jgh1987
New member
This 1994 300D Mercedes was purchased by my father a few months ago. The car was overall cherry except for the extreme paint defects due to it being black and neglected for over a decade. Myself and themightytimmah decided it would be a good birthday present to give the car a total makeover and bring the paint back to its original shine and gloss.
Here is the vehicle in its 'before' state:
Before the actual wash, we took the vehicle to the local coin-op car wash to take advantage of the pressure washer to clean the motor, wheel wells, and wheels:
Once the vehicle was brought back we began to wash it via foam gun with a mix of GC and used grout sponges as wash media:
Once the initial wash was complete, the car was clayed with Meguiars Mild clay using Poorboys Spray & Wipe as the lubrication. While I clayed, Tim touched up the areas with no paint with a #0 brush and Duplicolor black cut with lacquer thinner.
The touch ups were sanded with 2400 and 3200 Micro Finish paper
After claying was completed there was a total IPA wipedown and paint inspection began:
The paint was completely covered in swirls, oxidation, and RIDS.
The rear badges were completely shot, so they were removed via fishing line. The adhesive was removed with Tarminator and a plastic razor blade, and the "ghosting" around the badges was removed with 3200 grit Micro-Finish paper.
Test spot:
Meguiars M105 with Edge Green polishing wool took three passes to remove marring, so we stepped up to a yellow cutting wool pad. The yellow cutting wool removed 100% of the swirls but left behind significant hologramming.
After inspecting the test spot, some RIDS remained. Deep RIDS and the entire trunklid were sanded with 2400 grit followed by 3200 grit Micro-Finish papers on a foam block.
The entire car was then polished out with M105 and a Meguiar's 8" yellow cutting wool pad. Tight areas were polished with a Durawool 5" black lambswool pad.
This was a very challenging paint to finesse, as it was soft but badly marred from the aggressive wool step. Tim tried a number of combinations to remove the rotary holograms, almost all of which left significant marring of their own behind. After 10 or so different combinations of pad and polish, he found that M105 mixed 50:50 with Menzerna IP on a white CCS pad removed the wool marks and finished down with light hologramming.
The area around the rear bumper was too tight to work a wool pad in effectively, so an orange LC was used with Menzerna IP and Dave KG's "slow cut" method.
