TLC FOR TT

I contacted a friend from a few years ago and persuaded him to allow me to work on his 7-year old TT. He has only had it for a month now but did not need much persuasion to take it to the next level, having shown him what was possible.

Got the car to wash and clay on the Friday night and got the machining done on Saturday with a finale on Sunday morning.

No before pics as again my time was limited.

WASH AND CLAY

• Pre-soaked with Autobrite Super Snow Foam and Meguiars All Purpose Cleanser. Wheels treated to Megs Wheel Brightener and washed with microfibre mitt. Wheel arches foamed with Megs APD cut 4:1. Rinsed with hose.
• Repeated above body treatment with wheels coming up well.
• 2-bucket lambswool mitt wash using Chemical Guys Extreme Body Wash and Wax, with Megs APC into the bargain.
• Rinsed with hose.
• Poorboys waffle weave dried in prep’n for claying.
• Sonus Grey clay used on this 7-yr old and boy was it needed. Megs Last Touch used as lube, cut 1:1.
• Washed again, as in steps 3-5.

This car was rough! The mitt had to be dragged along every panel. Never experienced this level of friction before. The lube was running from each panel ALMOST BLACK. What appeared to be a very clean car to start with very quickly showed itself to be very heavily contaminated with firmly bonded grit. Total time here 2.5 hours!

Here’s the car after the wash and clay, looking quite clean:
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PC DUAL ACTION MACHINE POLISHING

Menzerna 3.02 on Megs Soft Buff Polishing pad on bonnet to start with but not convinced of its ability here to remove some of the more obvious swirl marks. Moved onto Sonus Yellow Cutting pad. Worked in on each panel for 2 passes at speed 1. Followed by 8-10 passes at speed 4-5. This worked well only leaving some of the deeper scratches under the clearcoat that were not terribly visible.

This brought out a nice gloss that I was happy with. No need for final finish polish. This car’s youthful skin had now returned. I was very happy indeed despite being quite concerned at the start as to how much of an improvement would be possible – my first silver car.
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CLEANSING AND PROTECTION

Each panel cleansed using Zymol HD Cleanse using a German applicator pad. Following on from that, to super cleanse this paint I applied JEFFS Prime Acrylic to also set a reflective acrylic basecoat before applying Zymol Carbon wax (sorry Rich!!!!!). All these chemicals were buffed using Poorboys DMTs.

Windows cleansed using HD cleanse.

Wheels cleansed and sealed using JEFFS Prime Acrylic and left to cure for the regulatory 30 mins before being buffed with MF cloth.
Tyres dressed with Poorboys Bold and Bright dressing (thanks Rich and Angela!). I like this dressing very much.

FINAL VERDICT
Unable to spritz later with Zymol Field Glaze due to the intermittent rain that characterised Sunday morning and afternoon. This annoyed me as part of me feels the job was not finished.

As you will see from these final pics, the paintwork was left very glossy and wet with increased clarity in the reflections. I was very pleased with the results and the owner said it was way beyond his expectations. TOTAL MACHINING AND PROTECTION TIME: 12hrs.
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Hope you liked! Cheers, JOHN

Carbon should be fine, it doesn't contain all the usual petrol distillates that a lot of liquid stuff does. No problem whatsoever.

Cheers mate! Thanks for your very generous comments. No the amby wasn't for me, despite another burnt heid. They were wanting their bonnet deswirled but I had to tell them to come back another day. Oh and their siren lights were needing the same. Might get a wee saturday job down at the amby depot. Washing the ambies wi a brush on a pole - fancy helping out? We could take the kids, they could play inside the ambies and turn the wipers on to buff the HD Cleanse, save us a wee bit of work so we could have a beer.

It was a great day I have to say and although I'm not ever going to buy a silver car I don't think, I'm quite happy I can bring about a serious improvement in silver. I was impressed at how nice silver can be when wet and new looking, and not just out of the showroom.

My next one is a medium-swirled red A3 Sportback wi glass roof, but I'm going to Kilmacolm to work on that one. I'll give you a shout the next time I'm working on one at home and you can hop across the burn.

Glad to hear your claying went well and that the 190 is better for it. You'll still need to take me for a serious spin in it. Ready when you are mate!