91 hr extreme detail by Immaculate Reflections - EXTREMELY pic heavy 280+ you've been warned - Norcal-LSX

GoFast908Z · December 4th, 2009, 12:06 AM

This is an extremely long writeup with a LOT of pics. Just a warning for those with slower connections. This is the most intense detail I've ever done.

I wanted a seriously challenging detail earlier this year, and I set about looking a for a car and owner who wanted to bring their car back from the brink of death. I looked at many cars, but settled on this 98 Trans Am that lived a VERY hard life. Before the current owner bought it, it sat in a field for 2-3 years with no engine or transmission in the Chico area where it's super hot. Also has been in Oklahoma and Reno, so all dry, hot and dusty places. Rodents lived in the engine bay and would climb in through the missing fender vents. Plus when it was sitting nobody really kept the car up, just was on the back burner for the owners. Current owner bought it for next to nothing as a roller and began to rebuild it.

He brought it to me with a new engine/trans/wheels along with realigning some of the gaps that were pretty bad. The doors were scraping the back and bottom edges, and drivers door cracked the paint where it met the driver fender and the clear was chipping away. Every single panel on the car had been repainted at different times and different quality (all poorly done), except the roof and spoiler. There were fisheyes everywhere, overlapping clearcoats, and runs too. The paint was so bad, decided to do a full wetsand on it, which was all done by hand. I learned a lot more about wetsanding durning the process and improved my skills at it as well. I've done some before but never this many hours.

This car is NOT perfect. There are many paint defects, chips, cracked clear etc. However, it is a shocking transformation for what it came from.

Total time invested: 91 hours

When current owner picked it up

Condition of the car when it arrived to me

Graphic images of swirls....

This is where the rodents would climb in and out of the engine bay. This actually cleaned up very well.

Some pics showing the overspray covering the back half of the car

more overspray

Glass polishing

Taillight restoration

After wetsanding

After polishing

Compare that reflection to the other side shown here....

Untouched

Finished

You can see the extreme overspray here

After doing a quick test section from claying and Menz SIP LC orange to get a feel for the paint

Side molding removal and debadging process

You can see the overlapping clearcoats here, it built up a ridge here unfortunately.

More clearcoat overlap....

Run in the clear

Hatch area

Test section on pass side fender

After wool and orange LC (both with SIP)

After compounding, no polishing yet

Rear spoiler removal and hatch restoration

You can see the massive overspray dulling the paint. Almost looks wetsanded, but its only overspray.

Underside of spoiler

Starting the wetsanding

Some hope in sight...

Finished wetsanding (55 hours by hand)

Started compounding....

Compounding is finished and about to go for a wash

I put a coat of Zaino on the hatch since I had a LOT of work left before I would get to the LSP on the rest of the car. Look at it bead!

After a nice wash, its ready for polishing, but a few pics first.

Interior needed some work... So we took it all out. Replaced the carpet with a slightly less nasty one from a donor TA and cleaned every part before going back in the car.

This carpet had to go!

Owner helping scrub and rinse the floorpan

Workin on the seat....

After reinstalling the interior, here is the carpet before/afters.

At this point the polishing was about half done and the owner needed it back to fix a few motor issues, dents, lower it, some interior bits, and tint the windows. There are some light holograms as the polishing isn't done at this point, and I put a quick coat of P21S 100% to protect it until it came back. Here are the pics

I love the clarity of the paint in this pic. All that wetsanding paid off.

So a while later the car comes back to me and I finish the polishing and jeweling. The only time we could get pics was at night with both our schedules being so busy. But you can see the transformation already brought the paint near perfect before it came back for the final touches. Here are the final pics.

Applied the Swissvax Concorso as it sits next to my 427 Z28 in the garage...

If you made it this far, THANK YOU for looking and reading!!!! I appreciate any comments you guys have

LS1-MEX · December 4th, 2009, 12:37 AM

wow....holy shit jeff.....i bow down to you for this detail......you really out did yourself on this 1......very very good work

mickey_7106 · December 4th, 2009, 02:49 AM

all i can say is WOW! great job jeff

blkz28lt1 · December 4th, 2009, 04:11 AM

wow!!!! nice..you totally ravaged that shyt lol.. i wish i could do this, but i cant find any good deals on a da .

