91 hr extreme detail by Immaculate Reflections - extremely pic heavy 280+ beware

[imported_theamcguy]

I just got a quick question here, I know that industrial fallout can damage the paint because it is basically metal particals, therefore removal is a must. But I was wondering, what if you live near, or work by a paint shop?? Where I work, there is a paint booth for painting the robots and it vents outside through flters. I have noticed that there are white specks of paint on my truck. My question is what damage does this cause? Is it just paint sticking to paint, or is it doing some serious hurting, besides to my heart? the only reason I'm asking is because winter is around the corner and I can't really clay in sub zero temps around here.



I have also noticed that when I get right up close to my paint (about an inch) I can see thje black paint, but I also see some brown. i.e. a brown dot with 4 black ones around it, and so on. It's not conamination, its just there. nothing will take it away. Is it just part of the paint? thanks!



P.S. After I clayed on the weekend, I added another 2 coats of S.G. Let it stand an hour, remove, wait 24hrs. repeat. AMAZING! blitz this weekend I hope!

 

[Ron Ketcham]

Paint overspray from autobody shops will look round and stand up from the surface, may have a shine to it.



All enamels, house and others will be a little less perfectly round.



The same for most expoxy paints.



Latex is very irregular and some will have voids in them.



The ferrous oxides are very different as you will notice when you get the magnifier adjusted and look at lot of different vehicles and conditions.



I think you will also find that in the winter, the overspray is not going to attach as readily as in the warmer months.



Chemical reason for this, has to do with the solvents, the "openess" of the warm clear, etc.

 

[imported_theamcguy]

Thanks Ron! You are right about it being worse in the summer than in the winter! I have noticed that. Do you think that the paint on my paint (sounds kinnda funny) will cause damage? Also what about those brown spots I mentiond? Peace!

 

[Ron Ketcham]

You must be parking during the day in an industrial area, since they are building robotics.



By the way, try to find out what the paint is they are using. Could be important, but then maybe not.



Since, as I said, it is an industrial complex, you may very well have ferrous oxide particles. Quite common, since they are cutting, shaping, grinding metal to make the product.



The magnifier will tell you in short order.



The paint that gets on, if it is not a 2 part expoxy with a clorinated solvent system, should not really damage, but wouldn't let it stay on overly long.

 

[ISLANDSBEST]

I have a simple suggestion: head off the problem at the pass -- get a car cover.

 

[imported_theamcguy]

thanks for the replies. If I lived in the area darbh, I would get a cover. I just work in the area. I'm not that bad as to cover my truck every time I go into work. Peace out!

 

[ISLANDSBEST]

Ahh, I understand.



Darbh

Car covering fanatic

 

[GoFast908Z]

This is an extremely long writeup with a LOT of pics. Just a warning for those with slower connections. This is the most intense detail I've ever done.

I wanted a seriously challenging detail earlier this year, and I set about looking a for a car and owner who wanted to bring their car back from the brink of death. I looked at many cars, but settled on this 98 Trans Am that lived a VERY hard life. Before the current owner bought it, it sat in a field for 2-3 years with no engine or transmission in the Chico area where it's super hot. Also has been in Oklahoma and Reno, so all dry, hot and dusty places. Rodents lived in the engine bay and would climb in through the missing fender vents. Plus when it was sitting nobody really kept the car up, just was on the back burner for the owners. Current owner bought it for next to nothing as a roller and began to rebuild it.

He brought it to me with a new engine/trans/wheels along with realigning some of the gaps that were pretty bad. The doors were scraping the back and bottom edges, and drivers door cracked the paint where it met the driver fender and the clear was chipping away. Every single panel on the car had been repainted at different times and different quality (all poorly done), except the roof and spoiler. There were fisheyes everywhere, overlapping clearcoats, and runs too. The paint was so bad, decided to do a full wetsand on it, which was all done by hand. I learned a lot more about wetsanding durning the process and improved my skills at it as well. I've done some before but never this many hours.

This car is NOT perfect. There are many paint defects, chips, cracked clear etc. However, it is a shocking transformation for what it came from.


