Well this detail was a pure joy. Not very often I get to detail an almost all original 57 Speedster....it has some updated engine work plus some tranny work which upgraded gears.
It's a signle stage Guards Red which was repainted about 20 years ago. The repaint is OK but alot of sanding marks still visible. A complete strip down would of been ideal and then wetsanding but the owner just wanted it to be made as perfect as possible without going to that extreme.
Ron and I spent around 10 hours on this car but it was enjoyable as the garage was clean, it had central heating, gracious hosts and it was filled with several other classic cars!!
As I began the No-Rinse on the exterior Ron fired up his steamer and began the interior cleaning. Ron did a fantastic job on the interior, lots of chrome and metal to polish plus a painted dash board....don't see many of those
Ron using his steamer, metal polish, steel wool and some brushes for the interior chores.
We went through alot of towels on this detail mainly because of all the aluminum both inside and outside of the car. Here is a before picture of the aluminum runningboard strip.
After some English metal polish
After all of Rons hard work he had this to show for it
Ron used a cyclo pad attached to a drill and OCP to polish the metal dash. Chrome polish was used on all the instrument rings and levers.....alot of detail work.
The exterior was oxidized but not as bad as I had expected. The exterior chrome and wheels were in bad shape but with some love and elbow grease they came out gleaming.
My process for the exterior:
Optimum No-Rinse
Optimum Hyper, Metabo and orange pad
Optimum Compound, Metabo/Dewalt green pad
Optimum Polish, Metabo, blue pad
Optimum Polish, Metabo, white pad
Optimum Polish, Cyclo, new Precision white pads
I sealed the paint with Optimum beta Sealant
Here are a few before/after pictures (sorry no outside pics, the sun was set when we finished but we'll be going back next week and hopefully we can get some outside pics)
Linear Mode
