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1990 Corvette
Black Convertible
Wash
Bonded Contaminates
Paint Correction and Paint Protection
Trim
Wheels
Glass
1990 Corvette
USB Microscope photo of clear coat defects - 10X magnification
Red Primer upper hood corner
Red Primer under driver's mirror bracket
Red Primer panel edge
Chipped Clear Coat under window trim
Wife sneaks into car, starts it up and drives off, leaving husband standing!!!
Thanks for stopping by.
Wish someone in town owned a yellow car,
I need a change of pace from black.....
Project details:
Left for lunch one day and when I drove back to work I saw a Corvette parked a block away from the shop. The swirls stuck out like railroad tracks on what appeared to be a black or dark grey finish. When I entered the shop a gentleman and gentle women were gazing at a black 2000 Corvette I was working on and looking for someone to detail their Vette. So I walked up the block to the car and was shocked by the condition of the paint. Swirls on swirls, scratches on swirls and the owner pointed out some chipping clear coat. I advised the owners I would only be able to remove 70% of the defects, wouldn't work on the interior or the rag top and would need 4-5 days. They wanted it for a graduation reception the next Saturday. So we agreed, he would go wash it somewhere and bring it back a couple of days after enjoying driving around in the very rare sunshine.
After getting the car delivered to the shop and washing the car, I thought I would post this write-up in the Extreme Show-Off thread, but it turned out correction was easier than I anticipated, at least the 70% correction I had promised the owners.
The paint/clear coat worried me, thinking it may have been repainted. Folks on the forum pointed me to the information I needed to find the original paint color code on the car and identify the code on the internet. The clear coat was chipped under the rubber trim of the driver's and passenger's windows. There was also areas of red primer showing, make me wonder if it had been poorly repainted. After completing the car I wonder if it was poorly painted at the factory years ago. The red shows up under the mirrors, where it would have been difficult for machine buffer to reach and damage the finish. Feel free to comment on what you see in the red primer photos.
The car washed just fine, but I was surprised when I clayed the car. I was unable to find much in the way of bonded contaminates, except in the lower rocker panels. The clay bar stayed very clean.
After clay-barring, I taped off the trim, taped off some body joints, covered the lower portion of the canvas top with painter's paper "easy mask". I set up a test area on upper rear deck using SwirlX, Ultimate Compound and M105. From my test spot on the upper rear deck, I knew Ultimate Compound would remove most of the defects, however I knew M105 would removed them all. However, I did not wish to deal with the dusting of M105 working around the canvas top.
I thought the driver's rear quarter panel was in worse shape, so I did another test spot. I left four runs of tape in the middle of the panel and used SwirlX on one side and Ultimate Compound on the other. Most of the car looked like the area under the tape.
Choosing to use Ultimate Compound, followed by SwirlX, then Ultimate Polish, I knew I would need to be aggressive with pads and products since I didn't want to use M105. So UC, SwirlX and UP were all applied using yellow pads, speed 5, slow arm speed and some heavy pressure. I thought I was being plagued with micro-marring, because I thought the finish looked grey during the process. So I made a few extra passes with SwirlX and really was persistent with Ultimate Polish with a yellow pad, followed with UP on a black pad at 4.5 speed.
The visible red primer concerned me, but it seemed to be under clear coat and only had the potential to worsen on the edges and most of the edges were taped to protect them from buffer damage.
I had taped over the door banging moulding and polished up tight to it. Then I removed that tape and taped the finish to protect it and coated the moulding with Ultimate Protectant and allowed that to dry overnight. Ribber window trim was coated with M40 Protectant. The next day I waxed up to and onto the trim and mouldings.
I know it shows, I didn't spend a great deal of time on the wheel wells and they look horrible. The owner requested medium shine on the tires so I sprayed them with the new aerosol Endurance. I let it set awhile and wiped off excess. The pitted rims were polished with not much improvement. They were waxed with Ultimate Quik Wax.
Door jambs were cleaned with All Purpose Cleaner Plus and waxed with Ultimate Quik Wax and glass was cleaned with Glass Cleaner Concentrate.
Of the 30% of the defects I didn't remove, they consisted of random scratches, water spot damage and an abrasion on the rear deck from the attachment point of the convertible top.
Thanks again for stopping by.