Total time invested: 91 hours



Process:

Exterior
-Foamed with Dawn
-Rinsed and Dawn wash x2
-Megs APC 4:1 on wheels/tires
-Swissvax Wheel brush
-Clayed with Z18 and Megs LT as lube
-Tires with Zaino Z16
-Glass Zaino Z12 with PC and LC orange


Wetsanding
-Meguiars Unigrit 1500
-Meguiars Unigrit 2000
-Meguiars Unigrit 2500
-Meguiars medium sanding block


Interior
-Vacuumed
-303 Carpet Cleaner
-Scrubbed with various brushes
-Leather with Megs APC 5:1
-Lexol Leather Conditioner
-Stoner's Invisible Glass on windows
-vents and console cleaned with various brushes/qtips
-Interior panels cleaned with Megs APC 5:1



Correction
-Menzerna Power Gloss on Meguiars W4 wool
-Meguiars 105 on Meguiars yellow SOLO wool
-Menzerna SIP on LC yellow
-Menzerna SIP on LC orange
-Menzerna 106FA on LC white
-Menzerna PO85RD on LC red



LSP
-Swissvax Cleaner Fluid
-Swissvax Concorso by hand





When current owner picked it up

Condition of the car when it arrived to me

Graphic images of swirls....

This is where the rodents would climb in and out of the engine bay. This actually cleaned up very well.

 

[GoFast908Z]

Some pics showing the overspray covering the back half of the car

more overspray

Glass polishing

Taillight restoration

After wetsanding

After polishing

Compare that reflection to the other side shown here....

Untouched

Finished

You can see the extreme overspray here

After doing a quick test section from claying and Menz SIP LC orange to get a feel for the paint

Side molding removal and debadging process

 

[GoFast908Z]

You can see the overlapping clearcoats here, it built up a ridge here unfortunately.

More clearcoat overlap....

Hatch area

Test section on pass side fender

 

[GoFast908Z]

After wool and orange LC (both with SIP)

After compounding, no polishing yet

Rear spoiler removal and hatch restoration

You can see the massive overspray dulling the paint. Almost looks wetsanded, but its only overspray.

Underside of spoiler

 

[GoFast908Z]

Starting the wetsanding

Some hope in sight...

Finished wetsanding (55 hours by hand)

Started compounding....

 

[GoFast908Z]

Compounding is finished and about to go for a wash

I put a coat of Zaino on the hatch since I had a LOT of work left before I would get to the LSP on the rest of the car. Look at it bead!

After a nice wash, its ready for polishing, but a few pics first.

Interior needed some work... So we took it all out. Replaced the carpet with a slightly less nasty one from a donor TA and cleaned every part before going back in the car.

This carpet had to go!

Owner helping scrub and rinse the floorpan

 

[GoFast908Z]

Workin on the seat....

After reinstalling the interior, here is the carpet before/afters.

At this point the polishing was about half done and the owner needed it back to fix a few motor issues, dents, lower it, some interior bits, and tint the windows. There are some light holograms as the polishing isn't done at this point, and I put a quick coat of P21S 100% to protect it until it came back. Here are the pics

Here you can see where the clear was cracked because of door alignment. And a few other spots where the clear was already broken or scratched deeply.

 

[GoFast908Z]

I love the clarity of the paint in this pic. All that wetsanding paid off.

So a while later the car comes back to me and I finish the polishing and jeweling. The only time we could get pics was at night with both our schedules being so busy. But you can see the transformation already brought the paint near perfect before it came back for the final touches. Here are the final pics.








Applied the Swissvax Concorso as it sits next to my 427 Z28 in the garage...

 

[GoFast908Z]

If you made it this far, THANK YOU for looking and reading!!!! I appreciate any comments you guys have

 

[staro0989]

Wow! Amazing job on the Trans Am, sure does look great!

 

[imported_Indy YZF]

Amazing transformation. Great job.

 

[MB Fan]

WOW! If I hadn't seen all the pictures I wouldn't have believed you could bring this beast back to life. :notworthy:

I'll bet you learned a lot doing this that will help you with your "normal" restorations! :thumbup:

 

[hopsgt500]

Amazing really, you did an excellent job reviving the TA :clap: