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Greetings MOL'ers. I have been wanting to post up some of my latest stuff on MOL for awhile, but have not been able to due to tons of work personnally and detailing, setting up the business, etc. I've been doing this as a hobby (for cash, friends and referrals only) for quite some time, but after loosing the job (automotive OEM - vehicle engineer for almost 10 years) I figured I'd give it a try, so now I'm going pro, by the book, licensed, insured, LLC, the whole 9 yards. Plus it gives me a place to apply the stuff I'm learning while pursuing an MBA. And I love detailing! I might not become the next millionaire, but I'll have a hell of a time while I can make it! Anyways, enough with the intro, here is the write-up! Many of my write-ups will be copies from another forum I frequent: s2ki.com, so hello fellow s2ki members (there are many here on MOL), and sorry for the "repost" 
I'm not well versed in the GTOs, but I believe this is a special edition GTO in a special color called Shanghai red something
Its hard to focus when this color stares at you! It is stunning! The vehicle was in very good shape, but had swirls and needed some protection. The owner said spare no expense. Luckily, it didn't take much to take it to the next level. The client also requested Zaino as a LSP.
Here is the patient when we arrived, clean and well taken care of, proper for a special vehicle:
We decided to attack it as follows:
- wheels and engine
- interior
- exterior
First was to clean the wheels. Since they are aftermarket wheels with both polished and painted portions, I opted to use a dedicated wheel cleaner, in this case P21S Gel. Usually APC does an excellent job as cleaning wheels, but it can affect aluminum. The wheels only needed cleaning and a coat of wax.
Tires were dressed with 3M Tire Restorer, not that there is much tire to dress! These are the widest possible on this GTO. The fenders are not only rolled, they are cut! The owner took a cut off wheel to the fender lip to make way for the tires. They still rub some. With so much power, even these tires are inadecuate
Next was the interior. I have always though that the GTO interior, probably due to being designed outside north america, is one of GM's nicest, especially the seats. Full leather surfaces, great support, and nice aesthetics. The interior was wiped down with Woolite at 10:1 with various MF towels, then dressed with Finish Kare's Poly Shield, which left a not-too-shiny but slick finish. However, with the grained leather and good bolstering, these seats did not feel slippery. I could have never used this on my E36 M3 leather seats, or I would be sliding into the door The interior was also vacuumed with the Dyson.
No before pics, nothing really to capture. Here are the afters:
the exterior was then clayed with Pinnacle Clay and DP Final Gloss as a lube (its what I have in stock, so trying to use it up. The Megs clay is waiting, I use the FIFO method for inventory (First In First Out)), then tapped in preparation of polishing.
The finish presented some swirling:
I broke the hood up into sections to strategize the best method to full correction:
and hit it with M105 on a white pad on the Flex LTW rotary. This provided adequate correction, but left significant trailing which I considered to be worse than the swirling:
...so I followed up with M205 on a black Megs pad, but the marring was still there. OK, so rotary on this car was not going to be the right choice. The clear was just too soft and the swirls too deep. I needed to use a compound, so I pulled out the PC 7424 which had not see compounding action in a long time!
I loaded the PC with an orange pad and decided to try the new Megs Ultimate Compound. While at Meguiar's a few weeks ago, Mike Phillips showed us that the Ultimate is close in aggressiveness to M105, but has a different particle technology to make it easier to use and provide a better finish. M105 has diminishing particles, meaning the particles are big but soft, almost chalky, and break down while working toe compound. Non-diminishing particles do not break down. The Ultimate has Nano-particles, meaning the abrasives in the mix are very small, but hard. The more work you put into the UC, the more it works. So you can polish with UC without waiting for it to "flash" or break down, or keep on going to cut further. This combo (orange + UC on PC 7424) worked great! So god, UC is now my go to compound. It cuts almost as hard core as M105, but finishes much nicer, especially on a random orbital.
Here is a pic of the same marred finish after this combo:
Then I followed with M205 on a white pad, my favorite finishing polish on a slightly more aggressive pad, to knock down the M105/UC while continuing to correct.
