ACDetailing: 1999 E55 AMG.. HAMMERED
01-13-2009 | 02:27 PM
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ACDetailing: 1999 E55 AMG.. HAMMERED
This job was a long, long one. By far the longest I've spent on a car. Around 28 hours of the course of 4 days.. 16 of which was over the past two days.
Upon initial inspection:
The process was first to decontaminate. I started out with taking off all the wheels... and giving them a thorough clean, since the barrels have NEVER seen a cleaning. And it showed.. unfortunately the chrome rims were extremely oxidized and the only way to get rid of all the caked on, and burned-in brake dust would to be sand them down, and completely refinish them. Which was a little out of my realm of detailing
. Once pulled off, they were doused in P21S gel wheel cleaner, and let sit for about 5 minutes each. Followed by profuse scrubbing with various brushed such as swissvax, boars hair, and DD spoke/fender brushes. After that, the barrel's were attempted to be made a little bit more presentable by using a microfiber applicator pad, with M105. None of the black dots of caked on and oxidized brake dust went away.. but the barrel's shined up a bit. Unfortunately, no afters, it wasn't much to be proud of.. definitely need to be refinished.
Rear wheel:
Front wheel:
Wheel gel soaking in:
Then I flipped the rims over and did wheel gel on the faces, and then P21S TAW on the tires:
The faces were polished with Turtle Wax Chrome Polish, OTC, but it worked fairly well!
I then moved on to the engine compartment. It was dirty, and dusty, but not horribly bad to my surprise.. unlike the rest of the car
The process here was to let P21S TAW to soak in, then agitate with a soft but effective Swissvax Wheel Brush:
The next step was the paint. It was in such bad shape.. I spent about 2 hours on the wash alone. I first started with a thorough rinse off. Followed up with the first stage of foaming. I hit it with Optimum PowerClean diluted 1:1 as a super paint cleaner.. I let that set for about 7 minutes. I rinsed it off with the pressure washer; and followed up with another stage of foaming. I foamed it with chemical guys' Citrus Wash and Gloss diluted again, to paint work cleansing ratio. This was then agitated with a DD lambswool mitt, and the two bucket mitt with CWG in the wash bucket as well.
After I was satisfied with the wash process, and the paint was *relatively* clean, I pulled it back in the garage to start claying. I used chemical guys' purple mild clay, as it wasn't terribly contaminated, and used chemical guys' LUBER as clay lube. Then it was on to find the perfect combo to correct the beast.
I ended up settling on M105 w/ Meguiars so1o Yellow Wool Pad at 1900rpm 2x, then SIP w/ 3M UK Green Compounding pad at 1800rpm 1x, then 106FA w/ 3M UK Yellow Polishing Pad at 1800rpm 2x, and lastly Ultrafina w/3M UK Blue "ultrafina" pad at 1500rpm and jeweled down to 900rpm.
I was amazed at the reults achieved. And I have to say, I'm quite in love with the 3M UK pads, definitely worth the money. I bought two of each, in both 135mm and 75mm sizes, and both sizes went a long way, and helped out tremendously.
(excuse the lint) 50/50 after the process listed above:
I spent the next 16 hours, over the course of two days, finishing what I had started on the hood.
Here is the 75mm pad being shown in action, it's perfect for tight spots!
On the home stretch of foam compounding:
These next shots are after 106FA/3M UK Yellow Pad. As you can see, the clarity and depth is restored, as well as no swirls, but I didn't think it would suffice, which is why I went the extra step with UF.
Working it in:
After:
Under the "light of truth." Remember, still one more step to finish down perfectly after this:
Other details included the interior. Which received Gloss-It leather cleaner and polish. 1Z Cockpit Premium on the dash and Gummi Plfedge on all the seals. The glass was treated with Stoners IG. Carpets cleaned with CG Extractimator and MyteeLite2. Then vacuumed clean with Metro Shop Vac.
The engine compartment and outside plastic was dressed with Meg's HD 3:1 for satin finish.
The final step was to apply the wax. I decided for doing the best I've done to date, it deserved the best I had. So I applied Swissvax Concorso with an Uber Foam applicator pad.
Phew! Done!
As always, C&C welcome!
