Jet Black E46 BMW M3 - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

This particular car is a 2003 model with the current owner having owned it since 2005 - unfortunately the many years of improper care showed. The car has a special place in the owners heart and with me being on leave at the time it was a unique opportunity to work under no time constraints and rekindle the love he has for the car, by slowly bringing her back to her former glory over the course of a week.

I have been looking to a detail like this ever since I started doing this :grin:

Day 1 - Wheels, arches and brake calipers

Arches: Rinsed with a HP washer, sprayed with Cyclo APC via a foaming trigger head and allowed to dwell and then agitated with a Mothers Fender Well Brush. This was followed with another HP Rinse. The arches would later be dressed with Glossworx Extreme Tyre Shine - a product I am liking more and more for this application - simply spray and walk away.

Tires: Cleaned with Glossworx Wheel and Tire Cleaner and a Mothers Tire Brush and later dressed with 2 coats of Optimum Optibond Tire Gel 12 hours apart.

Wheels: Rinsed with a HP washer then cleaned using AF Imperial Wheel Cleaner and a Daytona Jnr and various Valet Pro Boar Hairs brushes and dried. The wheels were then thoroughly sprayed with AF Iron Out which was agitated after being allowed to dwell for a few minutes, using the same brushes, and then thoroughly rinsed and dried them. I then used Valet Pro Citrus Tar & Glue Remover to remove any tar spots - whilst it works a bit slower than other tar removers, it does not contain many of the harmful chemicals, and so has found a place in my detailing arsenal. The wheels were then sprayed with Cyclo APC via foaming trigger and this was left to dwell in order to ensure there were no remaining residues. They would then be sprayed down when the car was pre-foamed as a final clean. The wheels would later be sealed with Menzerna Powerlock

Brake Calipers: Rinsed with a HP washer, sprayed with Cyclo APC via a foaming trigger head and allowed to dwell and then agitated with a Valet Pro Boars Hair Brush. This was followed with AF Iron out to help remove some of the stubborn brake dust. The calipers would later be sealed with Menzerna Powerlock.

A few pics. Notice the visible tar spots in the 3rd picture. And for the record, the Iron-X bottle actually contains Autofinesse Iron Out - I usually purchase Iron Out in 5L bottles and needed a spray bottle with a chemical resistant sprayer, which the Iron-x bottle has.

Day 2 - Wash Engine Bay, Door Shuts, Boot Shut, Inside Fuel Flap and Car

Engine Bay: Sprayed with Cyclo APC via a foaming trigger head, agitated with Valet Pro Brushes then HP Rinse (mist setting) and dried out with compressed air. The bay was then dressed using Shield Sheen
Door shuts, window rubbers, fuel flap, badges: Cleaned using Cyclo APC with Valet Pro brushed and then HP Rinsed
Wash: Prefoamed using Chemical Guys Maxisuds II via foam cannon followed by a 2BM wash with Lambswool wash mitts and Glossworx Shampoo. The car was then rinsed.
Dry: ONR at QD strength with WW Drying towels and compressed air

Day 3 - Decontamination and test spots

First the car was sprayed with ample AF Iron Out which was allowed to dwell before being thoroughly rinsed. I then used Valet Pro Citrus Tar & Glue Remover to remove any tar spots and re-foamed the car and rinsed and dried it before beginning claying, which was done using Autoglym Fine Grade clay and Glossworx Clay Lube, which worked really well, but I was not particularly fond of the smell - it is not bad, just not nice either.

Test Spots Once the paint was clean I was able to commence test spots.... I had the luxury of trying out a few combinations including D300 on Meguiars MF Pad for the first time. Ultimately I settled on the following:

Compounding: Menzerna FG400 on a Hydro-Tech 5.5 Inch Cyan Pad and on LC 4" Orange CCS Pads for the initial defect removal which included a lot of RIDS and in some really bad areas I had to repeat this step.
Initial Polish:Menzerna SF4000 on a Hydro-Tech 5.5 Inch Tangerine Pad and on LC 4" White CCS Pads
Refining Polish:Chemical Guys Blacklight on a Hydro-Tech 5.5 Inch Crimson Pad and on LC 4" Grey CCS Pads

Note: On the Carbon Fiber Sections Menzerna PF2500 with a LC 4" White CCS Pad was used for correction and these were then protected using the Chemical Guys Pete's 53.

Days 4, 5 and 6 - Paint correction

Over the next 3 days countless hours were spent correcting and refining all the painted and carbon fiber surfaces. This is what I started with

During

After

Day 7 - Protection, Interior, Glass, Trim, Exhaust Tips

Protection: 2 Coats of Pete's 53 by hand
Glass : Autoglym Fine Grade Clay / ONR at clay lube strength / Autoglym Fast Glass / StreakFree Microfiber Glass Cleaning Cloth
Door rubbers, plastic trim : Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner / Collinite 845
Interior: Blown out with compressed air / Vacuum / dash and trim wiped down
Leather: Glossworx Leather Cleaner / Various brushes / Damp wipe down / Compressed Air dry / Glossworx Leather Conditioner.
Exhaust tips: Cyclo CM30 APC / Various brushes / Autofinesse Mercury Metal Polish / Mothers Powerball Mini

 

[lawrenceSA]

Some Final Pics (some DSLR and some Cell) - not too shabby for 11 year old paint :thumbup:

Total time spent on the car was 51 hours.

Thanks for looking and as always and questions or comments are welcomed.

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Beautiful and thorough attention to Detail Lawrence! The amount of TLC you have shown this M3 really shows!

You mentioned testing D300 and MF but ultimately choose FG400 on foam. Could I please ask your opinion on what happened?

 

[Deranged_9n3]

Awesome work Lawrence !!

 

[runrun411]

Nice work, 6 days, Whew!

