Prep your own - stig's DIB detail

[Enoch]

Great job mate......... Keep up the good work:cheers:

Sponsored

 

[stiggy]

This is the result - a nice, flat and glassy finish. Bear in mind this is just compounding - there's no seal or wax applied yet. People often get this confused. You polish (or rather, correct) a car to get the shine, then you use sealants/waxes etc. to protect that shine.

 

[stiggy]

Roof done, I continued with the largest 'flat' area of the car - the bonnet. There were some minor scratches near the 'creases'. I expect these were caused by the protective cover flapping about.

Anyway, more compounding and polishing to correct - you get th idea ;)

 

[stiggy]

Last of the flat bits to do - and another scratch to sort. This time on the rear deck.

 

[stiggy]

Now onto the sides. More of the same - so no great story. Just some after shots to show the depth of shine/reflection.

 

[stiggy]

The sides done, I then sorted all the fiddly bits at the front and rear. The gorgeous shark mouth is great to look at - but my word, it's a pain to polish!

 

[stiggy]

With all the paintwork corrected (about 5 hours). It was time to apply the ceramic seal. For this, I'm using Gtechniq C1, which will be oversealed with C2V3 liquid crystal.

As this process is time and labour sensitive, there are no pics. Basically the car is completely wiped down with Gtechniq panel wipe to remove any traces of polish. The paint is then completely 'naked' allowing the C1 to chemically bond to it.

Basically you apply the C1 (sparingly) and then remove any residue with a microfibre. The critical thing is to remove all the residue as once it's cured, it can only be removed by compounding and I'm blowed if I want to do that again! :doh:

Not only did I do the body panels, but all the shuts, boot and bonnet.

So, kiss goodby to another 3 hours... :eyebulge:

 

[stiggy]

Now that the paintwork was all corrected and sealed, I took the car out (as it was a nice day) to help the curing process. I also wanted to remove the wheels so they could be properly cleaned, polished and sealed. Knowing that they were covered in underseal overspray - I wasn't looking forward to it :(

So - first some beauty pics of the paintwork with unprepped wheels!

 

[stiggy]

Car seems to be running a little high. Must do something about the gaps under the arches ;)

 

[stiggy]

So onto the wheels. Whilst I knew there was overspray from the undersealing process, I hadn't expected quite the extent of the bodge job!

Basically they obviously don't mask the wheels at all, they just spray the underseal (likely a bitumen based product) everywhere :(

Had I the option, I would have asked for it to be supplied unsealed!

Anyway, onto the process of cleaning. Each wheel was removed and treated with Korrosol to remove iron and brake dust contamination.

 

[stiggy]

The oversrpay itself was both inside and outside the wheel. Ranging from fine speckles to full on spray! :doh: addle:

 

[RSPcooper]

Mate that looks fantastic had mine done with C2 and EXO sheeting is brilliant. Last couple of washes with light road dirt have only needed snowfoam pressure wash and deionised water filter rinse no need to touch the car brill.

 

[stiggy]

So onto the cleaning process. Clay bar worked on the outer faces, but the inner wheels were far more dramatically coated. A combo of claying, Tardis (a tar and petroleum based product remover) and a shed load of elbow grease finally go the wheels back to something approaching clean.

Totally unnecessary work caused by Ford not taking 5 mins to mask the wheels in Zeebrugge addle:

 

[stiggy]

Once clean, the wheels were coated in a high temperature wax. I would have used C1, but I'd emptied the bottle doing the bodywork!

Was running out of time/light so drafted in my personal army of elves to help ;)

 

[stiggy]

To give you an idea of the mess they make with the underseal (well documented here already).

It also explains why the car smells when first driven as the underseal burns off on the exhaust.

Sponsored