My Detailing - The Full Paint Restoration Of My S15

[BakemonoRicer]

I bought my car in May 2012. I was very impressed by the fact the car had all original paint and panels (with panel gaps that were 100% factory). However, the paint was not in the best condition....and I always thought my car looked a tad dull compared to other examples I've seen in real life and on the internet.

It is now in July 2013, that I have finally gotten around to restoring the car back to its former glory, sort of. The reason I say sort of is because the front bumper is pelted with rock chips, the rear bar is a scratched through the clear coat, and the bonnet has a fair few stone chips which would require a lot of brush touching.

Now, I drive this car on a daily basis. I strongly believe that a performance car is built to be driven, and also kept looking nice. I think it is a bit of a shame when performance cars rarely ever come out of the garage.

I believe you develop a better bond with your car by appreciating how to tackle all the shapes and curves of the car through detailing. I use a Dual Action Polisher, and with the correct pad and product selection, you CAN achieve the same results as with a Rotary, but with less risk. The only downside is it will take a bit more time.

Here is my album of photographs BEFORE starting the DETAIL.

http://imgur.com/a/lLaNY#0

I put roughly a LOT of man hours into this restoration. I did an extensive amount of prep work before I commenced a 3 stage polishing regimen with an aggressive compound, intermediate polish, and a jewelling polish.

& Here are my results....(the pictures taken are with a sealant applied after polishing, once I apply carnauba wax I will take the car out in sunlight and take more pictures). I haven't applied trim conditioners or anything either yet.

[34GeeTeeTee]

There is so much crap left behind Benji......

Oh wait, just had a closer look and noticed that actually IS your S15

[ARTZ]

couldn't put it in the detailing results thread with everybody else..?

[colourclassic]

Would've helped if you noted which photos were which, as it's kind of hard to see the differences before and after detailing. Put them in some sort of order.

[junkie]

Well done mate looking sweet so far. Saw a random bottle of ammo - who stocks the stuff in oz?

[BakemonoRicer]

  On 30/07/2013 at 3:28 AM, colourclassic said:

Would've helped if you noted which photos were which, as it's kind of hard to see the differences before and after detailing. Put them in some sort of order.

Not sure what you mean. The album link is all the before photos. Just a random assortment showing the paint has a lot of scratches, swirls, etching, general contamination etc.

The pictures posted in this thread here are after photos. As you can tell, there is none of that present in the after photos.

  On 30/07/2013 at 1:08 PM, junkie said:

Well done mate looking sweet so far. Saw a random bottle of ammo - who stocks the stuff in oz?

Hi, thanks man.

I got my stuff via airmail from Ammo in America. I used AMMO skin to seal the car.

[ARTZ]

  On 30/07/2013 at 1:08 PM, junkie said:

Well done mate looking sweet so far. Saw a random bottle of ammo - who stocks the stuff in oz?

user on here called "Mavric" has plenty of it....

[junkie]

cheers dudes. i was hoping for a local distributor but all good!

[darksky34]

that looks absolutely mint benji. if you think your paint pre-restoring was bad, you should check out my paint.....

[BakemonoRicer]

Well, it's now been close to 2 months since I completed the detail....

I spent some time today washing the car, and then I applied a layer of carnauba wax, let it sit for 45 minutes, then buffed it off by hand with a megs microfiber towel.

These pictures should give you a good idea of how the car looks in natural lighting in the afternoon.

The reflections really have a lot of clarity which I'm super happy about, as I was able to remove a lot of the factory orange peel in the paint when I went through the compounding to polishing phases (this was my one of my goals).

Roof

Roof

[NISSAN GTR]

Your efforts look ABOVE AVERAGE well done well done .......

Edited September 13, 2013 by NISSAN GTR

[Kenna802]

Hey Benji great job, just thought I'd ask is have you used autoglym super resin polish and hd wax before? You can source the polish via eBay for half the price retailers in aussieland can sell it for and the wax the cheapest I've seen is about $85 but seriously its easy to apply and easy to come off and it makes a fantastic difference

[BakemonoRicer]

  On 20/09/2013 at 10:07 PM, Kenna802 said:

Hey Benji great job, just thought I'd ask is have you used autoglym super resin polish and hd wax before? You can source the polish via eBay for half the price retailers in aussieland can sell it for and the wax the cheapest I've seen is about $85 but seriously its easy to apply and easy to come off and it makes a fantastic difference

Hi Ken,

Cheers!

As for your questions:

Super resin polish - it is lightlyyyy abrasive but its downfall is it contains a lot of fillers. After you polish these fillers will be left to hide swirls or scratches. If you want to remove scratches completely you'd use a different product.

Hd wax - I am not too familiar with the HD wax...but if it is priced at $85 I assume it would be a good carnauba based wax.

I use Dodo juice supernatural carnauba wax (can get it from the UK for an ok price) applied over a base of AMMO NYC sealant (sealant is applied, buffed off with MF towel, left to cure for 24 hrs to bond to the paint, then I apply wax over the top). It is a really good wax and makes the paint absolutely look like glass, but it shares the downfall of any carnauba wax is it attracts a lot of dust. I'll only need to have taken the car out once or twice and there will be a fine layer of dust sitting on the car.

[BakemonoRicer]

Here is a picture of my car taken with an SLR camera....should give you guys a good idea of the finish.

Washing every 2 weeks and waxing every 4-6 weeks to protect and maintain the finish.

[darksky34]

HORY SHET - where's that meme when i need it? looks great!

[Owens]

Oh damn love how it's turned out! all the panels look like they have a sheet of glass over it. love it!

Can definitely tell you've put a lot of hard hours into this and it's payed off!

[crissy]

Good write up with lots of pics, nice car! Its nice to see that your putting a lot of love into it even with the simplest things.

being a daily you'd want it to look nice not only for yourself but to catch eyes, one of my fav cars