F355 F1 Ne Plus Ultra Part II...

It's been a good start to 2010 for us so far with 2 Ne Plus Ultra Details already complete and this is the first one - A Beautiful example of one of the all time great Ferrari's with only 22k on the clock (and an aftermarket exhaust that would make any petrol head grin like a child! )


Here's the car upon arrival, in for the best part of 10 days - considering it had just been driven 20 odd miles on salt/snow covered roads it had stayed amazingly clean:




To help with the washing and polishing, I removed a few bits and pieces including the number plates and rear prancing horse badge:



Front grill also removed...




So, onto the wash process. Up first was R222 through the lance at 60 degrees:



This was left for a couple of minutes and then rinsed off thoroughly at high pressure:



A good level of protection was still evident from the owners previous wax applications:



I then worked round the car with R222 and a Raceglaze detailing brush to clean all the exterior trim etc:










Meanwhile, Colin was working on the wheels with Gloss-It wheel gel (4:1) and tyres/arches with Meguiars Super Degreaser (4:1):






Once all the exterior trim had been cleaned I turned my attention to the door shuts...






Then the engine bay was treated in the same way - R222 applied, agitated and then rinsed at 60 degrees:






With all the various details now attended to all that remained was to wash the paintwork with Meguiars Shampoo Plus and the 2BM:



Then rinsed:




A quick once round the car with Autosmart Tardis showed next to no signs of tar spots so after a final rinse off the car was put inside for claying.

Meguiars Mild Clay (mild was used as there was very little contamination present on the paint) and water for lube was used:




The car was then dried off using PB Luxury Drying Towels and the Black Baron Drier:




Now the car was ready for polishing so I began to take detailed paint readings:




The 355's are prone to galvanic corrosion where the rear pillar meets the back quarter so it's quite common for them to have seen some paintwork done on these areas and as the owner had suspected, this was confirmed with the paint gauge:




Paint readings were as follows:

Roof: 150-200 microns
Engine Cover: 180-200 microns
Bonnet/wings/bumper: 200-400+ microns
Rear Quarters: 200-400 microns (with the odd high spot as the gauge pic shows above)
Rear bumper: 200-220 microns
Doors: 150-200 microns


So as the readings will show, the car had seen a respray to the front end (to remove a few stone chips) as well as the rear to fix the corrosion on the quarters with the doors,roof,engine cover and rear bumper being original. It has to be said at this stage that the quality of the paintwork was extremely good which was very pleasing on such a stunning example - quite often we see poor paintjobs letting down so many supercars etc but fortunately this was definitely not one of them :thumb:


Now it was time for a few defect shots:































As you can see, the defects were pretty deep in places with large random scratches being the biggest problem.

When it came to settling on a pad/polish combination I started with Meguiars 205 and a Gloss-It Polishing Pad as a starting point but this barely even took out the marring - the resprayed areas were rock hard!

I eventually had to settle for a Lake Country Wool Pad and Meguiars 105:





This was worked @2500/2800 rpm's from the start with moderate pressure untill the defects were removed, due to the hardness of the paint I needed a minimum of 3 hits per section to gain the desired correction.

Using the laser pen method I found that the average paint removal after 2 or 3 attempts was around the 4-5 micron level going up to around 6-8 if paint thickness allowed me to really lean on the machine head (using the advantage of the new Megs abrasives) to get extra cut.

After each hit I made sure I gave the panel a thorough IPA wipe down in order to remove any oils. The Meguiars 105 & 205 polishes are very impressive but I've found they can fill any light remaining defects slightly unless wiped down. It's also good practice as the polishing dust doesn’t stick so much to the corrected panels afterwards

After each panel had been corrected with wool and then IPA'd I refined this with Menz 3.02 to remove the odd pig tail that you can often get with wool pads that wouldn’t be fully removed with just a dedicated finishing polish:




Here's a few before and afters, these are all after wool and then 3.02 - no refining with a finishing polish yet:

Before:



After:





Before:



After:





Before:



After:





Before:



After:





Before:



After:





Before:



After:





Before:



After:





The section between the rear lights was too small to get the machine into so this was done by hand with a Light Cut CCS hand pad and Meguiars 105:

Before:



After (still to be refined by hand again using Menzerna FPII):





One last Before:



After:





There was one other area that could be accessed by machine so again this was done by hand but this time with Menzerna 203S:



Correction wasn’t great in there if I'm honest but it brought the gloss level up a wee bit


Onto the lower half of the doors, these are plastic so the Posi 200 gauge is needed for this:




During the refining with 3.02 and the Gloss-It Polishing Pad:




After (feint trail left to be removed later with the finishing polish):





Another Before:



After:




