This was a long one.. spent a little over 30 hours on the car, including wetsanding. I cleaned/conditioned as much of the vehicle as possible, trying to restore it to better than new condition. The car used to be well taken care of, but when the owner moved to downtown SF, he wasn't able to wash it on his own, so it frequented the "down the sreet" washes

Upon inspection of the car 3 stories below the ground, it was in really good shape. Exterior barely having any fallout, looking decent (considering the rains we've had lately). The interior was immaculate minus the dirt on the floor mats. After taking the car home, and storing it for the night I was ready bright and early on Tuesday. I woke up to pouring rain. Even though I could have washed the car inside.. I wanted to do as much of a thorough degreasing as possible, so it was all done outside.. in the rain. Even with snowboard pants, and a rain coat, I was still soaked! At least it wasn't snow, huh? . Sorry I look a little ridiculous.. I was more concerned about staying dry!

First things first was a thorough pressure rinse on the outside:



After this I turned my attention to the wheels. Per standard procedure the tires were soaked in P21S TAW, and the wheels received P21S Wheel Gel.



And then agitated with various brushes:



After the wheels were finished, I moved on to the initial foaming of the car. Because the car wasn't super soiled (for a change) I foamed it with Chemical Guys' Citrus Wash and Clear, and then washed with the 2BM and Citrus Wash and Gloss.




(my baby in the very background getting DRENCHED ).



And then the car was pressure rinsed one more time before being brought inside where I blew it dry. Yes, INSIDE! It was raining so hard.. it wasn't even worth trying to dry, let alone blow dry outside. So I did it in the garage with very good results.. just a little bit of water .

After it was dried. I continued on with decontamination. The car was clayed with CG Blue Mild clay, and Luber as clay lube:



..And the wheels:



....Annnd the Door Jambs:



And the deck lid/hood and jambs:



After this I turned my attention to the spare tire. It was rinsed, then cleaned with P21S TAW and Wheel gel + Swissvax Wheel Brush/Megs Slidelock Brush:













My attention was then turned to was was UNDER the spare tire. The area where the engine compartment usually is.







Certain soiled areas were carefully saturated in P21S TAW and let sit before agitating away and wiping clean.







I then turned my attention to what was under the boot lid.. AN ENGINE! Everything was thoroughly degreased with P21S TAW, SW Wheel Brush, Q-Tips, and a lot of elbow grease. Then wiped clean.

















Towards the end of day one a big scratch was found, and I decided to relevel it to make it less apparent.

 

So it began..





Then I called it a night.. to sleep on when I just did . The next two and a half days (20 hours total) was spent on the paint correction. Here's a slew of befores:











Then the sun decided to show for some 50/50s! These shots show the test panel which was corrected with the KB Method of Foam compounding: m105+cutting pad w/ primed pad @1200rpm, then finished with m205+finishing pad with pad primed at 1200-800rpm. As you can see.. slight hologramming still shows and it was brought back in for more testing of polish/pad combos after I saw this.









After seeing this the car was brought back in, and I settled on this combo. 3M UK Green+SIP @ 1200-1800-1500, then 3M Yellow+106fa @ 1200-1600-1400, and lastly 3M UK Blue+Ultrafina @ 1200-1500-1200-900. Overall the results were about 95%. There were some deep RIDS that the owner and I decided I wouldn't chase because of the notorious thin Honda clear, and also we still want to be able to finish polish the car if need be down the road. I especially enjoyed the Formula Red tint on my pads from the Tri-Clear paint on the Formula Red hondas!! These were the results:





All of the black trim got the same attention, taking special care with extra taping as to not catch any edges..









Results:







Moved up to the roof..










(those scratches in this pic are these: )

I then opened the garage door and got a few quick sun pics:





While making my way around the car I took the time to polish out the tail lights with 2x SIP+Green and 1x UF+Blue:







The I continued with the rear bumper with said process in the beginning..



The importance of taping. The $5 roll of tape is a $1000+ insurance. This would have meant a new bumper+repaint if the tape wasn't there..



B-pillar before:



After:





Fender corrected, door not:

 

The importance of taping!



Under the wing:



Going after it with a Orange CCS Foam Finger Pad+M105:



And where the "diffuser" is:



ZAIO+White CCS Foam Finger pad in the door jambs:



And under the hood:



After these minor details were finished I was done!! Brought it outside to give it a thorough pressure rinse that was filtered with DI water to get rid of all the polishing dust:



Before any LSP:











After all the rinsing. It was brought in for a "two stage" lsp. The first of which was Danase Wet Glaze applied with a dampened Blackfire Gold CCS Pad:



My back that is in as good a condition as a 60 year-old (threw it out years ago, and it's never been the same since, and polishing for 8 hours straight), was aching so I took a rest from bending over/lsp application and paid attention to the wheels. For thise, I removed as much oxidation from the cleared lips as possible with Mothers Mag&Aluminum polish. Then I polished them with Werkstat Prime Strong, Acrylic Jett, and the Acrylic Glos.





Before:





After:



Then I turned to the interior. I just wiped down the leather part of the dash, and applied Leather Masters Protection cream. All of the vynil got 303 Protecant. The seats were treated with Leather Masters Trio. I'm horrible with interior before/afters so there aren't any. But I did take pictures of the floor mats! They were vacuumed with metro vac'n'blow and then cleaned with CG Citrus Carpet Cleaner and SW Leather Brush.

Before



After:



Before:



After:


(excuse the lack of prison stripes on the other mat, they were added after this pic).

Then I moved on to the LSP. It received Swissvax Concorso:


(pic taken after it was applied/removed).

"Detailers Best Insurance":



And the afters. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn't finish until late last night, and when I delivered it today, we were in the middle of the street . So no afters of the engine bay/hood area which I spend 6 hours total on :shead: . And none of the interior area.

But I *DID* get the most important parts.. the body of the car!


















(the owner and my gf in the background).


Done!!

C/C Always Welcome!

Aaron

 

wow!!

a record number of pics...
i love detailing in the rain- and hey, i would have washed, rinsed and left it wet for the clay... why not clay in the rain?
inspection from clay is by feel, and you can do that in the rain-

but, hey not meant as a criticism cause your results speak for themselves!!

 

nice job! Great pics!

 

omg that nsx looks delicious hahahaha the red looks so juicy

 

Mike, no I like the feedback! To be honest.. just didn't think about it. Would have saved me at least 30 mins though, huh? Thanks for the tip!

[QUOTE=alSpeed2k,Mar 8 2009, 09:16 PM]nice job!

 

Eh, it looks okay. J/K! Really great job Aaron.

 

love your attention to detail on all things. pretty hard-core in all that rain too! first thing i thought/saw was "poor S sitting out in all that," but its all good and i'm sure she'll get cleaned up fine.
i'm glad u seemed to enjoy the pink puddy mess that red tinted clear brings b/c i surely don't! it is kind of cool to see, and i really do like the bright red's honda has used on some of it's vehicles. when polished out correctly they really glow like nothing else!
great work as always and i was especially impressed by the black trim around the windows.

how do u feel about the gold CCS? they seem to have gotten nice reviews as being the softest least intensive stuff out there, but i'd like to learn more

 

Hubba Hubba Hubba