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Here are the products used to bring my friend's Camaro back from the world of swirls. (Or at least partially back. Mr. Stoops if you are reading this, I hope this solidifies my 30 rating on the Stoops Scale.)
Wash:
Gold Class Car Wash and Shampoo
Clay and Lube:
Meguiar's Clay Bar - white
Quik Detailer
Cleaners:
Ultimate Compound
Cleaner/Polish/Wax:
ColorX
Polish:
#7 Show Car Glaze
Wax:
NXT Tech Wax 2.0
Pads:
Meguiar's 7" Polish and Finishing
Lake Country 4" White and Black
Buffers:
Two - Porter Cables - an XP and an SP
Glass Cleaner:
Meguiar's NXT
Microfibers:
Bundles of many brands for removing Ultimate Compound
Meguiar's Super Shines for final processes of 7 and NXT Tech.
Beverages:
Mountain Dew
Gallons of Water....
I arrived at my friends' home at 7:30AM Thursday morning, I think the only day it hasn't been storming in the last two weeks. I took the car to a local car wash as I wanted to use a high pressure washer to get some of the mud and dirt off of the lower body. I used Gold Class to hand wash using a microfiber mitt and a single bucket with a grit guard. The car washed up fairly well and I did a quick dry with an Absorber knowing I would be doing a complete correction. Unfortunately I realized this was going to take longer than I had originally estimated when I saw all the swirls.
Back at the house I took a few before photos and wish now I had taken a full body shot for a better before and after comparison.
Even though I washed the car, I picked up some dirt on the way back to the garage. I drenched it with Quik Detailer and cleaned it up.
The spoiler became my favorite part. Showed plenty of swirls and was easy to work on.
More spoiler.
Yet more spoiler photos.
Front fender. Notice the bra, we left it on and should not have.
This is the hood, grew to dislike it. Too swirled up and hard to get it the way I wanted it.
Notice the long scratch on the hood. Should have been slight enough to buff it out.
More hood. Notice the air inlets. I filled the seam around them multiple times with cleaner and wax and they needed to be cleaned out using toothpicks.
This is the condition of the clay bar after just 1/2 of the rear bumper. I was glad I had purchased the larger bottle of Quik Detailer while it was on sale at Wally World. I also thought this might be the first time I wore out a clay bar before dropping it on the ground. I was both right and wrong as I dropped a piece on the ground and wore out two more and was on the fourth when I finished up. Still missed a 2" square area on the driver's rear fender.
The easiest area, the spoiler was subdivided into three areas as test spots. To the far left was ColorX, the middle was SwirlX and the far right was Ultimate Compound.
Here is SwirlX on the left and Ultimate Compound on the right. You can't tell from the photo, but obviously Ultimate Compound worked the best.
This is the section cleaned with Ultimate Compound, two passionate applications. No SwirlX to remove hazing, didn't see a haze.
One of the areas I had difficulty was surrounding the antenna and could not get a buffer close enough to removed them.
As a last resort, I performed some hand work using a microfiber pad and Ultimate Compound. Three applications with as much passion as my fingers could muster.
Swirls gone or at least mostly. I knew I would need a good light and I had purchased a Brinkmann that week. A great investment.
Another angle on the nearly perfect area done by hand around the antenna.
And now the accursed hood. This 50/50 shows the left untouched and the right two passes with a 7" and Ultimate Compound. Still swirled, but less so than starting.
This is the hood after trying again with a 7" pad. I could feel time slipping away as I only had so long before driving home. I drove the car back into the garage and put on some 4" white pads and went after the hood again. If I had more nerve and wasn't such a noob, I think I would have cranked up the PC to 5 or more and hammered those swirls out of existence.
I quickly gave the right side a buff with ColorX and pulled the tape. I continued to run out of time so it was time to move on.
Here is another shot of the hood using that great Brinkmann light. Still swirled.
Here is the hood in the sun after multiple passes of Ultimate Compound various pads and one pass of ColorX.
I was so running out of time, I stopped taking photos but I used Ultimate Compound all over the car multiple passes in many if not all areas. Followed that with ColorX, sometimes twice (meaning should have been more passionate with the Ultimate.) After the ColorX was polishing with #7. This is where two buffers are handy. I had a microfiber bonnet on the second one to help get the #7 off. The temperature was 90 something and humidity horrendous. I used a bit of Quik Detailer to remove UC and 7 in a couple of spots. Following #7, I used a thin coat of NXT Tech wax. My friend arrive home from work and took car of the tires and help remove the NXT after it swiped off.
Here is the final result. 12 hours (okay - fifteen minutes for lunch and having dinner while the NXT set up.), but 12 long hours and it was getting dark. Just enough light to get the final photo of the finished project.
A result I'm fairly pleased, but wish I had more time to have gotten more passionate with the Ultimate Compound.
Leaving the bra on was a major mistake. The hood had been substantially improved and when I pulled the tape and cleaned up the tape adhesive with Quik Detailer there was this 1" band of swirls above the bra. Eeikes! Pulled the bra up a little to hide the mess. Guess I'll catch it on another visit.
