Full Wet/Damp sand on 2003 Suburban + Opti-Coat

[dnoraker]

First of all, special thanks to Chad Raskovich (Rasky) for coaching me through some of the steps and coming over to help with Opti-coat. He was invaluable. Saved me a lot of time and strife.

This is my personal truck and I wanted it to look better than new as I will likely drive this longer than I've ever driven a vehicle. It was also a good chance to try some new products and techniques before I use them on a customer's vehicle.

Massive project. 60+ hours. I've questioned my sanity many times along the way (as did my wife) but I think the results were worth the work. And I'll never do it again. :buffing:

If you're considering wet/damp sanding your vehicle's factory paint, I highly recommend against it. I've done a couple cars in the family with factory paint and it's very risky. Paint thickness was very healthy for a factory finish and I took off around 10 microns on a couple test panels so I went forward. However, I actually struck through on the pillar on the driver door. It was a very grainy peel and I worked it too hard and wasn't careful about how I was holding the block.

No time for a real thorough writeup, as we're due with baby #3 any day now and I also have to finish my taxes. I decided to procrastinate to at least get something posted, because it sure as heck won't happen after the baby is here!

Here is what I did:

wash, clay, clean with IPA
1500 by hand
2000 by hand
2500 by hand
3000 by DA
D300 Microfiber compound
M205 via rotary and Megs polishing pad
85RD via rotary and LC blue
Opti-coat on all exterior paint (I also Opti-coated a couple trim pieces and intend on doing more of that as I can)

I have also spent some time on tar removal in the wheel well with Tar-X. The worst tar buildup I've ever seen and I used almost half a bottle because of up to 3 applications to get it all off. I still have some work to do polishing up the door jambs and doing an engine detail, but I can only do so much with my time constraints and with it being winter and the truck gets trashed whenever I drive it anyway.

I'm going to have to pick at posting pictures, and I will get more once I'm actually completely done, but here we go:

After initial wash and clay after I bought it (some pics with some rims that I bought, then sold because I didn't like the handling):

 

[dnoraker]

Test panel shots

Before:

Sanding steps:

After/Before across panel break:

After:

 

[dnoraker]

Right Rear before:

After:

Tailgate before:

After:

Tailgate Before:

After (Rasky pointed out this looks like it's all scratched up, but it's actually my garage door insulation):

 

[dnoraker]

Below the gas tank:

This, and a couple other panels, were more peeled than others, even though it was obviously factory paint:

Slurry!!!!!!

After 3000 dampsanded with Griots 3" and 6" polishers:

After:

Reflection pics with my phone camera at church (I thought the tire track reflections were super cool!)

Driver door before:

 

[dnoraker]

Paint is done!!!! 114,000 miles of wear and tear, car wash scratches, gas pump scratches, most of the orange peel GONE!!!! Now, hopefully I can keep it that way with 3 small children!

Thanks for looking!!!! Feel free to throw me questions and I'll answer when I can.

 

[jeepnxj3]

It looks incredible! Great job! It looks brand new.

 

[RhetoricMixes]

Thats looks fantastic! Im not brave enough to consider wet sanding mainly due to upkeep concerns. But good on ya for fixing your ride up!

 

[Marc08EX]

Wow amazing job!!! I really like the after reflection shots! So is this your first time polishing/wetsanding?

 

[dnoraker]

Wow amazing job!!! I really like the after reflection shots! So is this your first time polishing/wetsanding?

thanks!

- I've been polishing paint for about 8 years. rotary polishing about 5 years.

- I did my first wetsanding job on a Corvette that had been repainted with three coats of clear and the guy saw my work and INSISTED that I learn how to wet sand on his Corvette because the last guy who knew how to sand that worked on it botched it. Turned out great. My second job was on factory paint of an '06 Solstice that belonged my uncle-in-law. Again, he insisted that I sand it because the peel was really bad. I did 2000-2500-3000 grit and buffed it out. Turned out great. Third car was my '05 Pacifica, which was where I learned to damp sand. I used 1500 and 3000 with the DA. Turned out awesome, though I sold it before I did the whole thing. The Suburban was the first bumper-to-bumper, 1500 grit and up sanding that I did with the objective of getting out all the peel I could while leaving enough clear for the rest of the life of the vehicle.

- this was my first time using the Meguiars D300 Microfiber system, which I actually acquired about 1/3 of the way through the project (thanks again for the help, Rasky!!!) and used the Meguiars G100, then bought a Griots DA toward the end of the project (it took like 2 months...a lot happened in that time!)

- first time using Opti-Coat. I found a few high spots that I missed in the application that I will need to buff down, but otherwise it turned out great. I think I may have used too little project on the side I did by myself. The first half Rasky was watching.

 

[dnoraker]

Thats looks fantastic! Im not brave enough to consider wet sanding mainly due to upkeep concerns. But good on ya for fixing your ride up!

You have to balance a lot of factors. The paint has to be thick enough to leave most of the clear for UV protection (Opti-Coat helps to boost this). One wrong move and your clear is gone (I biffed it once on a pillar). It takes a ton of time. It took me at least 60 hours. I could have been doing a lot of other things in that time like playing with my kids or getting house projects done. It's difficult to pick at it because you have to keep re-cleaning the surfaces. It's a very cumbersome process if you have to drive it daily.

I think the biggest issue is that you have to leave enough paint to where you can polish out the inevitable scratches that happen from driving the vehicle. I will shortly have 3 kids and I've already had to scold my son a couple times for using my wheel brush on the paint of previous vehicles!