Rear lights were soft-ish (most light casings etc are on the softer side) so Meguiars 205 was all I needed to correct these:








Onto the engine cover now, this was removed to A) avoid leaning over the rear quarters and B) to save my back




This was original paint and pretty soft so correction was alot easier, using Meguiars 205 and Menzerna 203S where there were a few deeper marks:

Before:



After:






All wiped down with IPA and ready for waxing:







Front bumper now;

The top strip between the bonnet and bumper was really bad for deep scratches and sanding marks:




After 4 hits with the wool:




Before:



After:




Once all the correction work and IPA wipe down had been done I refined the finish with a Gloss-It finishing Pad and Menzerna 85RE:




Crystal Clear now





While I’d been busy doing the paintwork I'd found plenty for Colin to do, amongst these were fully detailing the interior plus a full feed of every single piece of leather in site with Raceglaze Leather Balm:



The tool kit was also done:



Brilliant Metal Polishes were used on the tools:




Migliore Trim Dressing was used for the black plastics:

Before:



After:




Werkstat Prime Strong was used to brighten up the prancing horse:

Before:



After:




Prime Strong again for the front grill:

Before:



After:





The wheels were also removed as the inner rims were covered in stubborn staining that wouldn’t shift:




The combination of Tardis, neat Gloss-It Wheel Gel, Menzerna FPII (the latter was applied to the face too to remove some light scratches) Werkstat Prime Acrylic and 2 coats of Blackfire Metal Sealant left the following:





Rear arch before APC,Tardis and Meguiars All Season Dressing (callipers polished and protected with Prime Strong):



After:




Front arch done in the same way too:




The wheel bolts were all polished with Brilliant Metal Polish before being torqued up to the correct setting but I forgot to take a pic!

A big thanks must go to Chris_VRS at this point, after a quick phone call he was able to confirm the jacking/axle stand points for the car before we took the wheels off, always good to double check so thanks mate :thumb:


Before I applied the protection to the paint I dusted it down with a lambswool duster and used the Black Baron to clear the panel gaps:






LSP of choice for this one was Zymol Vintage (re-fill time soon again!):




Badges and grill etc all re-fitted after the wax was buffed off:






I applied a couple of coats of Migliore Tyre Dressing to the tyres:



I'm really impressed with this product, it gives a slightly duller finish than the Gloss-It or Blackfire which I think suited the 355 more than a high gloss


A thorough wipe down with Migliore Quick Detailer followed and all that remained was to take some finished pics.

This is the result of just over 80 hours machine polishing and 112 man hours in total - enjoy :thumb:



































Whilst the car was sat on the trailer waiting to be taken back to the owner I took a few more pics as the natural light coming through the roof really highlighted that "glassy" look the paint now had:













And finally just for fun, here are some arty pics that Rich captured late at night:



















Thanks for taking the time to have a look - 155 hour Bentley Arnage Detail will be next

Clark

 

great job. is this single stage? 94 348 that i did was 80% SS

 

No this was all clear coated mate, got a bit of paint transfer from stone chip touch ups but other than that it was all clear :thumb:

 

that looks great!

 

Great job Clark! The F355 just has a timeless look to me I think, looked great when I was a kid looking at them and they still look stunning.

 

Clark, I love your writeups. I can't believe you spend so much time on one car. It looks fantastic. So do you prefer Prime Strong over regular Prime? I'm starting to run out of regular and was wondering if it's worth stepping up.

 

As usual, stunning job guys. The very last pic is money! You guys continue to set the bar. Thanks for sharing.

 

They both have their places mate, normal Prime Acrylic is great for cleansing paint and laying down the initial base coat of sealant whereas Strong is great for wheels/shuts/glass/oxidization etc - i use both on a regular basis

 

Cheers Ken!

Finally got those waxes the other day - thanks :thumb:

 

great job an pictures came out very nice way to go.

 

VERY nice job! Those last three pics are the nuts.

 

Beautiful work, clark. Love a properly corrected red finish!

355 is Still my favorite Ferrari. And they can be had for as little as 50K now.

 

simply amazing work, Clark! That red is now glowing! I see you use Raceglaze leather balm very often, is it your favorite leather conditioner? I tried it on E70 X5 leather and really liked it.

 

fantastic work!

 

Amazing work Clark and Chris! Any chance you could take a video of those tight areas that you do (i.e. the tight section on the rear bumper of this F355)? We would definitely appreciate it if you can find the time.

 

Impressive as usual, excellent work!

 

Stunning work and stunning machine!

 

fantastic work clark, how did you get those white seats looking so damn white! (or off white)

 

Awesome job Clark, looks mint now!

 

Brilliant work, and thanks for taking the time to do the write up!