Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

I've been collecting bits for my early summer clean for a while now. The car has been carrying the dregs of a coat of Megs Ultimate Paste Wax for months now, and was well overdue a full strip, clean, polish and protect.

The wheels will be getting neglected, purely because they were powdercoated and waxed up to **** only a couple of weeks ago.

Some before shots first, after a bit of spirited summer driving yesterday I picked up some victims:


Rear end Crud:



One of the couple of scratches I'd be attacking today. It's a slight backwards 'C' shape near my forearm reflection:


First up I decided to debadge 'SUBARU'. My mitt keeps catching the lettering, and some of them were barely hanging on... so good excuse to try the look.



Once the boot lid was dealt with, onto the cleaning. Opened up by spunking a load of Megs bug/tar remover to soften up my roadkill from yesterday:


Foam up next, ValetPro PH Neutral stuff...


Whilst dwelling, went around panel gaps, badges, keyholes, etc with my soft brush and some APC:


Mixed up my shampoo for the day, Dodo Juice Born to be Mild laced with some Fairy Liquid to cut out the remaining wax.

Onto rinsing off the foam, and my ritual "let's pretend to be an F1 Aero engineer" for 5mins:


All the bug splatter long gone and not touched the car with a sponge/mitt yet:


All shampoo'd down with fuel cap, car smelling like Ainsley Harriot's kitchen and boot and door shuts all cleaned too:


After drying off, I went with the Auto-Finesse Iron-X equivalent. It smells the same, works the same but the trigger sucks ***, was a proper pain to apply. For anyone not clued up, it goes on clear and reacts red/pink when it dissolves out flakes of iron. These flakes normally appear like little rust spots in your paintwork.


You can see the pink flaring up near the bottom left of the photo. I didn't take any shots of the prolific areas (wheel arches, sills, etc) as I was in a hurry to get it sprayed off before it baked on. I'm paranoid about this stuff, and for good reason too - I saw the scene out of that Volcano film re-enacted several times as little flied landed on the Iron-X and proceeded to watch their legs dissolve beneath them

Rinsed off once again, then time for clay. I went with Megs clay with the Megs QD as a lube. No photo of the "dirty claybar look" as I forgot, but it was pretty clean tbh. Testament I guess to my cleaning regime.

Rinsed/Dryed for the last time... looking a bit cleaner:


I had one more job to do before the F1 came on, which was to tape up ready for machine polishing:


I went in and watched the F1 until they redflagged it, then decided to pause and finish the car first. Came back outside and got to work on the machine polishing.

I was using the Werkstatt Acrylic Kit today, with the Prime acting as my finishing polish. I covered the car with a 3M finishing pad with the Prime, my main concern wasn't correcting swirls simply because I didn't have any. The car was professionally polished back in November and my cleaning has been pretty strict since.

This is the only pic I got of my polisher/pad combo


I worked panel at a time, two passes at '2' speed setting and then two passes at '5' speed setting to break the polish down into a clearish haze. Once I'd done the car like that, I switched to a 3M polishing pad (slightly more aggressive) with some Sonus Restore stuff to attack my one-off scratches.

This is a shot of the backwards 'C' scratch I showed earlier. It's not gone, but it no longer catches the light and is quite well hidden:


Once I treated the car's very few wounds, time for a photo:


Oh, you may also notice my fog covers are de-stickered now. I've got some new ones on order, a well placed stonechip ruined one of my old ones so will replace those on tue/wed and refinish the fog covers once done.

Even photobombing my reflections...


It was now time to work on the next stage of the Werkstatt kit, the "Jett". This is a liquid synthetic wax/sealant which you spray on, then work into the paint and buff off in one action. It's so easy to apply, should have multiple coats with 30mins cure time between. Once the first coat was on, I polished up the glass, exhaust trim and blacked the tyres whilst waiting for the 30mins...


Another coat of Jett went on, followed by another 30mins then finished off with the final part of the Werkstatt kit "Glos" which is a QD type spray. For the next couple of months I will simply be washing, drying and Glos'ing.

Here's what I'd used:


Then some results:








Interior tomorrow...

scoobysteve1983

cracking job fella, looks stunning. what do you use to get your exhaust so shiny?

alphaj12

When can you do mine?

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Cheers mate, Autosol and an MF cloth. Going Decat next week though so I get the feeling it might become more difficult

When I've finished the whole neighborhoods' cars after a day full of "you can do mine next"

scoobyboy1

iTrader: (16)

Did you get the "You'll polish the paint off that" comment also!!! Always get that one from the neighbours when im detailing the car!!!!

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Haha not this time but that is another local favourite!

M2RTXhawkeye

iTrader: (61)

Awsome work there buddy and great write up. Enjoyed reading this

Martin

F1 CJE UK

iTrader: (8)

super clean! nice work

Cannon Fodder

iTrader: (100)

Very nice work indeed, you must have the patience of a saint as I find just claying the car, plus a double wash and cleaning the wheels enough for me.

Okay I may stretch to a polish as well once in a while but that's my limit, if it takes more than a couple of hours then I give someone else the problem.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Nice job what state was the boot in after removing the subaru badges and what did you use to clean up any glue residue?

MattyB1983

iTrader: (51)

Looks amazing fella. Great job.

Matt23

1 of the nices cars I've seen mate, great job.

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

The boot lid has got a couple of chips on it where I guess the badges have been banging on the paint when the bootlid has been slammed shut.

Nothing too dramatic though.

cheekyron

Looks stunning, great detail on such a nice beast!

S3LDM

Fantastic result, all your hard work has paid off

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Cheers guys

No worries, it's not as scary as a few people make out - but I've not had to attack any "major" correction yet.

Did my interior today, used my all-in-one wonder product (aerospace protectant 303) on the interior plastics (I also used this stuff yesterday on the exterior black bits, window seals, etc).

It goes on glossy but once dried it's got a nice matte look to it, perfect.



Shampoo'd and vac'd the mats and then vac'd the seats, doing my best football pitch lawn mower impression on the rears...



I hate my mats, my car came with three genuines and a ****ed driver one. Subaru don't make/sell them anymore for these cars so I'm stuck with third party ones. The pile on these ones looks cheap, and clings to (white) cat hair like a *******. I need to shop around for some better quality ones.

Gave the engine bay a quick wipe down with more aerospace stuff, nothing too severe in here. Did some autosol on the intercooler surround too.

Before:


After:


Gave the car another quick wipe down with the Werkstatt Glos, just because I wanted to... and another cheeky photo...

mervil

iTrader: (5)

Looks bloody lovely mate

Kwik

iTrader: (10)

Great job your cat seems to enjoy it as well.

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Cheers gents, my cat has already been identified as a photobomber on another forum. I've got a project thread going and she's always in shot!

JonMc

iTrader: (51)

Some great work again, I've got all of this to look forward to when mine is running again, but not in quite so much detail - a bucket and splash or fairy liquid for me

Olly.Wrx

iTrader: (10)

Great job,looks super clean!!