I had to document this one.... & Late Introduction

Hi all,

This might become a bit long so please bear with me…
Please forgive my lack of etiquette for not properly introducing myself for such a long time. I have no excuse.

I’m Theodore. I’m originally from Greece but now live in Vancouver BC in Canada. Detailing became a serious hobby and obsession a few years ago. I have been a very loyal reader of Autogeek for years but only recently I started to post a bit more.

Slowly friends and neighbours took interest in the look of my cars and for a moment I thought to do it professionally, but after looking the whole thing from the professional point of view which I believe is way different than the hobbyist point of view I decided to remain a hobbyist.

Every now and then I will do a friend’s car. I try to work on cars of people that will promise to start taking care of them. Nothing annoys me more than to put my heart and soul to bring a car “back to life” only to have it “destroyed” again.

So Andrew promised me that from now on he will take care of his 1985 Black Porsche 944 Turbo and he asked me if I would like to work on his car. So one cloudy Saturday morning I ended up with this outside of my garage.

Here is the car on arrival….





For a few minutes I thought that I might have it easy but when I started to look closer I saw the first “bad” signs… Evidence of the previous guy. I’m pretty sure we have all seen them.

Polish and Wax Residue….





So first step was getting the car clean and stripping any protection in order to inspect the paint and get to see the real picture.

After snow foaming with Meguiars APC 4:1 and hand washing with all-time classic Dawn, and finally Claying with 3M Cleaner Clay, it was time to inspect the paint. Not very encouraging to say the least.

I was faced with all kind of defects, and the Black Flat paint was not forgiving at all. So have a look.

Front Right Fender… Can somebody tell me what can cause this ? I mean besides the swirls, what are these marks ?







Part of the front hood. Unfortunately these RIDS that you see were too deep to correct 100 %. Everyone should know when to stop, and I did. It is better to explain to the client what a deep scratch is rather than what a strike through is….





Left Door








Front Left Fender


Roof


Right Door


Right Door – Quarter Panel


Quarter Panel


Anyway, enough with the “torture”… Lets move on….

The agreement with the owner was not to hunt perfection but to shoot for the best finish that I could accomplish within the weekend.

So after a quick test on the paint I decided on:

Optimum Hyper Compound on a LC Cyan Pad, followed by

Menzerna PO106 FA/SF4000 on a Tangerine HT pad.

I also tried finishing with Blackfire Finishing Polish and I was very pleasantly surprised with it as well.


Slowly but steady I was making some progress. This was my first time that I tried in the little time that I had, to document this and try some 50/50 and some before and after shots. So here is my effort on showing a bit of the story…. Don’t judge too hard and excuse my splatter….

Most 50/50 and Before / Afters are before finishing Polish and waxing. Just compounding.

50 /50 s









Completed


Before


After

Before


After




Before


After

Re: I had to document his one.... & Late Introduction

Before


After


That last roof shot and correction was a tricky one. Someone once said “life is a like a box of chocolates. You never know what you ‘re gonna get”…. Well after I started compounding that roof this is what I ended up with…. Single Stage…



After the end of day 1 there was just a bit of compounding left to be done. But I was definitely feeling that I was getting somewhere…. One of my favorites…..



Next day I started early and after finishing the little compounding that was left to be done, the car was taken out to be foamed again and power washed in order to get rid of all the dusting from the compounding.

Finishing was done mainly with Menzerna SF 4000 and in some parts or panels I tried some Blackfire Finishing Polish. I was very happy with it.

After a thorough IPA wipe down the car was ready for LSP.
NO fancy stuff here. Two coats of Collinite 845 by a PC7424 and then one coat of Zymol Creame by hand.

Didn’t have time to do a lot more, further than the paint, so I dressed the tires and treated the faded plastic trims. The main focus was the paint so please don’t judge too hard.

It was time to get the car out in the sun and get some final shots. I was very lucky as the sun is definitely not so generous with us here in British Columbia.

So here are some final shots… I think it turned out pretty good considering where I started.

Enjoy and Thank You reading.
Theo.

