documentation, Jeff! Car looks sick now!!! :headbang:

 

thats awesome man! came out great, always loved the C5. Love the pics at the end with your dads, family is everything.

 

Fantastic detail and documentation of it! It's crazy how time consuming the smaller(often overlooked) areas can be but they really set apart a "Detail" and make a huge difference in the end result. Congrats on the new ride!

 

Wow Jeff! Awesome cleanup after many hours! Now she looks ready to sell or for a carshow

 

Incredible work, quite impressed with the 50/50s on the wheels.

 

Bravo! Way to go where no man has gone before (the crevices on that car) and make it 100%.
Car looks sharp!
Your dad needs to get some new wheels. lol

 

Great work and writeup!!

 

Thats one sexy bitch! Torch Red C5 Z06 is one of my favorites. great job

 

This gets my vote for detail of the month for Feb.!

 

Incredible work....its a shame you couldn't get paid for all the work you put into this huh? haha.

You should certainly take pride in how perfect it is now.

 

beautiful view of Cali, thanks for sharing a awesome detail as well!

 

Amazing work man you really out did yourself on this Love the picture with you and your dads vette thats great