94' Celica - Detail (Lot of work)....

[Nick Goodall]

PART1

16 Year old Toyota Celica

This 1994 Celica (Jap Import) is a car owned by a guy that works with my Dad, he's had it a while but basically said to me that he can't get it any cleaner no matter what he tries so asked if i would try and detail it for him.

I started bright and early at 8am as i knew i'd run out of daylight quickly.

How it started



First step was to snow foam the entire car









Next i went round with some G101 and a Detailing brush to clean the filler cap, badges, lights, vents, door sills and shuts





Rinsed off



I then attacked the wheels with some Autobrite Very Cherry, and a number of different brushes, this got just about everything off except for a few small tar spots on some wheels but i knew i'd be getting the Tardis out later anyway





Rinsed off



Clean nuts



The next stage was to clean out the wheel arches so i used some G101 again with a large scrubbing brush and then pressure washed them after letting it soak.

A lot of crud in the arches:



I now washed the car using two Autobrite buckets with Grit guards, some Zymol auto-wash and a Meguiars sheepskin mitt.



After washing i wanted to clay the whole car, so i just rinsed it down with the hose and left it wet to help aid the claying stage. First i went round the lower doors and wheels with some Tardis and a soon to be old MF cloth - this got rid of all the large clay spots i could find. I rinsed the car just in case i hadn't wiped all the Tardis off.

Tardis



I clayed the car using CYC Blue ultra fine clay, with some Zip wax diluted with water as a clay lube.

It was surprising what was coming off the bonnet as the car seemed pretty clean to be honest:

Before (nice and clean)



After just 1/4 of the bonnet



I carried on round the whole car, picking up pretty much the same amount on every panel except for the lower doors / side skirts which were worse (to be expected).

After this i snow foamed the whole car again, and dried off spraying the whole thing with Meg's Last touch, you can really see why this is a good drying aid as the water almost seems to shrink on contact with it - definitely makes a big difference (plus it smells lovely)!

Snow Foamed



Last touch



Last touch again, soaking up the water

[Nick Goodall]

PART2

Really works well



I dried it off with an Autobrite blue fluffy towel



I used a smaller one to go over all the tricky areas that i may have missed - this was just to make sure it was 100% dry before i started polishing.



What happened next? Yep, it started to rain......... Typical! Mad dash to get my car out of the way, and put the Celica into the Garage so i could quickly dry off the small bit of rain and start taping up.

I decided to do half the car at a time as space was limited so i wanted to leave more space down one side to make it more comfortable. The car was promptly split in 2 and taped up ready for polishing.

I could see now just how bad certain areas were on the car, especially the bonnet with a lot of stone chips and possibly some previous paint work - It is a 16 year old car so i wasn't expecting perfection but there were areas of the paint that reminded me of my old nPulsar where it just seemed quite weathered, and hazy / almost glazed over in places - It's hard to explain but i'll let the pics do that.



Scratched wing


Mirror


Orange peel / Sign of paintwork


Taped up ready for polishing





What i was facing, it wasn't going to be easy



First pass was with a Sonus SFX-2 Pad, using PO85RD 3.02 but the paint seemed pretty hard to be honest, i thought it may be soft like Honda's but
definitely not the case with this Toyota at least

(First time i got to use my new Brinkman Torch too)!





Trying to get the right shots



50/50 of the Bonnet and Wing



Closer inspection and getting the right light showed there were still a lot of scratches in the paint



I decided to try a Sonus SFX-1 Pad with some Menzerna Power Gloss S100 (This is the toughest stuff i've got at the moment)



It's definitely better, but you can see the condition of the paint is just not up to it in some places, maybe a Pro could have got more out but i think
the only thing it really needed is paint adding which i can't do...

Bit further back, showing the clarity to the right



Top of the bonnet

[Nick Goodall]

PART3

More 50/50's as i like them....







I carried on round the whole car, using Power Gloss S100 on an SFX1 pad, but also refined each panel with some PO106FA on an SFX-2 but i'm not sure this was really needed as the S100 was actually leaving a decent finish!

I quickly got the car outside to rinse down and remove all dust, then set about waxing up with some Dodo Juice Rainforest Rub

Left to cure for 25 mins







Wax was then buffed off, all Trims were treated with Meguiars Trim Detailer, Tyres with Meg's Endurance Tyre Gel and Glass was cleaned with Autosmart 20/20 Crystal view but i've only got pics inside the garage as it was now dark - I should be able to get some pics tomorrow when he comes to pick it up

Here you go anyway















Well i got up at 8 the next day and headed back to my Dad's to finish off the Celica, well get it outside and give it a quick wipe down with some Autosmart Re-Glaze, i mainly wanted to get some good pics of it out in the Sun!

