It was time to put more of my new found knowledge to work. My latest victim was an aforementioned Camry. This vehicle is my other half's mother's daily driver. What better of a way to show Thanks, and gain some good real world experience. As a newbie I had no idea how it would turn out, but I had high hopes, and LOTS to learn in the process. Challenges at hand: - the entire hood had rock chips all over the place, three sizable ones that were clearly rusting - the vehicle has never been polished since birth - the vehicle originally spent it's life up north, in the salt and sand - did I know what I had gotten myself into? Wash - Gilmour foam gun with DP Extreme Foam - Schmitt wash mit/sponge - 1 Bucket Method. I knew I'd be polishing anyway :shrug: But I did have a Grit Guard - SwissVax brush in the hard to reach places, emblems - Meguiar's slide-lock brush on the hub caps - P21S TAW in a spray bottle (as needed) - waffle weave towels to dry Clay - skipped it. Paint felt pretty good surprisingly, and I was sure Menzerna PowerGloss and LC PFW would take of it if the Menzerna PO203s and an Uber Green wouldn't. Correction (a.k.a. magic) - Makita 9227 - Lake Country Purple Foam Wool pads (6.5" & 3.5" variety) - Lake Country Orange CCS pads (5.5" & 4" variety) - Lake Country Blue CCS pad (tried it on the trunk lid with Menzerna PO106, and didn't see any noticebable improvement in gloss and clarity than finishing/finessing PO203s & Uber Green pad. I didn't take my 87 or 85RD as I thought that the 106 would be similar in performance, just with more initial cut) - Uber Green foam (5.5" & 4" variety) - most of the car was gone over using the Uber Green & PO203s combo. Areas that needed more attention were either further enhanced if not corrected by another repeat of the aforementioned process OR tackled by 1-2 passes of PowerGloss with the PFW or Orange CCS. Working the PO203s with the Uber Green pad yielded a very nice finish. - entire vehicle sprayed with IPA (70% concentration, non-diluted) and wiped to ensure remaining polish/compound residue was removed and surface clean for LSP - Grit Guard's Universal Pad Washer. I love this thing and it makes life a lot easier and cleaner. I washed the pads through the washer after every other or 2nd pass. * hood, roof and trunk lid were all compounded via PFW and PowerGloss as there were many RIDS that needed the extra love only this combo could give them. * front and rear bumpers were corrected with an orange CCS pad and PO203s, th eUber Green just was enough for these * all lights were 1st compounded with the PFW & PowerGloss combo, then finished to perfection with the Uber Green and PO203s. The transformation of the rear tail lamps was AMAZING to say the least. LSP - Chemical Guy's M-Seal via UDM and a Lake Country Red CCS pad. Nice thin even coverage with overlapping passes. Wiped off with an Uber "No Name" MF towel - sprized the vehicle with Optimum Instant Detailer & Gloss Enhancer to ensure all of the M-Seal was completely removed. The slickness the ID added was a nice touch. - tires received a coat of Optimum's Opti-Bond dressing, @ maximum strength applied with a Cobra tire applicator foam LSP They are not the best as I was pressed for time, but a little taste of what I was working with and what I was able to accomplish. I started on the project just before noon time on Saturday, ended just after the sun went down and wasn't able to start back up until after 3 Sunday, due to a migraine the early part of the day, but I pulled through and finished it off. Ended up taking me about 20 hours total. I tackled the big rust spots with a touch-up brush. Feel free to critique :campfire: My photography skills are not the best, but I'm learning :graduation:
Great Write-Up :applause: You bought that thing back from the dead, couldn't even see any flake till you got ahold of it
The mom couldn't believe that the color was back and stated how it looks when the first bought it. Mission Accomplished :thumb: All I kept hearing any time she came to check on the progress was... "Ohh my gosh" in a Polish accent. :applause2:
Great job bringing the Camry back from the dead. It seriously looked like a solid red paint and once you were done with it, it looked like it was suppose to with the flake coming out!
Way to go man. Looks like all the countless hours on this forum finally paid out for you too. Car looks great.
Good for you! The before/after combo of you with the camera is great: it really shows how you cleaned up the paint. Plus the metallic got to show its face after how many years of hiding...again, nice job. Any shots of the chips and the fill-ins?
I didn't get a chance to take a close up of the fill-ins. There were quite big for the rusted ones, and the hood really needs to be re-painted, but it should hold off for now.
Thanks for all the complements guys! Everyone that contributed to the board with their techniques and write-ups have been a huge help in guiding me the right way to accomplish a task like this! :mounty:
such a nice color paint! my friends mustang gt is almost the same color. great job on polishing :thumb: it gave it back that depth
