May Entry - White Porsche 928 - Now Red!

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:08

Bit of a mammoth session yesterday down at an independent Porsche specialist in Wiltshire - 11 hours, 32 foam pads (cleaned after each short pass with QD and an m/f cloth) of which half my collection (about 60) were used.

The car itself is about 14 years old around 1600 kg and 350 ish bhp.

The car was being quoted for a £6K respray and I was asked to fix it up to try and avoid one. I exlained to the garage owner that it would still be far from perfect stonechips scratches, small areas of rust bubbling but if looked after could save the car owner a small fortune and lets face it if it was resprayed in guards red and just left in the sun again the same thing would happen anyway.

Some before pics of car

Process was wipe down each panel with megs last touch and a pakshak waffle weave drying towel - no time or need for niceities here! The paint work was as rough as sand paper! I can quite honestly say the paint had the texture of 120 grit sandpaper

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:09

First up I tried a test patch on this car a few weeks earlier and Klasse AIO didn't shift a thing. The nearside front wing was treated to ssr 2.5 on the pc and then followed up with megs #80, megs #81 and then Nattys Blue for its UV propeties. I used a good 8 oz of #80 on this car the paint was so thirsty!

The above process took an hour on this wing

Next up I decided to polish the offside front wing - this is where we hit some problems! The pc and ssr2.5 was only tickling the paint. Stepping up to menz IP on the rotary and polishing pad made some indents but still laughably poor. It took 6 passes of powergloss on a megs cutting pad at stupid rpm to clear the paint. Interestingly this side of the car was 170-180 microns compared to the other wing which was 120-130 microns. One theory could be a poor blow over job using laquer which had to be *ground through* first - see later.

2.5 hours on this wing alone and well behind schedule

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:11

Thankfully the bonnet was childs play the oxidation almost fell off lol as it did on the doors

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:12

The roof was a tricky customer and I was back on the megs cutting pad and power gloss again slow going.

Time was now about 3pm and I stopped for a late lunch only to find the food van around the corner had gone!!

The bonnet and lights were popped and the wipers removed so I could get to some tricky areas

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:13

And the afters?

I'll start off with the dissapointment. The offside rear quarter could not be brought up to an acceptable std. Powergloss and rotary even wet sanded the panel with 2000 grit and no improvement - no paint transfer either!!!. If this panel was poorly clearcoated in the past then it was a better job than the rest as this area couldn't be shifted. This panel will need repsraying or more than likley blowing in by a quality SMART repair guy I know. Not bad I suppose as I did think we may need a few reprayed areas given the initial condition.

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:15

The rest of the car was guards red though

And some red pads soaking

Brazo · 05-27-06, 02:17

The wheels are being refurbished very soon and plastic trim replaced etc as part of a more indepth restoration of this car along with mecanical items

Thanks for looking!

TnM6i · 05-27-06, 03:11

Simply outstanding transformation! That was a lot of work, but your efforts certainly were not in vain. It's hard to believe that Guards Red was hiding under all that oxidation. Great job!!

kompressornsc · 05-27-06, 03:15

C'mon now, we know you just sprinkled baby powder on it and then washed it off.

Great job- can't believe that was salvagable at all.

Setec Astronomy · 05-27-06, 05:00

Wow! I'm a little confused by the different response from different panels, and also why in the initial pictures, the trim pieces, which are usually worse than the rest of the car, seem to be better in this case. Also, although I'm usually hip to the transatlantic lingo, what is the "blowing in" that your smart repair guy will do?

Brazo · 05-27-06, 05:19

Blowing in means a blow over with a paint gun or light spray

From my paint thicknes readings some panels had been repainted in guards red wheras the one panel that wouldn't come up may have been incorrectly laquered at some stage.

Setec Astronomy · 05-27-06, 05:33

The thing that really puzzles me is how the front bumper area, which must be urethane, as well as the bodyside molding, which should also be soft, were less oxidized than the rest of the car...my experience with those types of parts, either because of the lower thermal conductivity or the plasticizers in the paint. Were those replaced at some point? Anyway, great recovery!