HUGE 3500HD Duramax get the Adam's Treatment

DAY 1:
A good friend and I have been trying to work out a day to get his truck by my place for a full treatment, but weather has been wreaking havoc on scheduling.
As you'll see in the pictures, this isn't exactly the kind of truck you pull into the garage to work on...

unless your garage is an airplane hanger!! :crasy:

Anyways, as K&N Filters wants to shoot the truck for some promo material we were running out of time. So rather than fight the heat we decided to break it up into a 2 day ordeal... Saturday was day one.
My best friend Anthony came over to assist and thankfully so.

Got underway around 5pm, the subject a custom bulletproof suspension equipped Chevy Duramax 3500HD LTZ:



The interior was in excellent shape so I decided not to shoot any pics, a quick scrub down with Leather & Interior Cleaner and an Interior Brush broke up what little dirt there was on the light tan interior, all surfaces were treated to a dose of Leather & Interior Conditioner including the door seals. A quick vacuum with the Metrovac and the inside looked factory fresh.

Carpets were spot cleaned with Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner and a carpet brush. HD rubber mats were pulled and hand scrubbed with a 50/50 APC mixture.

Exterior started with the wheels and tires... not only the dirtiest part of the truck, but they rival the paint for sheer surface area, due to the size of the job the pressure washer was going to be a necessity:

The wheels, tires, and fenders were blasted out with a wide fan angle spray at 1800psi to break up all the junk... a 50/50 mixture of APC and the fender brush tackled the tires while the Boars Hair Brush and Green Wheel Cleaner made short work of the wheels.




Next came my time to shine... being the 'tall guy' I was nominated to handle the pre-rinse. The truck was overall in excellent shape, but there were some obvious areas of neglect simply by virtue of the fact you can't reach the center of the hood without something to stand on. Continued with the pressure washer as it made soaking the outside and reaching everywhere easier. Also got under the truck and blasted the underside completely.





After pre-rinse we moved onto foaming... no... there are no shots of the new foam gun... just its capabilities. This was generated using 3oz of Adams Car Wash Shampoo to 29oz of water.




After washing we broke for dinner then returned outside to clay bar using detail spray as lube, under the warm glow of the halogen lights.




After claying we did a secondary wash and quick dry in the dark. We discussed the plan of attack for day 2 over a couple of beers then called it a night. We were to resume work at 6am the next day to try and avoid the mid day heat.

to be continued...

 

Day 2 - the saga continues

Got a little bit of a late start... 6am comes a tad early when you're up late the night before. I had to give myself a stern talking to about the importance of punctuality.



I then documented all the areas we were really trying to focus on, the suspension was one area that was a big eye sore, as were the scrape marks on the bedsides from where the previous owner had obviously had a drop in bedliner.







The paint had not gotten overly dusty overnight so we opted to skip the rewash and instead did a complete wipe down with waterless wash and a couple of drying towels.

I started out with the PC and 4" focus pad setup to attack the areas that would need more specific attention. I worked my way around the truck buffing out the deeper scuff marks and imperfections.







Look, no more bedliner scuffs!!



Anthony concentrated his efforts on polishing the wheels, suspension, and dressing the undercarriage. One good thing about detailing a truck this big is the fact that its rather easy to work on the underside. Metal polish was used to restore the suspension, then topped off with Brilliant Spray Glaze. The fender lining as well as all the exposed frame areas and black suspension parts were treated with Invisible Undercarriage Spray.







Once the rolling stock was complete the trim was dressed, including Super VRT on any plastic or rubber and In & Out Spray to get the cowl and other hard to reach areas. Next we got set to divide and conquer! Splitting the truck down the middle, we each grabbed a bottle of Swirl & Haze Remover, Fine Machine Polish, an assortment of pads, and went to town. For the mostpart the truck was in good shape and needed minimum coaxing to get back to near perfect.



After polishing was complete the truck was given a wipe down with distilled ice water, one panel at a time. The temp had risen and I was worried that Americana would have a difficult time curing. I worked methodically, cooling the panel first, wiping dry with a fresh waterless wash towel, then applying a thin coat of Americana. I proceeded this way around the entire truck - cool, apply, remove. Once the whole truck was treated I made a second pass again starting with an ice water treatment to keep the panel cool and manageable.






While moving the truck back in the driveway earlier I had spotted some light scuffs and haze no the faux wood dash paneling. I taped off the edge nearest the navi screen where the scrapes were closest too and buffed out using the flip pad and Revive Polish. I ended up polishing out the rest of the faux wood panels and treating them to a coat of Americana.





While I focused my attention on the interior Anthony was hard at work buffing out the remaining suspension parts, doing a hand application of Machine Superwax to the wheels, then finishing everything off with a coat of Brilliant Spray Glaze.







Even managed to buff out the trailer hitch



Windows were cleaned up with Glass Cleaner and a Glass towel, final inspection, then we cleaned up, and took some pics of this badboy:





Not easy getting a reflection in this color, but we managed















First of the post delivery rolling shots I took... gonna retouch these for the owner, I'll post them when they're done, this one just didn't really need anything tweaked.

 

oops, dbl post.

 

that is one hell of a truck. didn't even think that stuff like that was of interest to a lot of people. Here in hawaii all you see on the road are huge lifted trucks.

Your buddies truck looks damn good though. Love the color and i'm definitely digging the tinted tail lights. Look forward to the rest of the write up.

 

Massive credit! Nice work

 

Thanks guys... it was easily one of the bigger trucks I've ever taken on. One of the more satisfying details in recent memory though, it was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. I'm most impressed with the way the suspension came up... it was bad when we started.

Before:


After:

 

Wow that thing is a beast. Truck came out good guys. Makes me really want to try out some adam's products.

Buddy of mine just did some work for you folks . . . . . Kerwin and it was the Orange GTi down at the Adam's headquarters.

 

LOL... no way... I saw his write up with the orange GTi, aloha detailing right? Haven't met him, but Adam says hes a really good guy.

 

yeah, real down to earth. He use to live out here in Hawaii then moved to the mainland. He stays real busy up in Colorado but man the winter has got to be brutal. He's been doing that GTi for a couple years now as i remember seeing the writeup he did on it when he did some polishing to get rid of some swirls etc . . . .


He got some Adam's products to try out that lucky sucka LoL.

 

My goodness, what a beast!
Kudo's to you guys for excellent work on something this challenging.

 

That is a beast.

 

Some very fine work there! Having a truck like that definitely looks the part, but I would not look forward to cleaning/waxing/polishing something like that. Hats off to you!

 

Not to say that it isn't fun but man it sure is rough. I had a lifted 2006 Tacoma and just washing that thing took hours not including anything such as wax, polishing or interior work. Did i mention it was black with 20x12 in polished aluminum rims and 33x13.50 tires. LoL

 

Trust me... if the owner were not a good friend I would've happily turned this one down... that is a LOT of paint in very uncomfortable positions to polish. I spent a good part of the day with the PC over my head LOL.

 

Nice work. what a beast of a truck

 

mother of god! what a huge beast:yikes:

nice work dude:thumb:

 

I have my 3/4 ton and the stock tires are only 32"s but there is enough room to allow for 35"s if you wish for a crap ride.

At times, I really just don't feel like washing it because it takes so much time... Looking forwarding to owning a car in the near future.

 

Great job on such a huge vehicle!

 

beautiful truck...great job

on a side note ...what brand of pressure washer is that and are you happy with it? im in the market for a good under 400 electric one

and two what type of watch is that i saw some one with one and have been trying to track the make and model down

 

great job guys ... turned out great. I bet you couldn't lift your arms for a couple of days ... that thing is a monster!!