1967 Mustang GTA Fastback - Pictures & Comments Thread

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

1967 Mustang GTA Fastback - Pictures & Comments Thread


Beauty Shots...

Here's the team that made the magic happen! From left to right...

Frank, Al, Josue, Al, Bill, Tim, Craig, Robert, Chris, Andy, John and Gary.

Not pictured: Robert's son Nicholas

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Before Pictures - Outside

Below are some pictures I took of Bill's Mustang during last Tuesday's local car show.
I'm not very good at night time photography, here's what I could capture using the overhead parking lot lights to reveal the true condition of the paint.

This is a full size section cropped out of the above resized picture...

Before Pictures - Inside

Here's some pictures I took on Thursday night, February 27th, 2014, after Bill arrived and we moved his car into the show car garage.


Looks pretty good from 15 feet away...

Here's what the paint really looks like though....

Dull, scratched paint
This is the top, front of the driver's side front fender.

This is a cropped out section of the above in full size. Not sure what caused this dull appearance. Looks like either oxidation of the clear coat something stained the clearcoat.

Same area only I took this while standing at the front of the car.

Pig Tails
My finger is pointing to pig tail scratches. These typically come from machine sand if single abrasive grit particle gets trapped between the sanding disc and the paint. They can also come from a pad on a rotary buffer for the same reason.

The pig tails were all over the roof and the hood and later you'll see pictures where we re-sanded to remove them.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Inspecting for bonded contaminants


After inspecting the paint visually for swirls and scratches, Andy inspects the paint for above surface bonded contaminants using the Baggie Test.

After Andy felt the paint, myself, Al and Bill the owner did the same and we all came to the same conclusion. The paint felt rough, like #80 Grit Sandpaper.

So next up we're going to decontaminate the paint using Nanoskin Autoscrub Towels and Pads.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Gloss comes from a smooth surface


If you want the paint on your car to be as glossy as possible, it all starts by making the paint as smooth and flat as possible.

Contaminants like overspray paint, industrial fallout, tree sap mist that are bonded to the surface of your car's paint create a rough texture, this is what you're feeling when you do the baggie test.

If you want your car's paint to be glossy you need to remove the contaminants. To remove the contaminants on Bill's 1967 Mustang GTA we're going to use products from the Nanoskin company including the Nanoskin Autoscrub Pads on dual action polishers and by hand using the Nanoskin Autoscrub Towels. You can also get Nanoskin Autoscrub Wash Mitts and decontaminate your car during the washing process. I cover all of these in my how-to book.

How to decontaminate a 1967 Mustang GTA Fastback

Here's Al using a Medium Grade Nanoskin Autoscrub Pad on a Porter Cable 7424XP dual action polisher to remove contamination off the deck lid. The speed setting on the Porter Cable needs to be on the 4-5 setting. For a lubricant we Detailer's Universal Clay Lube.

Here's Bill the owner using a Yellow, Medium Grade Nanoskin Autoscrub Towel to decontaminate the paint around the back window.

Here's Frank using a Yellow Medium Grade Nanosking Pad on a Porter Cable 7424XP to decontaminate the hood.

Here's Chris using a 4" Yellow Medium Grade Nanoskin Autoscrub pad on the door...

Here's Al using a Blue Fine Grade Nanoskin Autoscrub Towel for the first time on the roof.

Here's Bill moving on to new territory and knocking out the driver's door.

Here's Al using a Blue Medium Grade Towel on the back of the Mustang to get into the tight areas.

On Autogeek.net


Nanoskin products

 

[57BORNTORUN]

Another one we knocked outa the park.I followed Bill most of the way home last night and we hit some rain.Good thing you gave him some water less wash Mike.This car is stunning (FOR A FORD) but we hold no bias in the SHOW CAR GARAGE.Bring us your tired, your swirls, holograms, scratches, pigtails, rids ect. and the ever changing "A-TEAM" with our fear-less leader...Mike Phillips will bring the paint to the best it can offer. (Plus we eat pizza.)Good job Guys.:buffing:

 

[Meghan]

...Mike Phillips will bring the paint to the best it can offer. (Plus we eat pizza.)Good job Guys.:buffing:

If I knew pizza was on the way I would have stayed! Great job on the car guys and I know Bill appreciates all the work!

 

[FrankS]

Another one we knocked outa the park...Bring us your tired, your swirls, holograms, scratches, pigtails, rids ect. and the ever changing "A-TEAM" with our fear-less leader...Mike Phillips will bring the paint to the best it can offer. (Plus we eat pizza.)...

