Got this lovely e30 in for a couple of weeks last month, job was as follows:
*2 stage polish on paint
*Interior detail
*Engine bay tidy up
*Convertible protection
*Improve rear screen visability
*Clean out arches
So bit of work to be done, was carried out of a few days. At the moment I don't have time for detailing full time so I need to do this between other work I have on, hence the reason why we are not doing many details at the moment. Turning down job is hard (4 jobs in 3 weeks) but time just isn't there so this was nice to get stuck into
The car itself has 21k and 1 owner from new, it has recently been snapped up by one of our member who was looking for this spec for many years. I got to hear about the car before I laid eyes on it, and was a bit shocked at how the paint was all considered, but knew there was a lovely deep shine hiding behind the 26 years of poor washing.
Few pics on arrival:
WOW look at the rear screen :surprised:
Engine bay wasn't too bad, dusty and a bit grubby in places
Mirrors looking abit sorry for themselves...
Roof with signs of polish residue and needing a deep clean in general to prep it for the Gtechniq protection
Car was taken outside to prep it for polishing, the wheel had just been refurbed by Wheel Wizards so were in good condition just needed a clean:
Acid FREE wheel cleaner doing its thing:
More polish residue on the 2nd lock and boot
Some other areas to clean and polish
Arches got a decent scrubbing in the pockets too to get the dirt out bit of rust preventative maintenance
Even the brush had enough, he collapsed and died
Some signs of protection, more then likely a filler product to make the car look better prior to sale
Dirt running from some APC+agitation of the rubber around the windows
Onto the washing stage after the snow foam had been rinsed off, mitt of choice these days
After the car had been washed and rinsed I noticed LOADS of small paint spots on the car, I originally thought it was tar but sadly it needed more then tar remover to get off and extra time :sad:
So onto the claying, using Bilthamber AutoClay, look at the dirt in the clay lube, and that's after a deep clean and iron cleanse!! hard to fully see on camera. Just shows how important it is to clay the car even if you think its clean, think again :wink:
This is the paint spots after the initial clay, had to repeat many times to remove all specs...
Next up was to take the seats out and get some pics of the inside, didn't look too bad from the start but that soon changed when Numatic George got his way
The interior would take 2 days to complete, was done by my brother Peter who, unlike me, loves to do interiors :smiling:
So more parts removed carefully for a better clean
So while the seats were been removed this little bits got seen too
Before:
Tools for the job:
After, much better:
Original matts
Floor matts getting some love, lot of dirt was taken from these and made them nice and fresh again
The dirt wet vaced from the floor matts..
So after many hours the floor and seat were done including the seats that were removed
again, more dirt that was removed. The wet vacced was drained 3-4 times...Not what we expected from a low miler BUT at the end of the day its still 26 years old
Seat belts good some tarnish marks so got a little hand polish
In behind were the roof is stored when down got a clean too, never gets seen but that's not the purpose of detailing if it seen or not, it gets done!
And after, one or two areas were impossible to get into but much better!!
In the boot itself got a lick
Front indicators were removed for some polishing, 2 50-50 shots..
Side indicators removed too, look how dull and discoloured the area around the indicators had become! while these were off the car the area got its polish and coat of wax make sure it was all protected before putting the freshly polished parts back on..
After shots, you can see here how close to the original finish the paint got after the polishing was done
Some befores, dirty and polish residue
Afters, much sharper
So onto the bigger job of polishing and a before shot of the bonnet in natural light
Next this was the test section see how things were looking with the combo I choose...MAJOR improvement. This was after the first stage, this will remove most of the swirls and scratches but will need to be refined then so to add more gloss and remove any buffer trails or marring from the first step
Rear lenses before and a attempts at 50-50
Onto the rear screen, were to start....
These are fairly delicate and im sure big money to replace. Plan was to improve the appearance and visibility within reason. These pics below are from the first stage I got to, but it was annoying me so got back to it a few days later just no pics of it unfortunately!
Some shots of the condition of the paint:
And some 50/50's in progress
Taped up for the next 50-50
Before and after shots from tripod
Front grill was removed to be cleaned and as much split as possible, the chrome parts were hand polished and the plastics were finished in some Gtechniq C4 no in progress of that but an after shot out in the pics below, looked like a new grill when back together
All split ready to go..
After, nice and fresh not 100% but improved
So onto the plastics, they had aged and gone grey so Gtechniq C4 it was..
Random after shots:
The protection, 2 coats of Collinite 476s
Wax curing
Roof protected with some Gtechniq
Got to the shed yesterday to get after shots with the owner to discover my camera had no battery, I left it on in the bag so had to use a phone!!! Does not do the car or job any justice...
Thanks for reading, was a pleasure to work on this car so thanks to the owner for giving us the job. Hope you enjoyed the thread, took 2.5 hours to write up, 1.5 hours to upload and time to take the pics themselves
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Originally Posted by E60Dave
