Make It Shine: TRASHED Civic SiR - Recovered

[kaval]

Hi everyone! Seems that my post was one of the many that were erased as a result of the unfortunate system crash. Just thought I'd post it up here again...

Here is a car that belongs to a very good friend of mine. We've known each other since the high school days, when this car belonged to his brother. Eventually my friend purchased it off his brother, and knew the paint was in bad shape. This 10+ year old car has around 200,000kms and was subjected to 365 days of driving regardless of weather, for 10 years. Bearing that in mind, the body was not in too bad of shape. During ownership, the car was mainly highway driven so the front end was quite mangled and is now in need of a repaint (particularly the front bumper).

I scheduled this car for 2 days, but a client had to reschedule, so that opened up more time for this car. I'm glad it happened, because I really wanted to get this car as close to perfect as possible, and I believe I was able to achieve that, except for a couple of scratches on the roof, and chips on the hood. A total of about 27 hours was spent on the paint alone, meticulously going over every body panel to ensure that nothing that could be compounded was left behind. Sort of like a seek and destroy mission! LOL







Wash:
The car was in need of a very strong wash, and for this I chose my usual CG CWG prepared with warm water. I find this helps the shampoo to mix quicker, and aids in cleaning the paint. Car was clayed with Riccardo Yellow and ONR clay lube.

Correction:
Having done many Hondas, I knew what would be needed to correct the paint before starting.
- M105, PFW @ 2000rpm.
The following correction pictures are only after M105 on PFW. Most panels were compounded 4-5 times before I was happy and moved on to the next panel.

Passenger Front Fender:



Passenger Door:



Passenger Quarter:






Trunk Lid:
This was by far the worst part of the entire car...








Driver Door:


^This panel was compounded again to remove the scratches below the body line.


Driver Side Fender:



Here is a picture of the amount of dust produced by using M105 on PFW. I've decided to wear masks now while working, and after seeing this, I'm glad I have...


Hood:



Roof:
Here you will see the scratches that I was not able to remove as they were too deep.

[kaval]

Trunk face:
4" PFW pads were used here.



After the entire car was corrected, SIP on a white foam pad @ 1600rpm was used to remove the compounding haze and restore gloss to the paintwork. Following this, the paintwork was polished with FPII on Black LC pads @ 1000rpm to jewel the finish, and remove any fine holograms left from SIP. The following pictures are during FPII. The clarity is exceptional!







After all the polishing was completed, a very thorough wash was carried out to cleanse the paintwork of all the polishing oils and remove dust from all crevices. Any missed parts were touched up the next day (when I detailed the interior).

I know this is a long write up, so I hope the after pictures are worth the wait. The car was finally sealed with Victoria Concours Red. I was so happy to get to this stage, and applying this wax was truly a reward since it smells so good!

Afters:
































Well, that’s it! Thank you for taking the time, and I hope you enjoyed looking!

Kaval

[Polarrt]

That is an outstanding turn around. I enjoy seeing high mileage cars brought back to life. Most people would have simply given up on a daily drivers finish if it looked like that.

[FordFan2009]

Truely amazing work. That civic looks better than it did when it rolled off the showroom floor. Super wet! Greta job!

[Mr.Cool]

Perfection

[kaval]

Originally Posted by Polarrt

That is an outstanding turn around. I enjoy seeing high mileage cars brought back to life. Most people would have simply given up on a daily drivers finish if it looked like that.

Thanks a lot! I definitely feel the same way.

Originally Posted by FordFan2009

Truely amazing work. That civic looks better than it did when it rolled off the showroom floor. Super wet! Greta job!

Thanks a lot!

Originally Posted by Mr.Cool

Perfection

Thanks!

[Migue]

that looks AWESOME man you made a HUGE difference on that car,outstanding work.

[bufferbarry]

Kaval not to sound like an *** here, but what did you correct? haha just kidding man! dude that was a great transformation. i to love to change the daily drivers. nice to see ya posting again. i assume school is out. looks good man keep posting.

[Thats Fresh]

looking good. added some value to the car

[black03mach]

way to bring that civic back to life!

[HLxDrummer]

Looks great man!

I have one question though, did you do anything special when going over the VTEC decal as to not mess it up?

[Scottwax]

Outstanding turnaround!