Re: I had to document his one.... & Late Introduction





That seemed long…

Again ...Thanks for reading and thank you all for teaching me all this stuff.

Theo


PS special thanks to : Mike Phillips, BobbyG, CEE DOG, Sportscarhiatus, Tuscarora Dave and many more that I cannot remember right off my mind right now.

:buffing::thankyousign::thankyousign::thankyousign::buffing::dblthumb2:

Jaayman said:

Wow, the reflection on this thing is incredible!
I hope I can one day achieve results like this!
Incredible work!

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Thank you. As for the results I'm sure that one day you will achieve the same if not better. rops:rops:rops:

BobbyG said:

:welcome: To Autogeek Online Theodore!! rops:

Sort of an official welcome!! :xyxthumbs:

At first I thought that Porsche appears to be in decent shape bit because of some great photos what looked good was actually pretty well abused.

I'm amazed / impressed with the final product and the car now has new life! rops:

Tremendous work and documentation to back it up!! rops: rops:

Thanks for the Kudo's!! :dblthumb2:

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Thank You Bobby. I appreciate the kind words. I had the same first impression as well. But then I went closer and started to see the true condition. After stripping I realized that the previous guy or even the owner heavily glazed the paint to mask all these defects. Then as soon as i shed some light I knew I was in for good.

RoadRageDetail said:

Some of those 50/50 shots and next day reflections are just inspiring. Fantastic job!!!

Those marks you were pointing out, I normally see those when something is in constant contact with the car but is "shifted" often, so it almost looks like sanding marks but much much lighter. Almost like a piece of cardboard or a horrible car cover is rubbing on it in a fairly consistent basis and over a period of time, marks like these happen.

Of course there's more than one way they could develop, I'm interested to see if anyone else has dealt with them and possibly narrowed down other possible causes.

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Thank you. Very much appreciated.

mwoolfso said:

Excellent job!

You didn't mention the owner's reaction. :-(

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Thank you. You 're right, I didn't. The owner was really happy and in a way pleasantly surprised of the final outcome, as his past experience with "detailers" was not the one that he should have had. When he came to pick the car up he couldn't take his eyes off from it and kept on saying "i cant believe this is my car".

Last night I emailed him the link as well. He should be very happy.

Although in my surprise and in a completely unexpected way the car was SOLD after two weeks. !!! Yeah I know.... what you might think, but he got an amazing deal for it and he went ahead and got an almost identical 1987 Black Porsche 944 modified with a V8 Camaro engine on it.

She is now at the paint shop for some cosmetic job and as soon as she is done needless to say I will have my hands on her as well.

Mc'lovin said:

Look amazing. Fantastic job! :xyxthumbs:

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Thank you.

5.4 Shelby said:

Like road rage said, I think they look like very light wetsanding marks.

I wonder if a previous detail or repaint (the single stage roof could be a clue to this) was not properly finished or as he said, something rubbing on the paint.

Regardless, it looks great now. WEll done. And Welcome to AG.

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Thats exactly what I think as well. They do look like very light sanding marks. I was also thinking of improper use and technique of Clay...

vet said:

Welcome!! Great job on that black Porsche.

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Thank you.



I also screwed up on one of the photos in the write up. Its one that I took towards the end of day 1 and it is one of my favorites...so here you are..

MirandaDetailin said:

Those final shots are awesome!! I wish I could see it up close.
Haha you said not to judge to harshly! On what exactly? All I can see is a job more then well done! I would love to get that car back as an owner and drool over it daily!
Again beautiful work!

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MirandaDetailin said:

Oh yeah, your poor cyan pad took a beating too. Looks like tar. I don't like SS paint because of that.

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Thank you for the kind words.

I was a bit concerned if the pictures would reproduce what I was seeing and feeling in front of me. But judging from the response so far, everythign worked out pretty good.

As for the pad, you will be surprised what an overnight soak in a mixture of Megs APC, Dawn and a touch of Megs Gegreaser can do. Like New....

I have to say that I will think twice using Optimum Hyper Compound again. It dusts considerably less but it leaves an oily-like residue on the pad that its not really easy to get out.

Thanks Again