Low Mileage `80 Vette, Exterior Paint correction: Rasky`s Auto Detailing

[RaskyR1]

1980 Corvette L82, 16,XXX miles, exterior paint correction

I was contacted by the owner this spring to detail this low mileage beauty and it was scheduled for my Premium exterior service (2-step correction). Upon inspection the paint appeared to be in good condition with moderate swirls and a few RIDS and the 2-step was able to achieve at least 95% correction. While the car has very low miles on it, it had been repainted at some point in its life…overall a very nice car though and the interior was mint…of course I forgot to take a pic.


Process:

Wash - ONR
Tires – Cleaned with Optimum Power Clean and dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing
Wheels - Sonax Full Effect, light polish with Optimum Metal Polish
Paint correction - M105 with a Surbuf pad on the GG6 followed by M205 with a crimson LC pad on the GG6. Bumper covers were done with Sonax Paint Cleaner and a 4” tangerine LC pad…(more about that below).
Glass - Meguiars D120
LSP – Blackfire Wet-Diamond



Before pics






Putting my new brushes to use







Swirls were a little hard to capture…


















Lots of areas that had TOGW!









My initial test spot was with D300/MF, which worked well on the light swirls, but the paint was hard and a more aggressive method was needed for the deeper stuff, M105/Surbuf worked better and even finished down very well!
Single Stage paint…being a repaint I was expecting BC/CC.



The 50/50 shots were with D300/MF







This one was with M105/Surbuf…not the best shot as it was the top of the fender but you should be able to see it.


All sharp edges were taped up…Corvettes are notorious for sharp edges, and burning through them is very easy to do. There were actually several areas where the edges were already burned on this car (which were documented prior to correction) so I wanted to be sure I didn’t make things any worse. 3M fineline tape works great for these areas!


You can actually see the sharp raised edge here



Gas doors have very sharp edges too!



There are always going to be those cars or paints that come along which really pose a challenge or require some thinking to correct…well, this was definitely one of them! As I worked my way around the car M105/Surbuf was working amazingly well, right up to where I started on the rear bumper! The second I started hitting the bumpers, everything I tried dried up right away and it dulled the paint big time! See pic below



After trying about 6 different polishes (M105, D300, M205, M83, M80, and even M07), various pads, rotary, DA and hand, I began to be concerned. I gave my good buddy Kevin Brown (aka – Buff Daddy) a call to discuss some possibilities to the problem. Kevin suggested a few options and it was finally decided to try a few other polishes, possibly some which were water based. In the mean time I figured I’d get the rest of the car done first and worry about the bumpers last as I was pressed for time. While I was working my fellow detailing buddy Justin stopped by looking for some product samples. I showed him the issue I was having and he volunteered to help try some things out while I continued working on the rest of the car. He immediately asked if I had any Sonax Paint Cleaner on hand, having read Todd Cooperiders review on it recently, he thought that would be a good place to start. Of course I had some and he went to town applying it by hand first. Almost immediately we saw signs of improvement! Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one! Here is Justin helping me out… thanks for the free labor Justin!

[RaskyR1]

Now for some after pics!













































Thanks for looking!

Rasky

[TroyScherer]

Great Job Rasky!!! Love the old Vette`s!!!

[mrclean81]

Nice job. Ive said it a million times on this site, but Im a sucker for Vettes. Im also a sucker for SS bikes, and kinda zoned out after the pic of the garage Is that an R1?

[RaskyR1]

Great Job Rasky!!! Love the old Vette`s!!!

Thanks Troy!

Nice job. Ive said it a million times on this site, but Im a sucker for Vettes. Im also a sucker for SS bikes, and kinda zoned out after the pic of the garage Is that an R1?

As am I!

Thanks! It`s a 2001 R6, Custom Kawasaki Mean Streak, and a newer HD.

[mrclean81]

Thanks Troy!




As am I!

Thanks! It`s a 2001 R6, Custom Kawasaki Mean Streak, and a newer HD.

Nice!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Rayner]

Nice work... specially on those bumpers.... what could have caused the initial reaction to the polishes you tried on the bumpers?

[Flannigan]

I can`t say I`m a fan of that body style, or the color, but I can say that you did an awesome job brining that car back to looking brand new! Great work, and attention to detail Rasky!

[Reality33]

Very nice job Chad. You brought a color that I would really not give a second look to stand out and deserve its place in the sun.

[Concours.John]

Looks great! Nice color. That`s one of the few post chrome bumper vette bodies I like.

[RaskyR1]

Nice work... specially on those bumpers.... what could have caused the initial reaction to the polishes you tried on the bumpers?

Thanks Rayner! I posted the question to Ron Ketcham over on another forum and he had this to say...

When refinishing is done of these parts, the painter has to add the flex agent to the paint.
The flex agent, depending on the supplier of the paint, usually requires a different solvent for reducing, often painter assume they are smarter than the one who made the paint, and cheap, so they use their normal solvent, IE, the "cloudiness".
As far as the added flex agent, he added too much so the paint ends up being very soft and porus.
As I said on another post, "hard to polish a sponge".
Grumpy

I can`t say I`m a fan of that body style, or the color, but I can say that you did an awesome job brining that car back to looking brand new! Great work, and attention to detail Rasky!

Thanks Dave!

Very nice job Chad. You brought a color that I would really not give a second look to stand out and deserve its place in the sun.

Thanks Thomas!

Looks great! Nice color. That`s one of the few post chrome bumper vette bodies I like.

Thanks John!

I agree on the body style....too bad they were so under powered.

[Pats300zx]

Awesome Chad !!! Great job !!!

[glfahlc]

i see the cloudiness on the rear bumper. was the front cloudy also? aren`t they both urethane. and what exacdtly did the paint cleaner do that couldn`t have been done with say final inspection or a 70/30 ipa. nice work by the way.

[Old Pirate]

Hey! whats my L-82 doing there? I had the same car and color too back in 1980! I doing miss it alot. Yes they were SS back then and a pain to keep those bumpers looking great. Thanks Chad for the memories!


P.S Looks great!

[Luster]

Sweet Vette... Nice work Rasky!

I think that color is called "Claret"....