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Marc was kind enough to give me the opportunity to detail his car in preperation for the NBO. The general idea was to do as much on the car as possible in one day, this ruled out any major paint correction as there just wasn't the time to do it.
I met Marc at the unit at about 8am, the car looks pretty clean on the pics but it was a fair bit dirtier than it looked.
First job was to clean inside all the door shuts including the engine compartment, boot and petrol filler flap. For this I used Megs All Purpose Cleaner with a variety of mitts and brushes to get in all the nooks and crannies.
Next job was to scrub the tyres and arches with Megs Super Degreaser.
Once these had been rinsed off it was time for some foam. I used my usual combination of Autobrite Super Snow Foam mixed up with a little Megs Hyperwash in the Autobrite lance.
The foam was left to dwell while I set about the wheels. As the paint was starting to flake off the wheels in places I decided to use Menzerna wheel gel as it is very gentle, unfortunately this didn't touch the heavily baked on brake dust so I decided to try a weak mixture of Megs Wheel Brightener with a variety of brushes including the excellent EZ Detail brush pictured below. This was far more effective only leaving some really stubborn dust on the front wheels which we decided to leave as Marc and I didn't want to risk any more damage to the unlaquered wheels. At this point the calipers were cleaned in the same way.
Once the whole car had been rinsed off It was time to start on the engine. Various electrics were covered before the engine bay was sprayed with Megs Degreaser. This was agitated with various sizes and shapes of brush before carefully being rinsed off.
Once the engine had been dried with a waffle weave towel I washed the car using the two bucket method complete with lambswool mits and grit guards.
I then treated the lower panels of the car with Auto Smart Tardis. The tar spots were very stubborn and they took a lot of work with a Tardis soaked microfibre cloth to remove.
After I had removed most of the tar I then clayed all the exterior glass and paintwork with fine polyclay using 3D Final Detail quick detailer as a lubricant. The car felt pretty rough prior to this but after about an hours claying the paintwork felt like glass.
The car was foamed , washed and rinsed once more before being dried with a Chemical Guys Miracle Dryer (these are excellent)
At this point I decided to tackle the interior. As time was rapidly passing I got my partner Amanda to give me a hand. Firstly we cleaned Marcs rare Prodrive mats. They were vacuumed ,sprayed with All Purpose Cleaner , gently scrubbed with a Megs upholstery brush then vacummed again.
Before
After
The vinyl was pretty dirty
This was cleaned with a damp sponge and Megs All Purpose Cleaner and then dressed with Poorboys Natural Look Dressing
The windows were cleaned inside and out with Chemical Guys Streak Free Window Cleaner and the whole interior was vacummed before the mats were put back in.
At this point it had been my intention to clean the paintwork with a pre wax cleanser and give the car a couple of coats of wax but once the car was in the unit under the halogens the paint was looking a little pinky. Although time was now at a premium I decided the car would benefit from a light machine polish with the rotary. After this point I took very few pictures as I really was now up against the clock as I had to have the car finished before 6pm.
I took paint depth readings from all the metal panels and recorded the figures to show Marc later, this stage wasn't strictly neccessary as I was using an extremely light finishing polish (Menzerna PO85rd) on a 3m finishing pad but just to be on the safe side and not wanting to get into bad habits I took some readings. I taped the car up to stop polish getting on the trims and then gave the whole car a light machine polish.
This had the desired effect of restoring the depth to the red paintwork and after dusting the car off and applying a pre wax cleanser I added two coats of XXX paste wax to the car .
Next job was to polish the alloy tanks and dress the rest of the engine bay with 303 Aerospace Protectant.
The tyres were dressed with Blackfire Long Life Tyre Gel and the wheel arch liners were dressed with Megs All Season Dressing.
Marc was soon due to arrive and there was just time to take a few shots of the finished job.
The car then went on to take 2nd place at the NBO in the Best Modified Classic section just being pipped to the post by Scooby Phils stunning Mica Blue Classic.
I would like to think that I maybe played a very small part in helping Marc to achieve this.
Hope some of you have found this of interest.
Thanks for taking the time to look.