Black Convertible
Wash
- Tires - All Purpose Cleaner Plus, Deep Crystal Wash
- Body - Super Soap, Gold Class
Bonded Contaminates
- Clay - Professional mild
- Lube - Last Touch diluted
Paint Correction and Paint Protection
- Ultimate Compound
- SwirlX
- Ultimate Polish - once yellow pad, once black pad
- Ultimate Wax - two coats with 12 hour cure time
Trim
- Plastic - Ultimate Protectant
- Rubber - M40 Rubber and Vinyl Protectant
Wheels
- Tires - Endurance Aerosol
- Rims - All Metal Polish
Glass
- Glass Cleaner Concentrate
1990 Corvette
USB Microscope photo of clear coat defects - 10X magnification
Red Primer upper hood corner
Red Primer under driver's mirror bracket
Red Primer panel edge
Chipped Clear Coat under window trim
Wife sneaks into car, starts it up and drives off, leaving husband standing!!!
Thanks for stopping by.
Wish someone in town owned a yellow car,
I need a change of pace from black.....
Project details:
Left for lunch one day and when I drove back to work I saw a Corvette parked a block away from the shop. The swirls stuck out like railroad tracks on what appeared to be a black or dark grey finish. When I entered the shop a gentleman and gentle women were gazing at a black 2000 Corvette I was working on and looking for someone to detail their Vette. So I walked up the block to the car and was shocked by the condition of the paint. Swirls on swirls, scratches on swirls and the owner pointed out some chipping clear coat. I advised the owners I would only be able to remove 70% of the defects, wouldn't work on the interior or the rag top and would need 4-5 days. They wanted it for a graduation reception the next Saturday. So we agreed, he would go wash it somewhere and bring it back a couple of days after enjoying driving around in the very rare sunshine.
After getting the car delivered to the shop and washing the car, I thought I would post this write-up in the Extreme Show-Off thread, but it turned out correction was easier than I anticipated, at least the 70% correction I had promised the owners.
The paint/clear coat worried me, thinking it may have been repainted. Folks on the forum pointed me to the information I needed to find the original paint color code on the car and identify the code on the internet. The clear coat was chipped under the rubber trim of the driver's and passenger's windows. There was also areas of red primer showing, make me wonder if it had been poorly repainted. After completing the car I wonder if it was poorly painted at the factory years ago. The red shows up under the mirrors, where it would have been difficult for machine buffer to reach and damage the finish. Feel free to comment on what you see in the red primer photos.
The car washed just fine, but I was surprised when I clayed the car. I was unable to find much in the way of bonded contaminates, except in the lower rocker panels. The clay bar stayed very clean.
After clay-barring, I taped off the trim, taped off some body joints, covered the lower portion of the canvas top with painter's paper "easy mask". I set up a test area on upper rear deck using SwirlX, Ultimate Compound and M105. From my test spot on the upper rear deck, I knew Ultimate Compound would remove most of the defects, however I knew M105 would removed them all. However, I did not wish to deal with the dusting of M105 working around the canvas top.
I thought the driver's rear quarter panel was in worse shape, so I did another test spot. I left four runs of tape in the middle of the panel and used SwirlX on one side and Ultimate Compound on the other. Most of the car looked like the area under the tape.
Choosing to use Ultimate Compound, followed by SwirlX, then Ultimate Polish, I knew I would need to be aggressive with pads and products since I didn't want to use M105. So UC, SwirlX and UP were all applied using yellow pads, speed 5, slow arm speed and some heavy pressure. I thought I was being plagued with micro-marring, because I thought the finish looked grey during the process. So I made a few extra passes with SwirlX and really was persistent with Ultimate Polish with a yellow pad, followed with UP on a black pad at 4.5 speed.
The visible red primer concerned me, but it seemed to be under clear coat and only had the potential to worsen on the edges and most of the edges were taped to protect them from buffer damage.
I had taped over the door banging moulding and polished up tight to it. Then I removed that tape and taped the finish to protect it and coated the moulding with Ultimate Protectant and allowed that to dry overnight. Ribber window trim was coated with M40 Protectant. The next day I waxed up to and onto the trim and mouldings.
I know it shows, I didn't spend a great deal of time on the wheel wells and they look horrible. The owner requested medium shine on the tires so I sprayed them with the new aerosol Endurance. I let it set awhile and wiped off excess. The pitted rims were polished with not much improvement. They were waxed with Ultimate Quik Wax.
Door jambs were cleaned with All Purpose Cleaner Plus and waxed with Ultimate Quik Wax and glass was cleaned with Glass Cleaner Concentrate.
Of the 30% of the defects I didn't remove, they consisted of random scratches, water spot damage and an abrasion on the rear deck from the attachment point of the convertible top.
Thanks again for stopping by.
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