ts|s Detailing: 71 Liquid Black LeMans Concours Show Car

tssdetailing

New member
Try not to drool on your keyboards! This restoration took roughly 10 hours. Lots of body panels to work on and all the chrome needed polishing too. The engine bay needed a good bath too (i forgot to shoot after pix of it though, sorry!!!! ) The owner claimed he shipped the car from Cincinnati to some where in Tennessee for some repainting and they detailed it last month. If he had said "last year" i would have believed him more, but this poor car was treated horribly. The paint was all marred and swirled, while working, i realized it was not claybarred even though they claimed it was. I had a big job ahead of me!



Process:

Started with the engine; wrapped the alternator in aluminum foil, blocked off the air-intakes with a few MF towels then Foam cannon with mix of CG's citrus wash and bugger wash (this mix does great to loosen surface dirt and engine grease). Attacked heavy build up with mix of brushes and CG's Grime Reaper @ 5:1. Dried the engine with the blower from my vacuum and a towel-finished it with CD2 engine dressing.

lemansEngineFoam.jpg






Before shots:

lemansBefore1.jpg




lemansBefore2.jpg




Here you can see marring in the paint from poor washing/drying technique. This paint was SUPER soft so it had to be wiped down gently so as not to mar the finish again.

lemansMarring.jpg






Owner claimed the car was claybarred last month, so I decided to go with a fine grade claybar to pick up anything that may have settled since then. WELLLLLL it quickly became obvious the car was not clayed.

lemansClay.jpg




All taped up and ready to buff

lemansTape1.jpg




lemansTape3.jpg




While I was claying, i noticed the vinyl lettering wasn't adhered very well. To protect them, i wiped a little tire dressing across them and then put tape down. That way the tire dressing doesn't let the tape stick to the numbers when I peel it off

lemansTape2.jpg






The money shot, after 2 polishing steps, you can see an epic correction. I used a Flex D/A with hydrotech Cyan, M105 followed by Tangerine pad with M205. I probably could have finished with a white pad, but just didn't have the time.

lemansSplit.jpg




After hours of polishing, the cars is washed again and then waxed with Blackfire Wet Diamond. Tires were glossed with PROwax Liquid Ice. All the chrome trim was hand polished with mother's aluminum polish.

lemansAfter1.jpg




lemansAfter2.jpg




lemansAfter3.jpg




LOVE these next two shots

lemansAfter4.jpg




lemansAfter5.jpg




Thanks for looking!



Here's his OTHER show car....can you guess what it is???



hiddenCar.jpg
 
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