Thanks for checking it out.
Wash:
Gold Class Car Wash and Shampoo
Clay and Lube:
Meguiar's Clay Bar - white
Quik Detailer
Cleaners:
Ultimate Compound
Cleaner/Polish/Wax:
ColorX
Polish:
#7 Show Car Glaze
Wax:
NXT Tech Wax 2.0
Pads:
Meguiar's 7" Polish and Finishing
Lake Country 4" White and Black
Buffers:
Two - Porter Cables - an XP and an SP
Glass Cleaner:
Meguiar's NXT
Microfibers:
Bundles of many brands for removing Ultimate Compound
Meguiar's Super Shines for final processes of 7 and NXT Tech.
Beverages:
Mountain Dew
Gallons of Water....
I arrived at my friends' home at 7:30AM Thursday morning, I think the only day it hasn't been storming in the last two weeks. I took the car to a local car wash as I wanted to use a high pressure washer to get some of the mud and dirt off of the lower body. I used Gold Class to hand wash using a microfiber mitt and a single bucket with a grit guard. The car washed up fairly well and I did a quick dry with an Absorber knowing I would be doing a complete correction. Unfortunately I realized this was going to take longer than I had originally estimated when I saw all the swirls.
Back at the house I took a few before photos and wish now I had taken a full body shot for a better before and after comparison.
Even though I washed the car, I picked up some dirt on the way back to the garage. I drenched it with Quik Detailer and cleaned it up.
The spoiler became my favorite part. Showed plenty of swirls and was easy to work on.
More spoiler.
Yet more spoiler photos.
Front fender. Notice the bra, we left it on and should not have.
This is the hood, grew to dislike it. Too swirled up and hard to get it the way I wanted it.
Notice the long scratch on the hood. Should have been slight enough to buff it out.
More hood. Notice the air inlets. I filled the seam around them multiple times with cleaner and wax and they needed to be cleaned out using toothpicks.
This is the condition of the clay bar after just 1/2 of the rear bumper. I was glad I had purchased the larger bottle of Quik Detailer while it was on sale at Wally World. I also thought this might be the first time I wore out a clay bar before dropping it on the ground. I was both right and wrong as I dropped a piece on the ground and wore out two more and was on the fourth when I finished up. Still missed a 2" square area on the driver's rear fender.
The easiest area, the spoiler was subdivided into three areas as test spots. To the far left was ColorX, the middle was SwirlX and the far right was Ultimate Compound.
Here is SwirlX on the left and Ultimate Compound on the right. You can't tell from the photo, but obviously Ultimate Compound worked the best.
This is the section cleaned with Ultimate Compound, two passionate applications. No SwirlX to remove hazing, didn't see a haze.
One of the areas I had difficulty was surrounding the antenna and could not get a buffer close enough to removed them.
As a last resort, I performed some hand work using a microfiber pad and Ultimate Compound. Three applications with as much passion as my fingers could muster.
Swirls gone or at least mostly. I knew I would need a good light and I had purchased a Brinkmann that week. A great investment.
Another angle on the nearly perfect area done by hand around the antenna.
And now the accursed hood. This 50/50 shows the left untouched and the right two passes with a 7" and Ultimate Compound. Still swirled, but less so than starting.
This is the hood after trying again with a 7" pad. I could feel time slipping away as I only had so long before driving home. I drove the car back into the garage and put on some 4" white pads and went after the hood again. If I had more nerve and wasn't such a noob, I think I would have cranked up the PC to 5 or more and hammered those swirls out of existence.
I quickly gave the right side a buff with ColorX and pulled the tape. I continued to run out of time so it was time to move on.
Here is another shot of the hood using that great Brinkmann light. Still swirled.
Here is the hood in the sun after multiple passes of Ultimate Compound various pads and one pass of ColorX.
I was so running out of time, I stopped taking photos but I used Ultimate Compound all over the car multiple passes in many if not all areas. Followed that with ColorX, sometimes twice (meaning should have been more passionate with the Ultimate.) After the ColorX was polishing with #7. This is where two buffers are handy. I had a microfiber bonnet on the second one to help get the #7 off. The temperature was 90 something and humidity horrendous. I used a bit of Quik Detailer to remove UC and 7 in a couple of spots. Following #7, I used a thin coat of NXT Tech wax. My friend arrive home from work and took car of the tires and help remove the NXT after it swiped off.
Here is the final result. 12 hours (okay - fifteen minutes for lunch and having dinner while the NXT set up.), but 12 long hours and it was getting dark. Just enough light to get the final photo of the finished project.
A result I'm fairly pleased, but wish I had more time to have gotten more passionate with the Ultimate Compound.
Leaving the bra on was a major mistake. The hood had been substantially improved and when I pulled the tape and cleaned up the tape adhesive with Quik Detailer there was this 1" band of swirls above the bra. Eeikes! Pulled the bra up a little to hide the mess. Guess I'll catch it on another visit.
Thanks for checking it out.
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