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IN-DEPTH: Full Exterior Detail with Adam's Polishes - 2002 Corvette Z06


Dan@Adams

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IN-DEPTH: Full Exterior Detail on a 2002 Corvette Z06

 

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Products Used in this Write-Up:

 

Background

 

A few weeks back one of my close friends parted with his red 1996 Camaro Z28. That car was near spotless as could be for a nearly 20 year old car, and I never thought he would sell it due to how many fun memories he’s had using the car for SCCA Autocross for over 10 years, even letting me co-drive it with him one year at the SCCA Nationals in Topeka, Kansas. He decided he wanted to step up to a more competitive car for stock class racing, since the trusty F-Body simply could not keep up with the newer technology Mustangs that can also run much better tires due to having 17 and 18 inch wheels instead of the 16” wheels on his Camaro. He shopped around for a while and found this awesome 2002 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 – very, very low miles and for a steal of a price!

 

When he purchased it, they told him right then that the car had an incident where the paint was pretty damaged but that it was not in a wreck…let’s just say that someone was sick and it ended up going all over the front half of the car and then it sat there for a few weeks, requiring the front half of the car to be repainted, so they went ahead and repainted the whole thing. He brought it over on his way home from work one day and asked if I would be interested in detailing it. He said “you’ll see why once we pull it into your garage under the lights…”, so I had a feeling this was going to be a good challenge.

 

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Sure, it looks like it's in pretty good shape paint-wise in the picture above, right? Wrong! Once I started to take a look at it, we agreed to leave the car with me and I gave him a ride home to his house…blowing up cylinder #4 in my year old Regal G.S. daily driver in the process…but that’s a different story for a different thread…

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Part I: Cleaning and Assessment

 

When my friend brought the car over, he had just washed it the night before and only drove it back and forth to work. It was still 90% clean, and just from visual inspection of the paint, I knew I was going to be doing some heavy machine polishing on this bad boy, so I did a quick cleaning of the exterior with Waterless Wash and our waffle weave Waterless Wash Towels rather than a traditional Two Bucket Wash with Grit Guards and our Car Shampoo…plus it was pretty cold outside and much warmer in my garage!

 

After the wiping down all of the exterior panels and glass, I began to assess and document the condition of the paint. It was very apparent that there were swirl marks all over the car, but I found a lot of other interesting mistakes and areas where the shop that re-painted this Z06 cut some corners and did some things poorly and some things completely wrong, probably to save time and to get it on a sales lot as quickly as possible.

 

Here are some minor swirl marks in the front bumper, don’t worry, it gets worse.

 

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Some pretty deep scratches right in the center of the hood:

 

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There were also several wet sanding marks around the car that they did not fully polish out, like below the passenger mirror stalk and on the mirror itself here:

 

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​More wet sanding areas not fully polished out, same spot on both sides:

 

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Deep scratches on the passenger side rear quarter panel where it looks like someone repeatedly bumped into it with a belt buckle:

 

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Deep scratch on the top of the rear bumper, as well as water spots:

 

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Lots of hazing and swirls around the trunk emblem, difficult to see most of them, but they were there:

 

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Fairly deep scratches on the hood and roof. The auto-focus and exposure adjustment on my phone made these and other pictures look less severe than they actually were:

 

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Next up I noticed a pretty big issue with the plastic rain channels and rubber molding that go around the doors and the windshield – the shop that repainted this car painted these areas and clear coated them as well, which you can see somewhat in the picture below. They did not however paint over the lower rubber channel of the side windows, and instead chose to leave them oxidized and stained with some type of overspray splotches:

 

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Really deep scratches in the "just buffed" hood:

 

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And then I discovered the biggest problem area of the car, the front third of the hood. Whomever did the work on this car clearly went over it very quickly or very poorly with a rotary polisher, and they left all sorts of nice buffer trails and holograms in the finish:

 

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Even worse, you can clearly see a paint mismatch between the hood, and the front bumper and driver side pop-up headlight bucket. Also, notice all of those little tiny dots in the hood? Those are not rock chips or dirt. Upon closer inspection with an LED torch light, I realized this section of the hood was painted with metallic paint, with tiny dots of blue, purple, and gold metallic, when the rest of the car is straight GM Gloss Black. My best guess is that there was either metallic paint left over in the spray gun from them not cleaning it out properly in between jobs, or they just re-sprayed this area with the wrong paint and either repainted the rest of the car with the correct gloss black paint or did not repaint it at all and simply just wet sanded and polished the whole car. You can clearly see the waves and buffer trails start to disappear as you look further up the hood, creating an almost ghost flame effect on this front section of the hood. I knew I was not going to be able to fix this completely, as it would need a re-shoot with the correct non-metallic paint.

 

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Stay tuned for Part 2: Paint Correction!

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Wow, you need to have a rating on that thread, that thing is scary. I wonder if you could get the shop to handle the paint issue as it is obviously there issue. Or is your friend just planning a full fix the issues himself? 

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Wow, you need to have a rating on that thread, that thing is scary. I wonder if you could get the shop to handle the paint issue as it is obviously there issue. Or is your friend just planning a full fix the issues himself?

 

It was purchased several states away, so I don't think he will be taking it back. I know a few good painters that could fix the hood for him though.