GoFast908Z · December 4th, 2009, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LS1-MEX

wow....holy shit jeff.....i bow down to you for this detail......you really out did yourself on this 1......very very good work

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickey_7106

all i can say is WOW! great job jeff

Thank you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by blkz28lt1

wow!!!! nice..you totally ravaged that shyt lol.. i wish i could do this, but i cant find any good deals on a da .

lol thanks man. Check out Autogeek.net. They have a BUNCH of good deals on the PC with lots of packages too.

D1BADZ · December 4th, 2009, 07:40 AM

Nice man, Good to see what wetsanding could do, and know that you can do it! Looks amazing man. congrats

Jeffro · December 4th, 2009, 07:45 AM

damn this thread took me like 30 minutes to look at, and no, i don't have dial up, i just pay attention to detail.

Jeff, you are someone who truly takes pride in your work. Great shit. I wish I could afford for you to have your way with my car.

POSI12BOLT · December 4th, 2009, 07:54 AM

hey Jeff,
I have an INTERIOR challenge for you... I just picked up a '06 Buick LaCrosse that had a minor interior fire, and was overall abused in its short life. The carpet is gross, the leather is abused and stained, etc.

I just got it running yesterday as someone thought it would be fun to remove all the fuses and relays from the fuse box, but the interior is in need of YOU!

I'm going to try and grab some pictures on monday, but if your up for the challenge maybe we can come up with a $$$ amount and I can bring it to you and leave it with your for awhile.

SATANIC · December 4th, 2009, 08:03 AM

,it doesnt look THAT much different...

jk, whole different car, great work

CobraKilla · December 4th, 2009, 09:22 AM

Thanks again Jeff!

I love how my car came out! I couldn't be happier with the results! Jeff obviously worked his butt off on this car and you can see how well it paid off! I would go on and on, but the pictures speak for themselves....

krazykorean35 · December 4th, 2009, 09:41 AM

WOW. that is a damn good detail lol

how long did it take you to UPLOAD all those pics?!

FadedSS · December 4th, 2009, 10:33 AM

amazing work on that ta man. that thing looks nearly brand new

GoFast908Z · December 4th, 2009, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D1BADZ

Nice man, Good to see what wetsanding could do, and know that you can do it! Looks amazing man. congrats

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffro

damn this thread took me like 30 minutes to look at, and no, i don't have dial up, i just pay attention to detail.

Jeff, you are someone who truly takes pride in your work. Great shit. I wish I could afford for you to have your way with my car.

Thanks Jeffro! I appreciate that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by POSI12BOLT

hey Jeff,
I have an INTERIOR challenge for you... I just picked up a '06 Buick LaCrosse that had a minor interior fire, and was overall abused in its short life. The carpet is gross, the leather is abused and stained, etc.

I just got it running yesterday as someone thought it would be fun to remove all the fuses and relays from the fuse box, but the interior is in need of YOU!

I'm going to try and grab some pictures on monday, but if your up for the challenge maybe we can come up with a $$$ amount and I can bring it to you and leave it with your for awhile.

I'm up for another challenge

Shoot me some pics and info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SATANIC

,it doesnt look THAT much different...

jk, whole different car, great work

Thanks buddy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CobraKilla

Thanks again Jeff!

I love how my car came out! I couldn't be happier with the results! Jeff obviously worked his butt off on this car and you can see how well it paid off! I would go on and on, but the pictures speak for themselves....

You're welcome Brad! Glad you are happy with it!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazykorean35

WOW. that is a damn good detail lol

how long did it take you to UPLOAD all those pics?!

Thanks Colin! Took around 5-6 hours to upload the pics and create the post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FadedSS

amazing work on that ta man. that thing looks nearly brand new

Thanks!

