15 year old one...

[Flatfour]

Today I "attacked" my mother in law's Ford Fiesta.

The poor thing is 15 years old and has NEVER saw water, soap or polish/wax.



I washed with Zymol shampoo

Claying made no difference, so rough the paint was !!!

Then off with the rotary with Sonus SFX orange/bleu/green pads and Meguiars *83

Sealed with Turtle wax Hard shell wax...

Doorseals, bumpers and rubber sealed with 101.

After 5 hours of work this was the result.

Ok, it's not 100 % but still a 1000% improvement with before...



Strange thing with the Turtle Wax Hard shell Wax (a green couloured paste wax) : You have to apply it with a damp sponge applicator, but once it dries onto the paint, the wax is extremely hard to remove, only a wet microfiber helped me out here !

Any suggestions on make this easier (like wipe-on-wipe-off...)

Cheers from Belgium,



Wally

 

[JJ_]

WOW looks brillaint. Really good job, Xtreme detail ??

 

[LightngSVT]

Night and day difference! I bet she was happy with your work.

 

[Flatfour]

MOre pics, it's a very basic car (donno if it was ever sold in the US....), very small and light, and a 1.0 litre engine (as big as the airco pump on those big US-cars..LOL)

 

[Flynn]

That's an outstanding piece of work. You're making me think about getting a rotary now!







How did you do the bit between the windscreen and the bonnet?

 

[Scottwax]

Nice recovery! :up

 

[LightngSVT]

We had both a Fiesta and a Festiva here in the US, but neither looked like that car.

 

[4830Deuce]

GREAT WORK! 1 liter engine is....well i guess its the smallest engine that I have ever heard of....I think.... :xyxthumbs

 

[ToddW]

Kind of lucky with the oxidations as it preserves a lot of nice paint underneith where-as if it was taken care of but poorly or inproperly you could have had a lot MORE work on your hands. I`d rather work on an oxidized old car over a deeply scratched or deeply swirled car any day but that's just me.



Very nice job I love it when the results are worth the efforts

 

[Flatfour]

The fact that it was so often washed in all those years was actually a good thing.

Under the oxidation where almost no scratches, only on two places were a "bodyshop" has sanded some filler or so, probably with a 400 grid paper. Those scratches were into the paint and after 5 passes with the orange pad and *83 I gave up...

 

[porta]

Nice job but stay away from turtle wax.

 

[imported_Bence]

Don't stay away from Turtle, just use their Platinum Series. Your jaw will drop...



Not the most durable product but the look is killer.

 

[Lowejackson]

Great before and after pictures :up

 

[Bigpunter]

Superb work! :clap:



Should be an entry for the xtreme contest as mentioned earlier! Hope what you done to it makes the owner look after it better :xyxthumbs

 

[Gonzo]

Man, Do YOU ever know how to "suck up" to "la chameaux"! :grinno:

 

[Flatfour]

Thanks for all replies.



I have another "wreck of the month" coming up, even worser to start with !



Anyway, I used my rotary (FLEX) on 1200-1500 rpm an had never problems with it !

On this single stage paint, the Meguiars *83 works perfect !

Only the roof had some SFX-1 "pre-work" before *83.



I discoverd also a new technique to "polish" black trim, like doorhandles and bumpers (the sort of textured trim...)

I have a foam pad that is so soft that it is useless for polishing purposes.

It came with my FLEX polisher in the box and I had never used it.





Anyway, the black trim on the car was almost white, because the owner had used a cheap "wax" and smeared that all over the car.

When I use this foam-pad on my rotary (only the pad, no chemicals !), I can clean up all white residu without damaging the black trim itself, very neat !