Aaron
Upon initial inspection:
The process was first to decontaminate. I started out with taking off all the wheels... and giving them a thorough clean, since the barrels have NEVER seen a cleaning. And it showed.. unfortunately the chrome rims were extremely oxidized and the only way to get rid of all the caked on, and burned-in brake dust would to be sand them down, and completely refinish them. Which was a little out of my realm of detailing
. Once pulled off, they were doused in P21S gel wheel cleaner, and let sit for about 5 minutes each. Followed by profuse scrubbing with various brushed such as swissvax, boars hair, and DD spoke/fender brushes. After that, the barrel's were attempted to be made a little bit more presentable by using a microfiber applicator pad, with M105. None of the black dots of caked on and oxidized brake dust went away.. but the barrel's shined up a bit. Unfortunately, no afters, it wasn't much to be proud of.. definitely need to be refinished.Rear wheel:
Front wheel:
Wheel gel soaking in:
Then I flipped the rims over and did wheel gel on the faces, and then P21S TAW on the tires:
The faces were polished with Turtle Wax Chrome Polish, OTC, but it worked fairly well!
I then moved on to the engine compartment. It was dirty, and dusty, but not horribly bad to my surprise.. unlike the rest of the car
The process here was to let P21S TAW to soak in, then agitate with a soft but effective Swissvax Wheel Brush:
The next step was the paint. It was in such bad shape.. I spent about 2 hours on the wash alone. I first started with a thorough rinse off. Followed up with the first stage of foaming. I hit it with Optimum PowerClean diluted 1:1 as a super paint cleaner.. I let that set for about 7 minutes. I rinsed it off with the pressure washer; and followed up with another stage of foaming. I foamed it with chemical guys' Citrus Wash and Gloss diluted again, to paint work cleansing ratio. This was then agitated with a DD lambswool mitt, and the two bucket mitt with CWG in the wash bucket as well.
After I was satisfied with the wash process, and the paint was *relatively* clean, I pulled it back in the garage to start claying. I used chemical guys' purple mild clay, as it wasn't terribly contaminated, and used chemical guys' LUBER as clay lube. Then it was on to find the perfect combo to correct the beast.
I ended up settling on M105 w/ Meguiars so1o Yellow Wool Pad at 1900rpm 2x, then SIP w/ 3M UK Green Compounding pad at 1800rpm 1x, then 106FA w/ 3M UK Yellow Polishing Pad at 1800rpm 2x, and lastly Ultrafina w/3M UK Blue "ultrafina" pad at 1500rpm and jeweled down to 900rpm.
I was amazed at the reults achieved. And I have to say, I'm quite in love with the 3M UK pads, definitely worth the money. I bought two of each, in both 135mm and 75mm sizes, and both sizes went a long way, and helped out tremendously.
(excuse the lint) 50/50 after the process listed above:
I spent the next 16 hours, over the course of two days, finishing what I had started on the hood.
Here is the 75mm pad being shown in action, it's perfect for tight spots!
On the home stretch of foam compounding:
These next shots are after 106FA/3M UK Yellow Pad. As you can see, the clarity and depth is restored, as well as no swirls, but I didn't think it would suffice, which is why I went the extra step with UF.
Working it in:
After:
Under the "light of truth." Remember, still one more step to finish down perfectly after this:
Other details included the interior. Which received Gloss-It leather cleaner and polish. 1Z Cockpit Premium on the dash and Gummi Plfedge on all the seals. The glass was treated with Stoners IG. Carpets cleaned with CG Extractimator and MyteeLite2. Then vacuumed clean with Metro Shop Vac.
The engine compartment and outside plastic was dressed with Meg's HD 3:1 for satin finish.
The final step was to apply the wax. I decided for doing the best I've done to date, it deserved the best I had. So I applied Swissvax Concorso with an Uber Foam applicator pad.
Phew! Done!
As always, C&C welcome!
Aaron
01-14-2009 | 01:37 AM
#6
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 1,818
Likes: 3
From: SE Michigan, USA
whoa! lots of hard work and dedication there. thats a lllooonnnggg job and i'm glad for you that it's finally over. i hope the owner is as amazed at the turn around and your attention to detail as i'm sure we all are. nice product selection process and write up. thanx for sharing your good work!
