Wills.WinAndWhl

Do i have everyone's attention? This is what BAD paint looks like. Those with dark colored cars especially will know what I'm talking about. Swirl's...clear coat scratches...spider webbing...all mean the same thing...BAD looking paint. This was by far the most swirled car we've ever touched. However, even something this old and this beat up can be saved But lets start with the beginning...

A lady emailed me wanting her car detailed. She was mostly just interested in a wash and wax on the outside and a full interior. We swung by her house after finishing another one of our jobs to take a look at it. She informed us it was a 1988 Honda Civic, very low miles for the age but needed some love.

So at first mainly what we were looking at was the interior:



the dark colored carpet and seats hide the fact that there was a full sized poodle that was strewn across the entire interior...literally...she had a full size poodle...and as much fur as my sis Dani was able to get out of these seats and carpets was amazing, coulda made a whole new poodle. When we went to empty out the shop vac it was just this HUGE blob...kinda crazy.

Anyway, after checking it out...she made a comment about "I'd have more done to the outside but I think it is beyond repair and not much can be done for it". To use that raised a red flag that said CHALLENGE! We told her that we could do more for it than she may think and asked her to let us have a go at it. She agreed.

So by the time the day of the detail came around, she decided to go ahead and have us do the engine as well.

So i hope the following photos and documentation will show you that a car even in the worst of shape can be saved if you know what you're doing (or in this lady's case, hire someone who knows what they're doing).

SO, on the menu for the day was:

wash/clay/single pass and seal on the exterior
full interior
engine detail

Long day needless to say. So we started off with the engine. I tackled it while my sis was working on removing the poodle!

Heres how the engine looked like...i call this...23 years of Arizona!



It was dirty....just a little. I'm sure the tons of dust storms we had this year helped. NOT greasy though, so that helped a lot. Only light grease in spots...so that was a time saver. After about an hour or so of spraying it with Megs Degreaser, agitating the dirt with different brushes, using the pressure washer to spray it clean and wiping off excess water, and finally dressing it with Meguiars Hyperdressing 2:1 - here is what we came up with:



Doesn't even look like the same engine does it?

Another before and after:



Turned into:




And a nice close up look revealed:



More beauty of course!


Back to the interior, here again is what Dani was working with:




A LIGHT coat of dust as you can see

Here is how it turned out after vacuuming (and more vacuuming), extracting (shampooing), steam cleaning and dressing the full interior:



Gotta say that old red interior looked very very good when she was done.

Here is a before from the drivers side




and after...



The back seats before...aka "Poodle-Land" (actually got to see the poodle, very cool dog )




And after:





And a shot of the door after:



Meguiars #40 brought that vinyl back to life after some deep cleaning/steam cleaning was done.

Cool cockpit shot!




This was a small car but doing all that interior took a LOT of time. Put it this way, I was able to do the engine, clay the car (after both of us washed it) and finish about 3/4 of HARD CORE buffing by the time she finished the interior. But i must say, it was well worth it when you look at how it turned out.

Now the the horror project of the show...the paint. Heres a full shot of the car before we started:




The extreme dirt was the least of its problems i can tell ya that! The paint was seriously SERIOUSLY swirled. But hey, if it wasn't for those little suckers we wouldn't have a job


Heres another close up.




Yeah, did i mention it had water spot etching too? Well...it had water spot etching lol.

So originally I was going to hit it with D151 and a LC white pad. BUT after seeing the extent of the damage D151 never made it out of my bag. I went straight for Meguiars D300 and the cutting pad.


So like i said, I seriously had my work cut out for me. But to this i say....Bring It!



I didn't even bother with the Griots on this one either. Straight for the Flex 3401...put my MicroFiber cutting pad on it, primed it and did a test spot.
After doing my test spot i was speechless to say the least.

Brinkmann before:



And after:




No you're eyes are not fooling you, it came out THAT nice. I was so impressed, even though i knew it would take extra time, i taped the hood right down the middle and decided i'd do a little extra photo shooting.

I did 1/2 the hood...the drivers side....and left the other 1/2 alone....and ended up with the best pictures of my detailing career, yes...on an 88' Honda Civic.






