Inspection photos prior to a full exterior and interior valet, with an engine bay tidy up for good measure.
So, grubby but not that bad. Covered in road grime, plenty of tar and tree sap. A few bird bombs for good measure too but this is going to get used hard so no point pretending otherwise
After a thorough deep clean to get rid of the sap, tar, bugs, and bird shit I was left with a great surface to start polishing to remove some of the scratches and etching caused by bird muck and bugs. Here's the bonnet after some tests of different polishes and glazes
I always measure the quality of the work by the depth and clarity of the reflection achieved so I was chuffed with the progress so far.
After the polishing had achieved the level of improvement I was looking for, I needed to lock that in with some hardcore protection......time for some sealant to bond to the paint followed by some wax to add depth to the finish
The plastic scuttle panel at the bottom of the windscreen had faded really badly, so this needed treatment to give it a near new appearance. When plastic gets this bad anything I can do will only be temporary but at least it will look better for a few months.
A 50/50 showing before and after
The engine bay was degreased and treated to offer a degree of protection. The engine shuts and release lever were cleaned at the same time of course.
Tyres treated and alloys cleaned and treated
A nice example of the reflection Java Black gives when prepared and polished
Grille, slam panel and headlights are cleaned and treated
Beauty and the beast!!
Glass cleaned and exhausts polished
The interior leather was cleaned and treated, all rubbers, plastics and vinyls were cleaned and treated and the carpets were vacuumed and shampood prior to the mats being cleaned and replaced.
All the door shuts, bonnet surrounds and boot shuts were sorted too.
A wonderful car and with this one being tuned, it goes very, very well for something that weighs over two tonnes and is bigger than my stables!
Thanks for reading if you got this far. Something like this took 10 hours in total from start to finish, but I'd expect to be able to get around it a bit quicker if the bugs weren't burnt into the topcoat and it wasn't covered in tar.
