Marine Blue

Rob,

I would take the Dawn off your list and replace it with any good car wash soap. Add #83 Meguiars Dual Action Cleaner Polish before the #3 Polish. When using the Meguiars make sure you focus on one panel at a time, use enough pressure to compress the Orange Griots pad to nearly half of it's original thickness and work the polish until it's nearly gone. You can also keep the pad over any deeper scratches to help level the paint around them. Follow this with the #3 to remove the tiny scratches that make it look like the paint is hazy.

Follow with the hand glaze if you want otherwise go straigth to your wax of choice.



Bob,

Your car looks awesome. It's really hard to get a good reflection like that from a white paint, that is impressive. I can't remember if I've met you before at one of the local events?

Marine Blue

As an aside, I know that #83 With Orange Pad works on single stage red paint, tested it on Greg's GTS when he was visiting to show him how easy it is to make his car's paint even more perfect.

John V

Rob,

Dark colors in general are very hard with respect to spider webbing ( the tiny surface haze defect that is almost invisible in the garage but amplified in direct sunlight.)

The best method I found came from Zaino recommendations and it includes-
1- dawn wash then claybar
2- rotary buff with Finesse it fine.
3- Porter cable swirl removal using foam pad and 3M swirl remover for dark colors.
4- 3 coats Zaino Z5 (with zxf)
5- Next day 3 additional coats Zaino Z2 (with zfx)

In all steps, wipe only with made in USA 100% pure cotton towels (of good brand name)

voskian

Afshin, thanks for the compliments on the car..yours looks great too. The car is metallic silver, only looks white in the garage light. I have been going to the PCA meet at the MOT for the last 6 years , but missed last year. Tried to get out to Taz' once or twice and made the trip down to the Groton Sub base end of last fall with Dave, Rick and couple others.

Most weekends of the summer I'm up in Maine at our place in Scarborough, so I miss most weekend GTGs.

Will try harder this summer!

Pic below 2006 PCA concours at MOT in Boston. Mines the silver one in front.

Bob Voskian
89 928 S4 SILVER Metallic

dr bob

Purpose of using Dawn is to get as much of the old wax/grease/slime/polish off the paint before starting the new clean/polish/wax process. Regular car wash soapa and detergents are specifically formulated to leave most of the old wax on the paint, so would be a poor choice for this duty. Meanwhile, Dawn is formulated to be pH neutral and therefore relatively kind to paint. There are rumors/urban myths/legends floating around about how Dawn is so caustic it will eat the paint off the car, but that's hardly the case. It wouldn't be appropriate for Mrs. Dawn to have her hands eaten off by her dishwashing detergent. If it's kind enough for her paws, it's easily gentle enough for car paint.

Marine Blue

Bob I've also heard the Dawn/caustic rumors but I've never done enough research to determine if there's any truth to it.

I will say however that if you're polishing paint any wax that is on surface will disappear very very quickly. Wax only provides that very thin layer of protection (mostly helps dirt and other contaminants from sticking to paint) so the minute you put a polish to the paint you will remove any protection. Dawn would definitely be a good idea if you're paint were already perfect and you weren't planning on doing any polishing. This is especially important when switching from a carnauba to a synthetic like Zaino.

I still say stick with a car wash soap that was specifically designed for the paint, trim, plastic and metals on cars. These soaps also have additves which help water sheet off of the paint to help with drying.

reedvalve

Afshin-

Cool poster on your garage wall (as seen reflected in your car's hood) back in an earlier post. I was at Le Mans in 89 when the Mercedes won and it was something else.

Your car looks incredible. I'm inspired to do some polishing to my car.

-Ethan


.
87 s4 Indischrot
.
82 Rosewood (killed in a flood)
.

greg928GTS

Would you like to do some more testing?

Rob Edwards

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Afshin- I mentioned Dawn because I wanted to ensure that I stripped whatever may have been on the car when I bought it (2+ years and I've only done one proper paint correction, last June). I usually use Griot's car wash for routine washes and really like it. But since there's year-old Rejex on it (and I think I either used too much or didn't work the hand glaze enough, as I got some streaking with it when applied last year), I want to make sure that I remove all the old product.

I don't think I spent enough time polishing each panel last time, we'll fix that soon. I need to get ready for the HB concours in June, I think I'll enter a judged class this year.

I also recently read somewhere (the concours forum?) that you can rub down the car with rubbing alcohol after the first wash to remove any residual was/oils. I was at Costco yesterday and you can get 2 liters of 70% isopropyl for less than $3.

Marine Blue

Harvey,

Here's a link to a store which sells the backing plate and adaptors.

http://www.autogeek.net/dual-action-backing-plates.html

Good luck!

IcemanG17

Bob
Your 89 does look pretty good in that pic.....but black is the hardest color, but it does look the best when done right too Your steps look pretty good, but I would change the imperial hand glaze.....glazes to "fill" swirls and scratches temporarily but don't last long...then putting the Rejex on top of it, reduced the lifespan of the Rejex and could cause hazing.....

Heres the steps I just did on my single stage red 928

1. Wash Optimum No rinse
2. Clay (Adams clay with quick detailer) (NOTE the adams clay is pretty aggresive)
3. Polish whole car with Rotary set to 1000rpm with optimum polish and white LC CCS pads
4. Go over rough areas and set speed up to 1500, then back down to 1000
5. Go over really rough areas with Optimum Hyper Compound on Yellow LC CCS pads at 1500
6. Go back over step 5 area backwards (step 4 then 3)
7. Review work and put on final coat of Opti Seal...
8. Wait a day, lightly dust with Microfiber and another coat of Opti seal....DONE
6. Rejex

nhporsche87

Afshin,

At least you have found a way to contribute, i'm not contributing yet, it will come I am sure

H2

Thank you, Afshin. My order gets called in tomorrow. Now I can use the other supplies I got from Griot.

Harvey

Marine Blue

Greg,

You know I will help you when you're ready.

Marine Blue

It's been a while since I posted and I have been experimenting with different waxes to determine what looks best. I tried S100 Carnauba, Meguiars NXT Tech and Meguiars #26 and decided that #26 is by far the best for my requirements.

The carnauba left the deepest finish and truly darkened the appearance of the car but it didn't have a high gloss nor did it offer any protection. I didn't care for the look of the NXT, just too reflective and didn't allow the metallic to show through. #26 is a happy medium between the two and worked beautifully. I finished with Meguiars Ultimate Quick Detailer which I think is by far one of the best detail sprays I've ever used. It not only enhances the gloss but more importantly it leaves the surface with a coating that doesn't allow anything (not even tree sap!) to stick on it. A bit expensive but ok for garage queen duty that doesn't see much weather.

Here's a couple of shots I took after completion including the products used.