Here they are





















Thanks for reading, sorry for the huuuuuuge post but the owner wanted me to get him some pics so i said i'd do an in-depth write up for him too.

Nick.

[jayst]

another crackin job m8

[samd]

Very impressive!

[smokes]

xcellentjob mate! But knowing how car are made and quality standard of factory paint. It always makes me wonder it is cheaper better to strip the shell and paint it properly ie. prime flat the paint and do multiple coats paint and thinner, rather than use 2 pack. i know the painters at bentley would do something 14 coats on custom colour paints.

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by smokes

xcellentjob mate! But knowing how car are made and quality standard of factory paint. It always makes me wonder it is cheaper better to strip the shell and paint it properly ie. prime flat the paint and do multiple coats paint and thinner, rather than use 2 pack. i know the painters at bentley would do something 14 coats on custom colour paints.

The difference though is a £100 detail vs £1500 for a decent respray on a car worth £750? Hardly worth it really.... To be honest its rarely the paint at fault anyway, just poor wash methods or driving past brambles etc, even Bentleys and RR's get swirled and scratched badly

[Evsie]

Awesome work as usual Nick; such a shame I didn't live by you then you could give my Audi a good going over.

[ghost2212]

Hi

Do you think it would be ok to use snow foam by itself as a starter then just use the wax that came with my car?

I currently use the shampoo and paintwork preserver that came with the car and already applied as its a Ford its called pure guard.

Thanks

Brett

[MatJohnson]

Brett, is that the same stuff as diamond bright?

[Aaran]

ya you will notice with jap cars that most cars that have been in japan for some time will have harder paint than the uk equilivants. itsn ot unusual to see black cars that have sat outside in the sun actully have the paint under the clear crack and go white.

if its an import expect it to have harder clear. my delsol SiR that was imported had harder paint than my current vw golf m4! also keep an eye out for stickey paint syndrome on them to, right pita as the clear jsut feels dry when you hit them with the rotary

glad you can get the menz to work in this weather, i stick to the megs this time of year lol

[smokes]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

The difference though is a £100 detail vs £1500 for a decent respray on a car worth £750? Hardly worth it really.... To be honest its rarely the paint at fault anyway, just poor wash methods or driving past brambles etc, even Bentleys and RR's get swirled and scratched badly

True we did cane the engineering cars.....

But I am not sure spending 2k on detail equipment and time to do it , would be cheaper than a full respray..... As for cars value it seem the uk has got it wrong on the continent a celica like that would worth 3k a least.... But then we wouldn't get the bargins..

But I also had new cars straight out of the factory and the paint was poor.... orange peel and colours of bumpers and filler cap not matching the body as the bumpers and filler caps are usually sprayed else like a compelety different factory 100s of mile away from the main assembly plant with the same matching paint batch..... Strange but true

[smokes]

Originally Posted by Aaran

ya you will notice with jap cars that most cars that have been in japan for some time will have harder paint than the uk equilivants. itsn ot unusual to see black cars that have sat outside in the sun actully have the paint under the clear crack and go white.

if its an import expect it to have harder clear. my delsol SiR that was imported had harder paint than my current vw golf m4! also keep an eye out for stickey paint syndrome on them to, right pita as the clear jsut feels dry when you hit them with the rotary

glad you can get the menz to work in this weather, i stick to the megs this time of year lol

Japanese customers are very picky about paint quality of there cars, so any jap import the paint should be better quality than there european counterparts.

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by smokes

True we did cane the engineering cars.....

But I am not sure spending 2k on detail equipment and time to do it , would be cheaper than a full respray..... As for cars value it seem the uk has got it wrong on the continent a celica like that would worth 3k a least.... But then we wouldn't get the bargins..

Sorry, i'm not sure i quite get what you mean? It's not £2k worth of Detailing kit but yeah between £300-£800 to get everything you need... but i'm talking about the guy paying me £100 to get his car like this, compared to spending minimum £1500 or so for a respray - Do you know what i mean?? Surely that would be more worthwhile to get it looking at least satisfactory? Plus at least if it's not had any sign of being painted, it shows it to be a more genuine car when it's time to sell - it just looks well looked after instead of possibly repaired by being painted.

[c0sie]

Brilliant thread Nick, especially on a scratched up old car, shows the quality of your work and the ability you have