Black Bird · December 4th, 2009, 12:14 PM

All i have to say is wow your phenomenal !!!!! man i can twait till my car is done under the knife and i can safely bring it out there to get worked on by your magic hands...great job

SnIpEr · December 4th, 2009, 12:58 PM

OMFG. What a BEAST. I am honestly blown away by what you did with that car. That's so good it's almost like you took pictures of a different one right of the factory line! Wow, I can't wait till I can get my car up to you in the spring time and see what you do with it :]

December 4th, 2009, 12:06 AM	#1
GoFast908Z Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Antioch Posts: 5,138	91 hr extreme detail by Immaculate Reflections - EXTREMELY pic heavy 280+ you've been warned This is an extremely long writeup with a LOT of pics. Just a warning for those with slower connections. This is the most intense detail I've ever done. I wanted a seriously challenging detail earlier this year, and I set about looking a for a car and owner who wanted to bring their car back from the brink of death. I looked at many cars, but settled on this 98 Trans Am that lived a VERY hard life. Before the current owner bought it, it sat in a field for 2-3 years with no engine or transmission in the Chico area where it's super hot. Also has been in Oklahoma and Reno, so all dry, hot and dusty places. Rodents lived in the engine bay and would climb in through the missing fender vents. Plus when it was sitting nobody really kept the car up, just was on the back burner for the owners. Current owner bought it for next to nothing as a roller and began to rebuild it. He brought it to me with a new engine/trans/wheels along with realigning some of the gaps that were pretty bad. The doors were scraping the back and bottom edges, and drivers door cracked the paint where it met the driver fender and the clear was chipping away. Every single panel on the car had been repainted at different times and different quality (all poorly done), except the roof and spoiler. There were fisheyes everywhere, overlapping clearcoats, and runs too. The paint was so bad, decided to do a full wetsand on it, which was all done by hand. I learned a lot more about wetsanding durning the process and improved my skills at it as well. I've done some before but never this many hours. This car is NOT perfect. There are many paint defects, chips, cracked clear etc. However, it is a shocking transformation for what it came from. Total time invested: 91 hours When current owner picked it up Condition of the car when it arrived to me Graphic images of swirls.... This is where the rodents would climb in and out of the engine bay. This actually cleaned up very well. Some pics showing the overspray covering the back half of the car more overspray Glass polishing Taillight restoration After wetsanding After polishing Compare that reflection to the other side shown here.... Untouched Finished You can see the extreme overspray here After doing a quick test section from claying and Menz SIP LC orange to get a feel for the paint Side molding removal and debadging process You can see the overlapping clearcoats here, it built up a ridge here unfortunately. More clearcoat overlap.... Run in the clear Hatch area Test section on pass side fender After wool and orange LC (both with SIP) After compounding, no polishing yet Rear spoiler removal and hatch restoration You can see the massive overspray dulling the paint. Almost looks wetsanded, but its only overspray. Underside of spoiler Starting the wetsanding Some hope in sight... Finished wetsanding (55 hours by hand) Started compounding.... Compounding is finished and about to go for a wash I put a coat of Zaino on the hatch since I had a LOT of work left before I would get to the LSP on the rest of the car. Look at it bead! After a nice wash, its ready for polishing, but a few pics first. Interior needed some work... So we took it all out. Replaced the carpet with a slightly less nasty one from a donor TA and cleaned every part before going back in the car. This carpet had to go! Owner helping scrub and rinse the floorpan Workin on the seat.... After reinstalling the interior, here is the carpet before/afters. At this point the polishing was about half done and the owner needed it back to fix a few motor issues, dents, lower it, some interior bits, and tint the windows. There are some light holograms as the polishing isn't done at this point, and I put a quick coat of P21S 100% to protect it until it came back. Here are the pics I love the clarity of the paint in this pic. All that wetsanding paid off. So a while later the car comes back to me and I finish the polishing and jeweling. The only time we could get pics was at night with both our schedules being so busy. But you can see the transformation already brought the paint near perfect before it came back for the final touches. Here are the final pics. Applied the Swissvax Concorso as it sits next to my 427 Z28 in the garage... If you made it this far, THANK YOU for looking and reading!!!! I appreciate any comments you guys have __________________ Jeff 2005 GMC Sierra SLT 5.3L - daily/detail rig 1998 Camaro Z28 - LS3 427 - 521 RWHP / 473 RWTQ Immaculate Reflections Detailing - PM me for info Some examples of my work: Ferrari F430 Spyder with Challenge wheels Aston Martin DB9 - 3 day correction 91 hours on a Trans Am Last edited by GoFast908Z; December 4th, 2009 at 12:09 AM.