 

[tw33k2514]

Have no question, just wanted to say how great of a job you did.

The truck looks fantastic man!

 

[dnoraker]

I'm still looking for the perfect rims for this truck, so if anyone has any suggestions, fire away!

Rims I have/had:
- stock are 16x7 with 265/70-16
- had Boss 304 20x8.5 with 285/50-16 for about a week; the braking was reduced, tires wandered in rutted roads, gas mileage dropped about .3-.5 mpg, felt a little choppy for my tastes

Rims I'm considering:
- American Racing Python (discontinued) in 16 or 17"
- American Racing Crush in 17" (found a used set and the seller is willing to ship, though has slight pitting in tight areas and a small patch of chrome peeling in a bolt hole)

I want chrome. I want gently used because I'm not paying $2000 for new rims/tires. I'm trying to find someone who will swap for about $300.

 

[RaskyR1]

The before and after pics say it all, Dan! :dblthumb2:

Definitely a huge job to take on, especially when you can't just leave it inside to sit rather then driving it and cleaning each time you worked on it. It was a pleasure helping you out and I'm glad you're happy with the end results.

lol...anytime you need me to lighten your wallet with more products suggestions don't hesitate to call either!

 

[Hoytman]

Great work fellas.

 

[RaskyR1]

Great work fellas.

The work was all Dan!

 

[Robert8194]

Great job. You have incredible patience.

 

[daves120]

It looks fantastic...great job!

 

[dnoraker]

The before and after pics say it all, Dan! :dblthumb2:

Definitely a huge job to take on, especially when you can't just leave it inside to sit rather then driving it and cleaning each time you worked on it. It was a pleasure helping you out and I'm glad you're happy with the end results.

lol...anytime you need me to lighten your wallet with more products suggestions don't hesitate to call either!

Thanks, man. I learned a ton on this project. Ya- I'm pretty stoked about the results. Now if it would warm up and rain hard to get rid of the road salt dust, I'll finish the deal and coat the remaining trim and windows and get it all dressed up and take some better "after" pics. Im the MAN

You definitely inspired some wallet-lightening on this one! I now have a Griots 6" polisher, a pile of new pads, the DA microfiber system, Tar-X, Opti-Coat, and will be ordering some Menzerna 106fa. Not to mention a pile of Meguiars and Mirka sanding discs and papers

 

[dnoraker]

I figured I could do a synopsis of some of the choices of sanding products and compounds, polishes and pads:

SANDING:

I started out trying 1500 grit with the DA and by hand and decided I could get a more level and even cut by hand. I also learned about how important the interface pad was when I had some uneven cutting on my test panel. I eventually started using less and less DA to sand. It seemed like hand sanding was slightly better at leveling, plus I had a little better accuracy with where I was sanding. In terms of how much peel I was trying to remove, I did some panels where I pretty much got rid of all "shiny spots" from the low points, but I decided that it was better to leave more clear and just knocked down the high points and left some shiny spots that would be removed and further leveled by the 2000 grit step.

It was definitely nice to use 3000 at the end that left an entirely different scratch pattern so I could tell if I removed the scratches from the earlier steps. Later on in the job, I typically went straight left to right with 1500, more of a diagonal with 2000, then a diagonal the opposite direction with 2500. That way I could see fairly clearly if I removed the previous scratches. I did it kind of randomly at first and found it difficult to see my progress. At one point, I was actually finishing with 4000 grit, but it felt like overkill so I stopped after a couple panels. I wanted to finish this thing sometime this decade!

COMPOUNDING:

At first, I was using 3" wool pads on the rotary or the Megs double-sided wool pad on the rotary to remove the sanding scratches. I had to go pretty aggressive because the paint was hard and at first I wasn't doing as well getting rid of the coarser sanding scratches as I stepped down.

Thankfully, Rasky said I should try the new DA microfiber system and lent me some materials. It changed everything. It made it much easier to sand closer to edges and still be able to buff out the scratches at the end and have a lot more control. I kind of wish I could go back and do it again with this system as I left a little more peel around the edges when I first started to make sure I didn't have to buff right up to the edge.

POLISHING:

I wanted to make sure that I removed any compound haze from the D300 before jeweling, so after consulting with Rasky on some options I went with M205 on the rotary with a polishing pad. It made quick work of it and I probably could have stopped there and coated it. I did that before on the same color vehicle a few years ago and it still didn't show any holograms a year later.

JEWELING:

For jeweling, Rasky was another set of eyes to try a few things. We tried Optimum Final Polish II (I think....whatever the finest polish is called) with the Griots DA on a finishing pad, I think we may have tried Menzerna 85RD on a finishing pad with the DA as well, but after trying 85RD with the rotary and an LC blue pad we decided that looked the best. It had the clearest reflections under different lighting and showed the deepest blue and clearest metal flake.

 

[dnoraker]

Great job. You have incredible patience.

I whined a lot through about the last third of the project. I wanted to be done so badly and get my life back to normal. I was staying up until 1-2am frequently and was always tired. I didn't think it would go as long as it did. I figured maybe 40 hours and be done within a month. I think it was more like two months, and I'm still not really done yet because I want to polish door jambs and do some more Opti-coat-ing and detail the engine.

The key was keeping my eye on the end goal. I knew this was a vehicle that I intended to keep for a long time. It has a lot of years in it and I don't have to worry about capacity like all my previous vehicles that I sold because of capacity problems. And, it's also a demonstration vehicle for what I can do with my detailing services, though I don't normally offer full wet sanding on factory paint!