More of a close up...






And...the prize for BEST photo thus far goes to....this little guy right here:






So after seeing that i was basically getting 100% correction with a single pass (with the exception of a couple of spots), i was pretty fired up. I kept working my way around the car while my sis finished up the interior.

When she finished up she treated the trim with some Ultimate Protectant and then cleaned the rims and dressed them with some Hyper Dressing. By the time she finished up with that i was able to start applying the sealant.

NORMALLY I'd just go with D301 Finishing wax, but i wanted to give the paint a little bit more of a long term sealant so i went with Megs #20. I swear the more i use it the more i like it. I'll usually apply it, then go around and do little touch up things like the tires or windows or whatever just to let some time pass. If you let it set about 30 or 40 minutes it wipes off like butter. And the paint...it's left SOOO smooth, its just awesome. D301 leaves it smooth, but #20 beats it out in smoothness in my opinion and in how long the protection lasts.

So here is the sealant all spread out and curing:



Sorry but i just thought that looked so cool . I went ahead and did the windows and windshield...being warned by my sis to NOT mess up her rows on the seats or carpets! Then started to help pack some stuff up...and finally went and removed the sealant. Man the paint looked incredibly awesome. I seriously could not believe it was the same car, and it was my crazy self that had just buffed it out.

So everyone...the time has come...are you ready?

Wills.WinAndWhl

Lets roll it out and take a final look...



If that doesn't look BETTER than new, i seriously don't know what does. I kept circling it just amazed at how well it turned out. Lets take a look at a few other angles




I liked this next shot, you could see the nice reflection along with the super clean interior:




And of course it looked really nice from the back as well



I really liked this sun shot on the roof...




NO swirls here folks



Here either:



And of course we already have seen the hood..but heres another look at it completely finished. You will notice if you look VERY closely, little tic marks on the hood. The clear on this thing was actually starting to fail...so hopefully the sealant will help get some extra life out of it. But the swirls were 100% removed...just remember this is what we started with:



and ended up with...






A few reflection shots...this one off the roof:



And this one was really cool...i put the hood up...then did a reflection shot:




And one more very cool reflection shot, i love reflection pictures with lots of color and you can see how crisp the reflections are here:





The owner had to go to work which was about a mile or so away, so i called her up and told her we'd deliver her car to her so she could see it in the day light while it was still nice and fresh.

We pulled up and i swear i thought she was going to break into tears. She just kept saying "oh my God, oh my God" lol. All of it was amazing to her, the engine, the interior and of course the paint were all better than new. She told us she'd NEVER let it go back to how it was before and insisted upon a maintenance wash set up to keep it looking good.

One of the first things she said was "You guys didnt charge me enough!"...in a word...NO, we didn't lol. But we chose to go the extra mile. Honestly once i saw the potential paint correction we were getting after the test spot, i sort of took it as a personal challenge to get as much of the rest of the car to have 100% correction, and i'd say i got about 98% of the car to that point. There were some very deep scratches in spots that i couldn't get, but the SWIRLS, were GONE.

So, here is one last shot, hood up...lookin super sharp:





Also if you'd like to see the full video transformation of this baby take a look here:

Windows and Wheels Details a 1988 Honda Civic - YouTube

So the story of the 23 year old swirls has a happy ending . Thanks all for reading (and watching...the vid turned out good, really suggest you take a look). Take care everyone.[/quote]

Nosepicker

Holy crap, that's amazing!!!

Wills.WinAndWhl

lol wow didn't expect that quick of a reply. Glad you like it

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

damn, i seriously just fell in love with that car. esp the interior fit for a pimp

iSharix

Very nice!!!

I wish I knew a bit more about detailing ... have no idea where to start, lol X__X

Nosepicker

I wished you lived closer to me (Socal) cuz I'd pay you to detail my cars. =P

Wills.WinAndWhl

lol i kinda thought the same thing, that interior does look pimped out. Gotta love those old school interior set ups I grew up in a 79' Cordoba as a kid so it kinad brought back memories.

Read this other thread i wrote: https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...gh-w-pics.html

Should help, and if you have any ?s just PM me

Wills.WinAndWhl

Road trip!