North Miami Beach Police Mobil Command Unit - Show Car Makeover

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

North Miami Beach Police Mobil Command Unit - Show Car Makeover



Before

Here's I've circled them to show the general location...

Ouch! Here's a little closer photo of the scratches...

Fast forward to Thursday, April 12th and here's John getting ready to pull the Mobil Command Center into our studio. Before John pulls this big rig inside I took a couple of shots of the finish quality...

It's not good but I've seen a lot worse...

It barely fits... there's a couple of free inches in the front and the rear...

Here I'm looking straight up and you can see were the door is going to come down and just miss the cable to the camera...

Snug as a bug in a rug...

Nice fit...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Time to get BUSY!


The paint on custom trailers like these tend to be very thin, what this means is you are very limited in what you can do to actually "remove" things like swirls and especially scratches because there's just not enough film build to work with safely.

So after some testing, we chose to play it safe and machine buff the paint with the Rupes 15 and 21 Bigfoot polishers along with their white foam finishing pads and there Rupes Diamond Ultra Fine Gel Polish

What this process is going to do is remove a lot of the shallow swirls and scratches and improve, not completely remove the deeper scratches.

We all wanted to do our best and that means removing all the scratches but the paint is just too thin to do this safely.

After machine polishing the paint which will also restore a deep, dark finish, we then machine applied the Blackfire BlackICE.

Around 14 guys showed up to help out and I have to say, I was very impressed with how hard everyone worked and the teamwork taking place throughout the project.

These pictures tell the story...

Here's Paul and Robert starting out up top...

In the back is Juan, then Dan and then John...

Here's Chris aka Italian Guy...

Machine applying the new Blackfire BlackICE...

Juan machine waxing...

Robert laying down some BlackICE...

My good buddy Jeff is a machine, while most everyone else is working on the trailer he's tackling the cab...

Paul using the Rupes Bigfoot 15...

John's working the back...

Craig is using the Rupes Bigfoot 21...

Paul machine waxing...

After it cooled off a little outside we opened the garage door to let in a little more light while Craig and John worked on the back...

Here's me and Dan tackling the back upper portion...

Once down, time to turn the truck around and tackle the other side...

Here's Robert's new Porsche... nice Robert!

Fits with just inches to spare...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Continued....


Here's Jim using the Rupes Bigfoot 15, this was the first time Jim ever used the Rupes system...

Craig and John taking a breather...

Me and John tackling the upper portion of the driver's side...

Getting dark on us...

When I watch Juan work I can tell he's no stranger to the buffer...

Lots of waxing...

And lots of wiping...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Continued....


Chris was so nice to tackle the greasy, grimy tires. Here he is using the Tornador Air Foam Gun with Blackfire APC...

Foam gives your product "dwell time" so the cleaners will cling to the surface where they can go to work dissolving and emulsifying dirt and in this case some type of greasy tire dressing.

Next Chris lets the Porter Cable do the scrubbing with a Cyclo Green Brush...

Later Chris put TUF Shine Tire Clear Coat on the tires...

Here's Adam aka Harleyguy taking lead on the metal polishing for the wheels... Chris and Jeff helped out too...

Here's Jeff using the Flex PE14 with some Blackfire Metal Polish on the front wheels...

Steve aka Indy, dresses all the plastic trim with Wolfgang Exterior Trim Sealant...

1000 times better... good job guys...

Craig and John tackled the diamond plate rear bumper...

Much better...

:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

And now here's the beauty shots...

This was a fairly simple process but the results came out awesome...

We ran late as this was a HUGE project to tackle and about half of the team needed to get heading home. Here's the last men standing...

From left to right...

Chris, Tim, Dan, Craig, John and Juan...

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

On Autogeek.net


BLACKFIRE BlackICE Hybrid Montan Sealant Wax

Rupes LHR 21ES Big Foot Random Orbital Polisher

Rupes LHR 15ES Big Foot Random Orbital Polisher

Rupes Diamond Ultra Fine Gel Polish

Rupes Foam Pads - We used 4", 6" and 7" White Finishing Foam Pads

Autogeek Z-011D Tornador Air Foamer HP

BLACKFIRE All-In-One All Purpose Cleaner

Cyclo Aqua Soft Carpet Brush - On the Porter Cable to Machine Scrub Tires

Porter Cable 7424XP Dual Action Polisher - Or Tire Scrubber

BLACKFIRE Fine Cut Aluminum Polish

Wolfgang Exterior Trim Sealant 8 oz

Griots Garage Professional Random Orbital 3 Inch Polisher - For machine applying waxes and sealants


:dblthumb2:

 

[DRT BRD]

Amazing job fellas! Well done!