 

[KMG]

Looks killer man. I am working on a E46 all next week to prep it to sell.

 

[lawrenceSA]

Beautiful and thorough attention to Detail Lawrence! The amount of TLC you have shown this M3 really shows!

You mentioned testing D300 and MF but ultimately choose FG400 on foam. Could I please ask your opinion on what happened?

Thanks Mike

Yeah I happened to have a friend pop in who had some on him and was kind enough to let me take it for a 'test drive', so I was never really in a position to do the whole car with it.

Awesome work Lawrence !!

Thanks my friend :xyxthumbs:

Nice work, 6 days, Whew!

Thanks - yes it was a while, but like mentioned I was on leave from my normal Monday to Friday job, and the owner was in no rush for the car, so I just worked on it each day until it was done.

Looks killer man. I am working on a E46 all next week to prep it to sell.

Thank you kindly.

 

[DaVinciAutoSpa]

Wow,...that's really impressive. Great job on a beautiful car.

 

[jms493]

Great write up and fantastic pictures. it amazing how much work it is to do it right. People never understand this.

 

[HUMP DIESEL]

As always, amazing turn around and seriously nice write up.

HUMP

 

[antti@561detailing]

Wow...nice one again....really like your art

 

[zmcgovern45]

Very, very nice work!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Wow,...that's really impressive. Great job on a beautiful car.

Thank you very much for your kind words.

Great write up and fantastic pictures. it amazing how much work it is to do it right. People never understand this.

Thanks.

I agree - it takes a fair amount of education before a customer understands exactly what is required, and is then willing to pay for it.

As always, amazing turn around and seriously nice write up.

HUMP

Thank you very much :xyxthumbs:

Wow...nice one again....really like your art

Thanks...my art....hmmm..... I like the sound of that

Very, very nice work!

Thanks very much Zach - I really respect your detailing and photography work, so that means a lot to me :thankyousign::dblthumb2:

 

[Tato]

"I have been looking to a detail like this ever since I started doing this :grin: "

Your above statement tells it all, and luckily enough you were more than prepared to tackle this challenge.

Enjoyed the write up a lot, and results are just perfect, nothing else to add.

I also liked you option to go with the Hydro-techs and Menzerna, have you tried lowering up on pressure on last few passes or worked with constant pressure throughout whole polishing cycle?

The Crimson pad finishing stage is what crowns your work, maybe final improvement overall was little compared to the whole project you executed, however I admire when someone tries to 'squeeze the finish' to the last few drops of shine.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Kind Regards.

 

[RevitalizeAutoSpa]

The Crimson pad finishing stage is what crowns your work, maybe final improvement overall was little compared to the whole project you executed, however I admire when someone tries to 'squeeze the finish' to the last few drops of shine.

Agreed. After a lengthy paint correction job it's easy to just run out of gas and skip that final jeweling stage, but darker paint just cries out for it...

Great job on a beauitful E46.

 

[lawrenceSA]

"I have been looking to a detail like this ever since I started doing this :grin: "

Your above statement tells it all, and luckily enough you were more than prepared to tackle this challenge.

Enjoyed the write up a lot, and results are just perfect, nothing else to add.

I also liked you option to go with the Hydro-techs and Menzerna, have you tried lowering up on pressure on last few passes or worked with constant pressure throughout whole polishing cycle?

The Crimson pad finishing stage is what crowns your work, maybe final improvement overall was little compared to the whole project you executed, however I admire when someone tries to 'squeeze the finish' to the last few drops of shine.

Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Kind Regards.

Thank you so much

My technique when working with Menzerna polishes is as follows:

I will prime a pad, blow it out and add 3 drops of polish

Then I tap out an area usually equal to 2 pads wide x 3 deep until the whole area is covered in polish.

Then I will work the polish on speed 4.5 for FG400/SF4000 or 5 for PF2500 for 2 really slow passes (1" per second) using sufficient pressure to keep the pad rotating at a decent rate (I do not know how to quantify it though)

I then blow out the pad with compressed air (takes all of 5 seconds) - I believe that a) after these 2 passes most of the cutting work will have been done, but not all and b) cleaning the pad out at this point rids it of any abraded paint, gives it a slight cool, and removes and spent polish.

I then immediately get back to the same section but lower the speed to 4. This a) helps keep the temps down and reduces any possible dusting and b) the slower machine speed on the DA results in a less dramatic change in direction and should therefore lead to a better polish - Kevin Brown has some interesting articles on both controlling the polish residue and the using a slow speed setting for final polishing. I maintain constant pressure throughout the process, the thinking being I would like to keep the abrasives engaged with the paint throughout the buffing cycle. I will then make another 4, 5, 6 passes, at maybe a slightly faster arm speed of 1"5 per second, until the polish properly breaks down.....

I then blow out the pad again, add my next 3 drops and do the next section.

I agree that the Crimson pad and a finishing polish is almost a necessity on a black car, but have found that using the above method works well enough for me that even on darker colored cars, FG400 can be worked to LSP ready results for DD's - perhaps not show queens.....

 

[lawrenceSA]

Agreed. After a lengthy paint correction job it's easy to just run out of gas and skip that final jeweling stage, but darker paint just cries out for it...

Great job on a beauitful E46.

Thanks very much.

One of the real joys about this experience (detailing without time constraint) is that it really allows you to never reach the point where it becomes 'hard work'.... If after a few hours of polishing I was feeling 'tired of it' I simply walked out the garage and chilled out with the family for a while, mostly returning a short while later to feed the obsession that is detailing :laughing::buffing:

 

[noslef]

Black paint is so rewarding when done right! Looks great!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Black paint is so rewarding when done right! Looks great!

Thank you - black is one of my favorite colors to work on:xyxthumbs:

 

[LatinFG2]

Awesome work!