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I can't see any of the pics here at work since they block photobucket. I'll check them out when I get home. I won't spoil the surprise since Dan's not done sorting through the pics and getting it all on the forum, but I won't be needing any paint work that my naked eyes can see. Even in direct sunlight I can't see the things his pictures are probably showing.

In my defense, I bought the car on a dreary, overcast day. I really couldn't even tell how bad it was till the next day when I pulled it out of the garage into the morning sun. I know enough about paint correction that I didn't panic and figured at least 90% of it would come out. I will say that Dan's skills and Adam's products exceeded my expectations. :) 

Edited by z06jeff
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Thank you very much for signing up for the forum good buddy!

 

Jeff is a close friend of mine and is just as fanatical about keeping his cars clean as I am, so I knew he would never do any damage to the finish like this, so hopefully no one thought that he caused these problems :)

​Here's a nice sideways action shot of his old awesome Camaro!

 

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Yep, GM put a whole new engine in it since the #4 cylinder wall was too damaged from the piston ring land breaking...just got it back last week and I'm babying it around for the first 500 miles or so and trying to stay completely out of boost.

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Known issue with the 2.0 turbo, more common problem with the ATS than the Regal. There's an updated piston design now. Send me a PM if you want to discuss it, I don't want to derail this thread too much more, thanks :)

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Part II: Paint Correction

 

First up was taking an Adam's Big Blue Clay Bar to all exterior glass and paint, using Detail Spray as a clay lubricant.

 

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After stretching and flattening a piece of clay, I sprayed the surface with a generous amount of Detail Spray and began to glide the clay across the surface using light pressure, until the area felt smooth:

 

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After claying the windshield and about half of the hood:

 

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There was a significant amount of clay residue left over (see photo below), so I wiped the majority of it off with a Borderless Gray Towel.

 

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Once the surface was wiped clean, I taped off about a 2-foot area on the hood as a test area.

 

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Since I knew this paint had some pretty deep scratches and swirls as well as holograms and buffer trails, I decided to go straight to the Flex with the 6.5” Microfiber cutting pad and Paint Correcting Polish:

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I applied four drops of Paint Correcting Polish onto the pad and then spread it around some with my fingers, so that it wouldn't blob too much in one spot on the hood:

 

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One quick trigger-pull of Detail Spray to prime the pad:

 

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I spread the Paint Correcting Polish around some before powering on the machine:

 

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I then set the machine to speed 6, placed the pad onto the surface, and pulled the pressure-sensitive trigger. I began polishing this area in a slow methodical pattern, first in up-down passes, overlapping the pad about 50% with each pass, then in a left-right motion. I repeated this pattern until the polish began to “flash”. Flashing is when the polish appears to look almost vaseline-like, when all of the micro-abrasives have broken down and done all of the work they can do with that amount of polish on the pad.

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I then took a Single Soft Towel and wiped off the polish residue to inspect the results.

 

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I was immediately very impressed with the results. C5 Corvettes are known for having a very hard clear coat, but this one being a repaint, almost all of the swirl marks and scratches were now gone with just one pass with the microfiber pad.

 

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You can still see two deeper scratches in the photo below, going right through the reflection of the overhead dual tube LED light in my garage. The light reflection is curved like an S due to the curves of the hood, but notice the clarity of the two light tubes when compared to the haziness and blurry light reflections from the photos in Part I of this write-up:

 

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Paint Correction Continued...

 

I decided to make one more pass over this area with the microfiber cutting pad. I used the pad conditioning brush to brush the microfiber pad surface back up before applying a few more drops of Paint Correcting Polish and polishing the area a second time:

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The results were nearly perfect after a second pass:

 

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Left side untouched, right side looking awesome:

 

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While polishing this area, I noticed where the previous shop caused some damage with that rotary polisher they must have been using. It is difficult to see in this photo, but the struck through right down to the fiberglass at the edge seam of the fender, where it meets up with the corner of the hood by the windshield. In this first photo it just looks like a reflection:

 

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But up closer, you can see the yellowish-tan fiberglass on the fender, as well as some wet sanding marks at the corner of the hood.

 

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In order to not damage this area further, I decided to leave those small scratches on the edge of the hood. They're small enough that most people would not notice them.

 

Next up was moving to Paint Finishing Polish with the White Foam Pad:

 

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Spreading the polish around the area to minimize any fling onto the rest of the car and me:

 

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Working the Paint Finishing Polish:

 

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After removing the residue:

 

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Removing the tape line showed the real improvement. The 40 watt, 3,000 lumen LED spotlight does not lie.

 

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Notice just how much darker the finish came back after polishing when compared with the tape line:

 

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I continued this polishing process on the rest of the hood.

 

Before - fairly heavy scratches at the center of the hood:

 

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After - just three faint scratch lines remained after Paint Correcting Polish:

 

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Applying Paint Finishing Polish:

 

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And the finished result on the hood. Completely unedited photos from my phone, of the bare polished hood, prior to any Brilliant Glaze or Patriot Wax. The depth and reflections were spectacular:

 

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In the next update, I will show more specific spot correction around the car with the Rupes Mini and the Cyclo. Stay tuned.

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