 

[Harleyguy]

Came out great Mike sorry had to leave early ran out of steam caused by a bad week at work .It's going to be hard too top that Extreme Makeover we've done some crazy cars that makeover tops the cake for sure .

 

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Unreal, absolutely unreal! Talk about A TON of work!!!! GREAT job to everyone that was involved!! :dblthumb2:

I assume those large scratches are still there, considering only a finishing polish was used?

 

[Johnnyboy]

Awesome turnaround!

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Unreal, absolutely unreal! Talk about A TON of work!!!! GREAT job to everyone that was involved!! :dblthumb2:

Could have used your help too buddy...

I assume those large scratches are still there, considering only a finishing polish was used?

The deepest portions are...

Remember, single stage black paint tends to be the softest paint there is so swirls and scratches buff out pretty easy even with fine polishes. The paint on the trailer was just too thin to get aggressive with so we took the least aggressive approach.

One thing I've been recommending for years when goes like this,

"You can't always remove a scratch but you can often time improve a scratch to the point that you can no longer easily see it"​

And just as important, you can remove it to the point you can live with it versus repainting your car or in this case, about a million dollar mobile command center...


:dblthumb2:

 

[rms64]

Incredible job ! That thing is more intimidating than ever.

I'm wondering - how much of the BlackICE was used?

 

[57BORNTORUN]

Incredible job ! That thing is more intimidating than ever.

I'm wondering - how much of the BlackICE was used?

We used just shy of half of a container.A little goes a long way.:buffing:

 

[rms64]

We used just shy of half of a container.A little goes a long way.:buffing:

Thank you Sir!

 

[ARizzle]

Great job! Just wondering how you got the foam to be so thick that it sticks onto the wheels? I can't seem to get anywhere near that amount of thickness with my Foam Cannon

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

We used just shy of half of a container.A little goes a long way.:buffing:

Actually, a lot less than that because this was the same jar from the Monte Carlo Show Car Makeover project...


1987 Monte Carlo Extreme Makeover with Rupes and Blackfire BlackICE

 

[My Detailing Guys]

Great job done by all! :dblthumb2:

Greg

 

[Malborex]

Interesting to see that the Paint was very thin on that truck. How hard was it ? Some Friends and i just polished an ambulance from the German Red Cross and we coudn't get out all the swirls cause the paint was so hard. Even a Yellow Heavy Cutting Pad with Menzerna FG 500 didn't remove all the swirl with one pass.

I hope it's ok to share the Show it off from it.

It's in german but the pictures speak for themselve

[MB Sprinter 316 CDI aka Rettungswagen] feat. [1z Hartglanz]Der Endgegner vom DRK getarnt als Rettungswagen - Show it off für Maschinenpolitur - Autopflegeforum

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

Interesting to see that the Paint was very thin on that truck. How hard was it ?

Paint is normally very thin on the "trailer" part of this truck and that's the norm for the trailer industry.

When it comes to paint softness and hardness, generally speaking, single stage black paint is the softest paint there is because the pigment, "Carbon Black" is soft in and of itself and it makes any resin you add it to softer.

Conversely, single stage white paint tends to be the hardest paint there is because the pigment used for single stage white paint is Titanium Dioxide Powder and is hard in and of itself and thus makes any resin you add it too harder.

Some Friends and i just polished an ambulance from the German Red Cross and we couldn't get out all the swirls cause the paint was so hard.

The Ambulance in your write-up is white, do you remember pulling white pigment onto your buffing pad as you buffed on it?

I talk about the hardness of white paint in this article...

The Lesson White Paint Teaches Us

Look for the section on the Mohs Hardness Scale

And check out the cool 1959 Cadillac Flattop I used to own...

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Incredible work on that Behomoth. Imagine one guy doing the entire thing. That would take a week.