:iagree:

Paint came out looking outstanding...ready for show. The ever-changing "A-Team" and of course our fearless leader Mike Phillips did a great job and thanks Bill for the delicious pizza and for letting us work on your beautiful car! :buffing:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

How to remove swirls and scratches by machine

After decontaminating the paint, the next step is to remove the swirls and scratches. For this I let the guy pick whichever tool they like the most or want to get some experience with and the tools of choice for this project were in no specific order,

Flex PE14 Rotary Polisher
Porter Cable 7424XP
Rupes Bigfoot 21
Rupes Duetto 12

For polish we used Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover. This is a medium cut polish that works well with any tool, any pad and on any paint system. You can even use it by hand for tight or intricate areas where you cannot safely fit a buffing pad.

Test Spot
Before we started, I did the test spot on Bill's Mustang. The test spot is where you test all the pads, products, tools and technique to one small area and make sure you're getting exactly the results you want in this one small area before buffing out the rest of the car.

If you process can make one small area look good then it's reasonable to assume if you duplicate this process over the rest of the car you'll get the same great results.

Here's my article on doing a Test Spot

How To Do a Test Spot



When I did the test spot I found the swirls and scratches came out very easy and the clearcoat paint for this custom paint job polished up really nice. So after the test spot I turned the guys loose on Bill's Mustang.



Here's Al, a member of the local BMW Club using the Porter Cable 7424XP with a Lake Country 5.5" Orange Foam Cutting pad removing the swirls and scratches on the deck lid.

Here's Frank removing the swirls off the hood...

Here's Al, Bill's buddy using the Porter Cable 7424XP for the very first time.

Teamwork
Here's Andy on the left and Frank on the right and in front of Frank is Josue working the Flex PE14 Rotary Polisher.

Rupes Duetto
Here's Chris, on the other side of the roof and Craig on the passenger side tackling the roof. These two guys are using the Rupes Duetto. Chris is using a factory production unit while Craig is using one of 4 Prototypes sent out pre-production for testing.

Two guys named Al
The Al pointing to the deck lid to the other Al, was commenting on how much nicer the paint looked after machine polishing.

Here's Nicholas Diterlizzi working a Bigfoot Orbital Polisher on the passenger side rear fender...

Here's Craig polishing the passenger side door with the Rupes Duetto (Prototype)

Here's Chris using a pad conditioning brush to clean the face of his buffing pad. (Very important)

Here's Frank using the Rupes Duetto on the driver's side fender...

Chris using the Porter Cable. Note in all the pictures now how clear and shiny the paint is becoming?

Andy using a Porter Cable 7424XP on the passenger side hood...

There were some sanding marks just above the fender lip that Nicholas is working on with the help of his dad Robert using a Flex PE14 rotary polisher.

On Autogeek.net

Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover - 16 ounce


Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover - 32 ounce

Polishers - Flex, Porter Cable, Rupes

Lake Country Buffing Pads

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Pig Tails

Remember the pig tails in the picture posted previously?

Sore Thumb
After the entire car was polished using the Advanced Swirl Remover all of the shallow swirls and scratches had been removed however, deeper scratches like the pig tails still remained and now with no shallow scratches surrounding them to camouflage them they stood out like a sore thumb.

See my article on Random Isolated Deeper Scratches or RIDS for more information.

RIDS - The Definition of RIDS and the story behind the term...


RIDS are different than Pig Tails and Tracers but the fact remains, when you machine polish a car you first remove all the shallow defects and this then reveals all the deeper defects no matter how they were inflicted.

More info on the different types of paint defects here,

Tracers Tracers - RIDS - Pigtails - Cobweb Swirls - Rotary Buffer Swirls - Holograms - Water Spots - Bird Drooping Etchings - Micro-Marring




Machine Sanding = More Control + Cooler for the paint
Instead of getting more aggressive with a compound to remove the pig tails we chose to wet sand the paint using 3M Trizact #3000 Grit Sanding Discs on a Griot's Garage 3" Mini Polisher.





The Defelsko PosiTest DFT Combo Electronic Paint Thickness Gauge

First... this is a custom paint job so the clearcoat will tend to be thicker than a factory clearcoat. Still, I want to measure how thin or thick the total film-build is to give me a big picture idea for what I'm working on.

After taking a few measurements the readings were all fairly consistent so I made the decision with Bill's permission to go ahead and machine wet sand the pig tails and deeper straight line scratches out of the hood and roof.

Small Footprint + Super easy to control
Griot's Garage 3" Mini Polisher is my tool of choice for machine wetsanding isolated defects.

1/4" Interface Pad
Be sure to get an interface pad if you're going to do any machine wetsanding. It makes the sanding process less aggressive and the cushion provided by the foam core helps the sanding disc to conform to curves.

Mist a little water with a drop or two of soap mixed in for a lubricant...

Keep the sander moving and stop and inspect often so you only sand enough to level the surface and remove the defects.

Sanding out defects on the hood....

Tag Team
As I continued around the car sanding out pig tails and RIDS Robert followed me with the Flex PE14 Rotary Polisher, a wool cutting pad and Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover and removed the sanding marks.

