1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe Convertible

[Mike Phillips]

Skinned Knuckles, a magazine journal on car restoration has volunteered one of their cars to Meguiar's for this Extreme Makeover. You can check out their website here, Skinned Knuckles Magazine

Here's our canvas to create a work of art from, it's an all original 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe Convertible. This car is in overall very good condition, it just needs a little TLC in the right places with the right products to take it to a higher level.





This car is going to make for a great learning tool as it offers so many surfaces and components to work on which means you'll have the opportunity to use a wide spectrum of products and tools as a part of the restoration process. Here's a partial list of the different surfaces and components we'll be working on...

• * Paint - Remove Swirls and Water Spots
  * Convertible Top - Clean and Treat Fabric
  * Glass - Clean and Polish Glass
  * Plastic Window - Clean and Polish Clear Flexible Plastic
  * Stainless Steel Trim - Clean, Polish and Protect Metal
  * Rubber - Clean, Condition and Protect Rubber Tires and Gaskets[/b]

We'll be using paint cleaners like ScratchX and Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner, polishes like Deep Crystal Polish, #7 Show Car Glaze, Cleaner/Polishes like M80 Speed Glaze, waxes like ColorX, Gold Class Wax and NXT Tech Wax. We'll be working both by hand and with Meguiar's G100 Dual Action Polisher to remove swirls and water spots.








Water spots and etchings in the paint




Here's a close-up from the same picture above






We'll have the chance to try out Meguiar's new Canvas Cleaner and Canvas Protectant.







Clear Plastic Products







So don't miss out on this opportunity! Sign-up today, we'll also provide cold refreshments and pizza!

[Mike Phillips]

The rest of the story coming this week...

[Mike Phillips]

After cleaning the car, Neil Maken inspected the finish for above surface bonded contaminants.



Neil and the rest of the team all found the finish on this 1949 Plymouth Convertible had plenty of above surface bonded contaminants both on the horizontal surfaces and on the vertical panels. So we all grabbed some detailing clay from our new G1016 Smooth Surface™ Clay Kit.



The Transformation Team went into high gear and we quickly had the entire car clayed including the paint, chrome, glass and even the stainless steel trim and grill components.









Now remember, we washed this car and got it spic and span clean before claying... so the dirt you see on the clay in the pictures below was actually dirt and other contaminants that was bonded or stuck onto the surface of the paint.







The thing to remember about claying and the way it removes the kind of dirt you can often feel but you cannot see is that if you don't remove these bonded contaminants, not only do they cloud the finish hiding the beauty of the paint from your eyes, but they also interfere with the ability of a car wax to bond or adhere to the paint. This interference will reduce wax longevity and effectiveness.

Chances are very good that if your car is a daily driver and parked outside at least part of each day, then it's highly likely that your car's paint needs to be clayed.

Here's an interesting article that answers the question...

How often do I need to clay my car?

[Mike Phillips]

After claying, we followed Meguiar's philosophy of,

"Always use the least aggressive product to get the job done"


In keeping with this philosophy, we tried ScratchX on the hood to try to remove swirls and scratches out of the paint, we were somewhat surprised that even with three applications, worked in very well, the ScratchX wasn't strong enough to effectively remove them especially when a few feet away we had a cupboard full of G100 Dual Action Polishers.

So next we tested another least aggressive approach and tried M80 Speed Glaze with our W-8006 Foam Polishing Pad on the G100 using a speed setting of 5.0 and this removed the vast majority of swirls, scratches, oxidation and the water marks in the paint.

So after our test, the team dove in!




Here's Mike in Orange, cleaning and polishing the drivers side of the hood while OctaneGuy answers a question on how diminishing abrasives work safely for another forum member.





Here's Paul, aka the other pc, testing out Jason Rose's Dynabrade rotary buffer with a dual-action polisher attachment outfitted to the head of the polisher.