Big and shiny (tea/lunch break stuff)
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 12:15 pm
Part one
Following on from Blacky's thread where he came out of the closet and declared his hidden buffty side, I thought I would share some of the recent cars I've worked on.
From 2005 until 2008 one of my businesses was a Meguiar's dealership, and as such, I have always had a fondness towards their product range. I like the ease of use, the value for money and the sheer variety of products, and back in 05 that was unusual for consumer products to have that level of choice.
I still buy their stuff to this day, and although I don't bother with my own cars (at the moment) I find cleaning therapeutic, and to me, the difference between a clean car and a really clean car is hours of attention to detail
I love it!!
As many of you know, I helped Gary prepare his own APT Evo for the Time Attack weekend, and the results were very pleasing and justified the time and effort involved, leading to coverage on Speedhunters
For Gary's Evo I was asked to concentrate on removing some cone induced scuff marks, remove various areas of marking to sponsors stickers that had been picked up after months of hard use on track and generally give it a 'lift' in readiness for Modified Live when the car would feature on the MLR stand. I used a simple two bucket wash using Meguair's trade shampoo, followed by two water magnets to dry it off (no silicon blades!), gold class wax for the bodywork, bug and tar for the stickers damage, paint improvers for the cone scuffs, metal polish for the aluminium and stainless work, and then went over the car again with tech wax for an extra layer of protection. Bear in mind the photos taken by Speedhunters' Paddy McGrath were taken the day after Gary had taken part in a trackday and three days after I had done my work! It's also worth noting that most panels on the car are composite now, so I had to adopt a different approach to the one I would normally use on a car with metal panels. An interesting challenge

I was especially pleased that detailing the fuel cell, suspension arms, subframe and diff housing paid off!

Following on from this, I was asked to valet APT car......this time the BMW 330D. I had joked that after the black Evo race car, I needed a break and then I was presented with this

Ingrained dirt and road 'grime' are typical at this time of year, and this car was no different. Please excuse the photos, but I've tried to capture the before and after stuff. The request for this car was a top to bottom valet including engine bay, boot, carpets, leather seats and door card treatment, sort the alloys and exhaust too. Gulp



What the photos don't show clearly, is just how metallic the paint really is. The sapphire colouring was much more evident after a few hours of work, and in the sunshine it looked an absolute treat.






Once again I used a two bucket approach, Meguiar's products throughout and thoroughly treated the leather interior as this hadn't been done before. The results were pleasing, and the owner was chuffed, so that's good enough for me
It didn't look too bad two weeks later on, so the work and time was well spent.
Following on from Blacky's thread where he came out of the closet and declared his hidden buffty side, I thought I would share some of the recent cars I've worked on.
From 2005 until 2008 one of my businesses was a Meguiar's dealership, and as such, I have always had a fondness towards their product range. I like the ease of use, the value for money and the sheer variety of products, and back in 05 that was unusual for consumer products to have that level of choice.
I still buy their stuff to this day, and although I don't bother with my own cars (at the moment) I find cleaning therapeutic, and to me, the difference between a clean car and a really clean car is hours of attention to detail

As many of you know, I helped Gary prepare his own APT Evo for the Time Attack weekend, and the results were very pleasing and justified the time and effort involved, leading to coverage on Speedhunters

For Gary's Evo I was asked to concentrate on removing some cone induced scuff marks, remove various areas of marking to sponsors stickers that had been picked up after months of hard use on track and generally give it a 'lift' in readiness for Modified Live when the car would feature on the MLR stand. I used a simple two bucket wash using Meguair's trade shampoo, followed by two water magnets to dry it off (no silicon blades!), gold class wax for the bodywork, bug and tar for the stickers damage, paint improvers for the cone scuffs, metal polish for the aluminium and stainless work, and then went over the car again with tech wax for an extra layer of protection. Bear in mind the photos taken by Speedhunters' Paddy McGrath were taken the day after Gary had taken part in a trackday and three days after I had done my work! It's also worth noting that most panels on the car are composite now, so I had to adopt a different approach to the one I would normally use on a car with metal panels. An interesting challenge


I was especially pleased that detailing the fuel cell, suspension arms, subframe and diff housing paid off!

Following on from this, I was asked to valet APT car......this time the BMW 330D. I had joked that after the black Evo race car, I needed a break and then I was presented with this

Ingrained dirt and road 'grime' are typical at this time of year, and this car was no different. Please excuse the photos, but I've tried to capture the before and after stuff. The request for this car was a top to bottom valet including engine bay, boot, carpets, leather seats and door card treatment, sort the alloys and exhaust too. Gulp




What the photos don't show clearly, is just how metallic the paint really is. The sapphire colouring was much more evident after a few hours of work, and in the sunshine it looked an absolute treat.






Once again I used a two bucket approach, Meguiar's products throughout and thoroughly treated the leather interior as this hadn't been done before. The results were pleasing, and the owner was chuffed, so that's good enough for me
