Toyota Starlett - Faded Red Restored (56k Warning)

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imported_Dave KG

New member
This is the full write up of the red Toyota Starlett that was delivered to me on Monday and the owner has just recently picked up. She seemed pretty pleased with the results too, which makes me a happy detailer! :)



Anyways, down to the detail. First off some before pictures. The car's faded red paintwork is clear to see, especially on the roof, contributing to the car looking generally tired...























The roof was espeically faded and pink looking...







 
First off, the car was washed. I used Meguiars Hyper Wash (still used the two bucket method despite the marring already present on the car, purely out of force of habbit!), diluted 400:1 as directed. This did a good job of shifting the muck from the car, and I repeated the wash a second time and this cheered the car up a little more... The car was dired using Meguiars Water Magnets.



Next up was the claying. The car had what appeared to be ingrained tree sap all over the flat panels and through the small piece of celephane the paint felt like the Rocky Mountains!! I would have used Meguiars Agressive (red) clay on this car but had none left so I went for the Meguiars Mild Detailer clay (yellow). I was surprised by the amount of gunk this clay was shifting and for a mild clay was doing a great job of restoring a smooth finish to the paint. Meguiars Last Touch was used as the lubricant. Here's a pic of the clay after just one third of the bonnet!! :eek:







With the car clayed, it was time to sort out the paintwork! With thickness reading ranging from 70um to 120um (and over 400um on a repaired and recently sprayed area), I decided that agressive compounds like Menzerna PGC were a definite no no. To deal with the oxidisation, I would have though the Klasse AIO would possibly have sufficed on its own, but for the swilr marks something with a little abbrassive bite would be required. I decided to go with Poorboys SSR2.5 over the whole car, applied by 6" Lake Country orange light cutting pad and the 4" Lake Country orange pad on small areas. The SSR2.5 was spread with no presure by PC on speed 3, then one pass at speed 5 with medium pressure over the head moving the head at roughly 1"/sec. Then a final pass at speed 6, increased pressure a little more and again moving the head at 1"/sec. The residue was then wiped away with a Meguiars Ultimate Wipe (cheers Bryan! :thumb: ). This was followed by an application of Klasse AIO, spread on speed 6 and then given two passes at speed 5 with light to medium pressure. The AIO residue was also buffed away with a Meguiars Ultimate Wipe. This brought the red paint back to life nicely...



First off, the roof was tackled with the above technique, the half and half shots:



















and some completed shots of the roof showing the red paint restored and gloss returned:











 
The bonnet was the next area tackled, and I was impressed with the way the SSR2.5 removed the swirls form the bonnet, the paint on this car seeming nice and soft and easy to work with. First of a pic of the swirls that I crakced out the abrassives for:







Some bonnet half and half shots:











And some completed shots of the bonnet:











The process was repeated acorss the car. Here's a pic of the rear three quarter on the passenger side before treatment - swirls a plenty, scratched and a lack of gloss:







and after treatment, the swirls gone and the gloss restored to the paintwork:







All of ther large areas of paintwork were treated Monday evening, but the dampness started to come down before I could ge the 4" pad out so that would have to wait until Tuesday morning... You can tell the paint was single stage red, check out the lovely red pads (once were a LC orange and white pad, they are now Megs Burgandy!! :lol: )



 
Tuesday morning, and the sun was high in the sky and hot - I needed shelter from the heat to work, but had no gazeebo... So I roped by dad, complete with golf umbrella out to help as I finished off the odd bits here and there with a 4" pad that the 6" pads wouldn't have reached as well. The panles were pre cooled with water and then QD'd down, here's my gazeebo!!:







And now some pics of the paint, restoration stages complete:



















As the car wasn't due for pick up until thursday, I decided to take the rest of tuesday off to visit a good friend before she departed for the states for three months, sat in her garden in Scone for an entire afternoon and despite the factor 25 sunscreen, I still got a fairly dark tan... :confused:



Anyways, back to the detail!! Wednesday was interior day, and the interior really wasn't anywhere near as bad as the exterior but still needed a little sprucing up... The before shots (sorry not many this time...):







 
The interior trim was treated first hoovered, and the trim treated to Autoglym Interor Shampoo using the Meguiars Upholstery brush to work the product in the stained areas. This was then wiped away with a damp cloth, and the upholstery hoovered to lift the fabric pile back. This process was repeated on the carpets and mats.