December 4th, 2009, 12:37 AM	#2
LS1-MEX Registered User Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: HAYWARD Posts: 2,626	wow....holy shit jeff.....i bow down to you for this detail......you really out did yourself on this 1......very very good work __________________ PRISTINE DETAILS A NEW STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE

December 4th, 2009, 02:49 AM	#3
mickey_7106 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: East Oakland Posts: 1,266	all i can say is WOW! great job jeff __________________ 2000 C5 Z51 A4 _________ Team "Bad Company" ____________Corvette - Our Pedals Stick Too!

December 4th, 2009, 04:11 AM	#4
blkz28lt1 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: sacramento Posts: 184	wow!!!! nice..you totally ravaged that shyt lol.. i wish i could do this, but i cant find any good deals on a da . __________________ http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...06a3540401.jpg onyx hardtop T/C z28 [/SIZE]hard parker 4 life!!! lets fking rage!!!!

December 4th, 2009, 07:40 AM	#6
D1BADZ Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: San Jose Posts: 783	Nice man, Good to see what wetsanding could do, and know that you can do it! Looks amazing man. congrats __________________ "Responsibilty is a Heavy Responsibilty" -Cheech

December 4th, 2009, 07:45 AM	#7
Jeffro Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: my garage in the 510 looking for 9's Posts: 7,583	damn this thread took me like 30 minutes to look at, and no, i don't have dial up, i just pay attention to detail. Jeff, you are someone who truly takes pride in your work. Great shit. I wish I could afford for you to have your way with my car. __________________ F'CANCER Project F'Cancer coming in late Fall-Lookin for low 9's Daily driving a supercharged 2000 M6 Z/28

December 4th, 2009, 07:54 AM	#8
POSI12BOLT Registered User Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Vacaville Posts: 2,928	hey Jeff, I have an INTERIOR challenge for you... I just picked up a '06 Buick LaCrosse that had a minor interior fire, and was overall abused in its short life. The carpet is gross, the leather is abused and stained, etc. I just got it running yesterday as someone thought it would be fun to remove all the fuses and relays from the fuse box, but the interior is in need of YOU! I'm going to try and grab some pictures on monday, but if your up for the challenge maybe we can come up with a $$$ amount and I can bring it to you and leave it with your for awhile. __________________ 2006 Toyota Avalon limited 2005 GMC Yukon XL 2005 Malibu Maxx 2003 Crown Victoria P71 2001 Crown Victoria P71 2000 Maxima GLE 1978 Baker Mini-Daycruiser Jetboat w/454 1964 Impala SS 327ci, 4spd 1956 Bel Air Straight Axle GASSER - Blown Big M 588" "I work hard so millions on welfare don't have to!"

December 4th, 2009, 08:03 AM	#9
SATANIC Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: south bay Posts: 1,380	,it doesnt look THAT much different... jk, whole different car, great work __________________ self improvement for men ends at toilet training...

December 4th, 2009, 09:22 AM	#10
CobraKilla Registered User Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Nationwide Posts: 3,520	Thanks again Jeff! I love how my car came out! I couldn't be happier with the results! Jeff obviously worked his butt off on this car and you can see how well it paid off! I would go on and on, but the pictures speak for themselves....

December 4th, 2009, 09:41 AM	#11
krazykorean35 Club Officer Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: North Bay Posts: 8,943	WOW. that is a damn good detail lol how long did it take you to UPLOAD all those pics?! __________________ New project.

December 4th, 2009, 10:33 AM	#12
FadedSS Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 1,284	amazing work on that ta man. that thing looks nearly brand new __________________ FadedSS 07 Corvette z06 00 Camaro SS 73 Camaro RS

December 4th, 2009, 12:14 PM	#14
Black Bird Banned Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Ceres,CA Posts: 444	All i have to say is wow your phenomenal !!!!! man i can twait till my car is done under the knife and i can safely bring it out there to get worked on by your magic hands...great job

December 4th, 2009, 12:58 PM	#15
SnIpEr Registered User Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: San Jose Posts: 260	OMFG. What a BEAST. I am honestly blown away by what you did with that car. That's so good it's almost like you took pictures of a different one right of the factory line! Wow, I can't wait till I can get my car up to you in the spring time and see what you do with it :] __________________ I'd rather own a v6 Firebird than a Ford. True story.

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