On Autogeek.net


The Defelsko PosiTest DFT Combo Electronic Paint Thickness Gauge

#3000 3M Trizact Hookit 3 Inch Foam Discs

#5000 3M Trizact Hookit 3 Inch Foam Discs

3M Vinyl Tape 1/4 Inch - 06405

3M Vinyl Tape 1/8 Inch - 06404

Meguiars Unigrit 3 Inch Foam Interface Pad

Griots Garage 3 Inch Orbital Polisher

 

[mrclean]

this mustang came out great! it was an honor to work on such a beautiful car. it's always worth the drive to spend time working with the fellas.

mike, tell bill that bbq chicken pizza was the best pizza ive eaten in a while. thanks Bill!

also the paste wax that we used is phenomenal!
Pinnacle Souveran Paste Carnauba Wax is Brilliant on Red- Awesome on Black! Souvern is hand poured, one container at a time, and boxed with an

i must say mike, i've gotten used to the flex rotary and i see myself buying it in the near future. great piece of german engineering.

see you guys at detail fest!

 

[Pats300zx]

Beautiful work Guys...What a classic...

Makes me wish I lived closer and could come to one of these sessions sometimes.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Final Polishing Step

As Robert worked around the Mustang removing my sanding marks, the rest of the team followed Robert removing any holograms left by the fibers of the wool pad and then everyone pitched in for the final polishing step.

For the final polishing step we used Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish with Lake Country black foam polishing pads. Again, I let the guys choose the tools they wanted to use for this step. Anyone not running a buffer helped to wipe polish residue off the paint.

On Autogeek.net

Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish

5.5" Lake Country Black Foam Finishing Pads

After all the machine polishing was over, I remeasured the roof...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Creating the sizzling shine!

Next up it's time to seal the paint and for this we're using Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax. You can apply this wax by hand but my personal preference for show car work is to do everything by machine and remove the human element from the process as much as is possible.

Wax-on!
The entire exterior now has a uniform layer of Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax on it.

Wax-off!

On Autogeek.net

Pinnacle Souveran Paste Wax

Griot's Garage 3" Mini Polisher

Red Ultrasoft Wax/Sealant 3.5 inch Pad

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

These are the same pictures found in the first post but if you're read through this entire thread following along the various step we performed to this car and the order we did them in, then after wiping off the wax, here are the results again.



Beauty Shots...

Here's the team that made the magic happen! From left to right...

Frank, Al, Josue, Al, Bill, Tim, Craig, Robert, Chris, Andy, John and Gary.

Not pictured: Robert's son Nicholas

Here's the walk-around video I took with my iPhone after we finished this project.

[video=youtube_share;eXL0XlA_xRY&feature=share&list=UU5x3E51Y0-SA9CWVICtNIeQ"]1967 Mustang GTA Fastback - Remove Swirls -...[/video]​

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

this mustang came out great! it was an honor to work on such a beautiful car. it's always worth the drive to spend time working with the fellas.

These projects always attract really high caliber people including you, nice work lat night.

mike, tell bill that bbq chicken pizza was the best pizza ive eaten in a while. thanks Bill!

I agree. Yummy stuff....

also the paste wax that we used is phenomenal!
Pinnacle Souveran Paste Carnauba Wax is Brilliant on Red- Awesome on Black! Souvern is hand poured, one container at a time, and boxed with an

I agree, more good stuff....

i must say mike, i've gotten used to the flex rotary and i see myself buying it in the near future. great piece of german engineering.

see you guys at detail fest!

The Flex PE14 Rotary Polisher, nice tool.

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Special thanks to Bill's wife for making us fresh, homemade Peanut Butter Cookies!

Im the MAN Im the MAN Im the MAN Im the MAN Im the MAN

 

[Chris@AutoCleanse]

Once again the team transformed showcar results as usual. Proper techniques and pad combination with a prior test spot before hand to dial in the process and from there we were good to go. The pizza and peanut butter cookies were excellent and a nice treat. Once again Mike Phillips brought in a unique car for us to buff on, until next time .......

 

[alfortuna]

WOW!!! How satisfying was that? It was pure pleasure to behold the deep, glossy finish on the blazing red Mustang. My favorite moment was seeing true joy on Bill's face as he gazed at his rejuvenated Pony car. Thank you, Mike, for getting the best out of your team on this project car and creating such an awesome result. Great job with the pictures and write-up, too. You are The Man! My thanks to Robert, Frank, Andy and, of course, Mike for their expert advice and support of this newbie. Looking forward to Detail Fest and the next project car. Al Fortuna

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." Albert Einstein

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

My favorite moment was seeing true joy on Bill's face as he gazed at his rejuvenated Pony car.

I agree. It's so much more rewarding when the owner of the car appreciates all the hard work that goes into a makeover like we did to this Mustang.

This car will be on display at Detail Fest too...


:xyxthumbs:

 

[javip2k]

Mike: Great work, a dedicated team and super finish. Congrats, nice shots :applause: