1968 Pontiac Firebird, Full Wet Sand and Buff.
This fine example of classic muscle actually belongs to one of my dealer accounts from back in the day when I worked for a high volume shop. The owner had purchased the vehicle as a personal collector/project car, and like most restorations, it has been a long tedious process over several years and it apparently lost some steam along the way. For those of you who?ve restored a car of this magnitude before you more than likely know exactly what I?m talking about.
In fact, this car had actually been painted about ten years ago and was then tucked away for what turned out to be a very long hibernation. As she awoke from her long slumber this spring she was treated to a new convertible top, exhaust, tune, and finally an extreme make over by yours truly.
Prior to delivery I was under the impression that the car had not been cut and buffed yet, but it was blatantly obvious upon seeing the car that it had already been done by the painter. Unfortunately, that was also the era where the ?rocks in the bottle? 3M compound was widely used by body shops which left very deep marring throughout the finish. While the finish was pretty smooth as far as orange peel, the paint had shrunk down considerably over the last 10 years which required some additional leveling.
The car actually arrived with 99% of the trim and chrome off the car, which is definitely a plus when you?re wet sanding. Here is how she looked upon arrival.
As you can see the painter was nice enough to leave me some 10 year old compound (concrete) left behind in cracks and throughout the vehicle.
Compound splatter on the wheels
?Like removes like?, a good friend once told me. M105 on a MF towel worked great for removing the left over compound in the jambs.
Having had plenty of prior notice on this car I had decided to order up some Mirka sanding disks that I?d been wanting to try for some time now. Normally 3M is my go to abrasive for sanding but several people I look up to had spoken highly of the Mirka abrasives and this car made for a great test subject. Below you can see the 1500 grit Mirka Royal Micro disks, and the 2000/4000 grit Mirka Abralon disks. However, since the car had already been leveled a good amount the 1500 disk were not used/required.
After a thorough wash with Chemical Guys Citrus wash n? Clear mixed at a paint prep ratio, I pulled out my halogen and dual xenon lights to better inspect the finish. As you can see from the pics, the painter had left a LOT of deep marring and holograms in the paint.
A few RIDS and chips had been inflicted over the years. Most the scratches were fully removed and chips were touched up.
Marring shown with the Brinkmann Dual Xenon light
There was also undercoating over spray on several areas of the car which was removed with Tarminator
I zoomed in on the hood and took a pic to better show the amount of shrink which had occurred over the last ten years. As you can see this resulted in a dull distorted looking refection?.wait until you see the after pic of this one!