I then did a few passes with Megs Machine Glaze on a Black pad on the PC 7424 for a nice finish
Some Zaino Z2 was mixed up with ZFX and applied to the vehicle with a MF applicator (Zaino recommends cotton, but I find MF to work better). A second coat was applied before calling it quits for the day.
Here are the afters:
In all it took around 11 hours. This is definitely my favorite red color I have ever worked on.
Thank you for looking!
I'm not well versed in the GTOs, but I believe this is a special edition GTO in a special color called Shanghai red something
Its hard to focus when this color stares at you! It is stunning! The vehicle was in very good shape, but had swirls and needed some protection. The owner said spare no expense. Luckily, it didn't take much to take it to the next level. The client also requested Zaino as a LSP.Here is the patient when we arrived, clean and well taken care of, proper for a special vehicle:
We decided to attack it as follows:
- wheels and engine
- interior
- exterior
First was to clean the wheels. Since they are aftermarket wheels with both polished and painted portions, I opted to use a dedicated wheel cleaner, in this case P21S Gel. Usually APC does an excellent job as cleaning wheels, but it can affect aluminum. The wheels only needed cleaning and a coat of wax.
Tires were dressed with 3M Tire Restorer, not that there is much tire to dress! These are the widest possible on this GTO. The fenders are not only rolled, they are cut! The owner took a cut off wheel to the fender lip to make way for the tires. They still rub some. With so much power, even these tires are inadecuate
Next was the interior. I have always though that the GTO interior, probably due to being designed outside north america, is one of GM's nicest, especially the seats. Full leather surfaces, great support, and nice aesthetics. The interior was wiped down with Woolite at 10:1 with various MF towels, then dressed with Finish Kare's Poly Shield, which left a not-too-shiny but slick finish. However, with the grained leather and good bolstering, these seats did not feel slippery. I could have never used this on my E36 M3 leather seats, or I would be sliding into the door
The interior was also vacuumed with the Dyson.No before pics, nothing really to capture. Here are the afters:
the exterior was then clayed with Pinnacle Clay and DP Final Gloss as a lube (its what I have in stock, so trying to use it up. The Megs clay is waiting, I use the FIFO method for inventory (First In First Out)), then tapped in preparation of polishing.
The finish presented some swirling:
I broke the hood up into sections to strategize the best method to full correction:
and hit it with M105 on a white pad on the Flex LTW rotary. This provided adequate correction, but left significant trailing which I considered to be worse than the swirling:
...so I followed up with M205 on a black Megs pad, but the marring was still there. OK, so rotary on this car was not going to be the right choice. The clear was just too soft and the swirls too deep. I needed to use a compound, so I pulled out the PC 7424 which had not see compounding action in a long time!
I loaded the PC with an orange pad and decided to try the new Megs Ultimate Compound. While at Meguiar's a few weeks ago, Mike Phillips showed us that the Ultimate is close in aggressiveness to M105, but has a different particle technology to make it easier to use and provide a better finish. M105 has diminishing particles, meaning the particles are big but soft, almost chalky, and break down while working toe compound. Non-diminishing particles do not break down. The Ultimate has Nano-particles, meaning the abrasives in the mix are very small, but hard. The more work you put into the UC, the more it works. So you can polish with UC without waiting for it to "flash" or break down, or keep on going to cut further. This combo (orange + UC on PC 7424) worked great! So god, UC is now my go to compound. It cuts almost as hard core as M105, but finishes much nicer, especially on a random orbital.
Here is a pic of the same marred finish after this combo:
Then I followed with M205 on a white pad, my favorite finishing polish on a slightly more aggressive pad, to knock down the M105/UC while continuing to correct.
I then did a few passes with Megs Machine Glaze on a Black pad on the PC 7424 for a nice finish
Some Zaino Z2 was mixed up with ZFX and applied to the vehicle with a MF applicator (Zaino recommends cotton, but I find MF to work better). A second coat was applied before calling it quits for the day.
Here are the afters:
In all it took around 11 hours. This is definitely my favorite red color I have ever worked on.
Thank you for looking!
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