Happy Friday everyone! Today's write up is on a Montego Blue BMW 335i X Drive. This vehicle was scheduled for a full correction, to bring the paint up to it's best possible finish. As with most of my details I started with the wheels. The wheels were cleaned with Wolfs Decon Gel, and the tires and wheel wells were cleaned with Blackfire APC 3:1 and various brushes. The wheels were then sealed with BFWD, the tires were dressed with BF Tire Gel, and the wells were dressed with CG Barebones Wheels Before: Wolfs Decon Gel doing it's thing! Wheels After: After the wheels were taken care of, I started with the wash. As usual I foamed the vehicle with a mixture of Meguiars Gold Class wash and Blackfire APC to try to remove as much loose dirt and debris as possible before the traditional wash. While the foam was left to dwell I used a RG brush to agitate all the emblems, trim, body seems, and the fuel filler area. Here is how the paint looked before the wash. It was fairly dirty, and covered in a pretty thick layer of dust and pollen. After the foaming the vehicle was washed with Blackfire Shampoo and a Griots MF Wash pad. To make sure the paint was totally free of bonded contaminants it was sprayed down with Wolfs Decon Gel and then clayed with the Ultima Clay block. Finally it was dried with the masterblaster and a couple WW towels. Next I moved to the engine bay. The bay itself wasn't in bad shape, but the underside of the hood and the cowl needed some attention. The underside of the hood was cleaned with BF APC and then buffed with Werkstatt Prime Strong on a Tangerine pad on a PCXP. This cleaned up the paint a lot and left a bit of protection. Underhood Before: Underhood After: Then the cowl and engine bay were cleaned with BF APC an various brushes, then blown dry and dressed with Sonus Motor and Trim Kote. Cowl Before: Cowl and Engine After: Next I spent a lot of time getting the paint as close to perfect as possible. Since there is so much flake in this paint, it was hard to see the swirls to begin with, but they were definitely there. Here are a few pictures of the swirls. They are hard to see. The swirls on the gloss black trim were a lot easier to see. A two step correction approach was used to correct these swirls. The heavy cutting was done with D300 on an OPT MF cutting pad on a PCXP, and the finishing was done with Menzerna 106fa on a green BS pad, also on the PCXP. Here is the best shot I could get of a 50/50. It's almost impossible to see, but the left side is untouched, and the right side is corrected. Here are some more sun shots after the correction. Notice how the flake just pops in the sun. This color can look so different depending on what light you see it in. The LSP of choice today was Raceglaze 42. It was a breeze to use, gave great gloss, and made the flakes really pop. Here is how it beads. Here are a few random reflection pictures, followed by the final completed pictures of the vehicle. This vehicle was a lot of fun to work on. The color is so unique since it can look anywhere from dark blue, to bright pearl blue depending on how you look at it. Even in some of the pictures you can see how different parts of the vehicle look different colors due to the flowing curves and awesome body lines. Thanks for taking the time to look, and I look forward to your feedback! And here is one final pic just for fun. Obviously it's been edited, but I was just playing around with it. Enjoy!
Nice work! I really like that color a lot! Seems like it hides the swirls rather well??? You did a great job of capturing the defects! rops:
Thanks man! Thanks Jim! It does hide light swirls very well, but you can still see the heavy stuff if it's there. ThanksFranki! Thank you Brian! Thanks buddy!
You really really get your cars wet and glossy! Looks like you made D300 work for you! Extremely nice!