The dash plastics were dusted, and then treated to Poorboys Natural Looks to bring the plastics back to life a little. I love the PB Natural Look (and Megs Natural Shine too...) for the way that it leaves the dash very clean looking without being shiny, as I've said before, I hate shiny dashboards!! The instrument binnacle plastic cover was treated to Megs PlastX to restore the clarity and remove the scrathces.



The after shots:















The glass areas were then cleaned with Meguiars NXT Glass Cleaner (smells great, easy to use). This was sprayed on to the glass, wiped with one side of a Megs Duo-Fibre glass towel and then the towel turned to a dry side for the final wipe to remove and wee streak marks that may have appeared. Finishing this lot off was enough for wednesday, I was away bowling wednesday evening, reasonable scores of 150 and 156, but nowhere near my recent personal best of 246 in one game at bowling, with a four-bagger of strikes in the middle of the game!!



Anyways, I digress, back to the detail! :lol:



Thursday was pick up day, so the day I chose to add the final touches. First up, the spit shining of the wax. The car was first washed with Meguiars Hyper Wash to safely remove any dust that had setlled and any muck that may have formed. Then, I spit-shined Meguiars #16 wax across the car to give a durable protective layer to protect the nice red finish. I applied the first layer of wax by hand, and allowed to dry to a haze. This was then sprayed with Megs Last Touch and then the PC with a 4" Sonus SFX-3 blue pad was used to apply the second layer of wax, the PC really helping to reduce the time for the application of the second layer as the spray of Last Touch quickly disappeared and became a light haze of wax again. The residue was then buffed off with a Meguiars Supreme Shine mf towel once dried to a haze again. This was repeated across the whole car.



The trim was then detailed wtih Meguiars #38, applied with a Tesco mf towel and allowed to soak and then removed with a clean Tesco mf towel. The tyres were treated with Turtle Wax Nano-Tech Tyre Gel (recommended for me to try), which went on very easily and brought the tyres up to a nice black shine - a shine as good as Megs Endurance, I'd say, will comment on the durability of this product at a later stage. Pics of the results after this process:











 


















Then, just before collection the car was sprayed down with Meguiars Last Touch to remove any wee smudges here and there. The completed results:



















All in all, around 18 - 20 hours worth of work went into the car, so it could have been completed in two days but as I had the car for four days and they were all to be nice I spread the work nicely across the four days.



Enjoy! :)
 
PS - There was nothing I could do about the gignatic dent above the petrol filler cap - the scratches from around it were removed, but the dent I couldn't sort, will need professional attention... Looks like someone has kicked it hard at somepoint... :grrr
 
holee schmolee.. fantastic ! makes me wanna crack out my SSR again.. i would have never thought it would have transformed that paint like that.. wow !
 
What a difference. Great pics of the half and half. Really shows the restoration process at work.



Use a brush to get rid of the dust in the interior crevices.
 
Absolutely beautiful!!!! Incredible write up and fantastic turn around on the car.

I too like the pic of your Dad sheltering you from the sun, especially considering June 18th was Father's Day here in the States.



Eric
 
Dave KG, that is one of the best writeups I have ever seen. I like the quips of your off time,ie. bowling, sunning...etc. That looks like a charming town. Where is it?



Oh yeah, the transformation of the car is incredible. Beautiful work! :bounce
 
Many thanks for your kind comments guys. :D





mav63 said:
Dave KG, that is one of the best writeups I have ever seen. I like the quips of your off time,ie. bowling, sunning...etc. That looks like a charming town. Where is it?



Oh yeah, the transformation of the car is incredible. Beautiful work! :bounce
Click to expand...



The town is Dundee, on the east coast of Scotland - my home town. :) Known for the three Js in the past - Jute, Jam and Journalism!
 
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