Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

TO BE FINISHED SOMEDAY .
THIS IS THE TEASER VERSION

Still got alot to write and pics to make (6-7 more steps and 100+ pics )...I have no idea when I can finish it at the moment. It's a HUMONGOUS write up so it takes LOTS of time (so far at least 3 hours)...but I feel it'll be well worth it for everyone .


HOW TO: COMPLETELY DETAIL YOUR EVOLUTION, CONCOURS STYLE
By: Mitch Blyumin a.k.a Mitchubishi




Welcome to a thread that will guide one through the extensive process of cleaning, correcting, protecting, and maintaining an Evolution. By no means do I expect anybody to replicate the exact process I’m about to describe. This will be a very long and very thorough activity that will take a passionate individual to complete, especially if you go through the WHOLE THING. We will begin this thread with the outside of the car, starting with the basics, such as washing, claying, and cleaning the paint. It will get more complicated with the polishing steps and possible wet sanding. Then, we’ll move into sealing and waxing. Wheels and tires will be taken care of as well. The interior will follow. The real fun will happen in the DETAILS of the car, such as: wheel wells, door jambs, exterior trim, underneath the hood, trunk jambs, and much more. I’ve got LOTS OF PICS of everything, including my products, application, and before and afters. The #1 thing I want everyone to learn from this experience is that IT’S ALL IN THE PREP! You can have $1000+ waxes, 30 buffers, and glazes out the who ha, but with skill and proper polishing, you can achieve a shine even using crappy $5 Turtle Wax! Please never use it though :P. So, without wasting any more time with an introduction, let’s begin the fun!

The lucky recipient: My new (to me) 2003 Tarmac Black Evolution. I was VERY lucky to find this car as there were no TB Evolutions for sale in IL and I wouldn’t settle for any other color. The car is in very good shape, but as you can see, needs to be cleaned. Instead of being bummed, I looked at it as an opportunity to show what can be done with hard work. The car is dirty, HEAVILY laden with paint contamination; swirled to all hell; the interior is dusty and needs protecting; the engine bay is dirty: the wheels are no longer silver. I’ve got my work set out for me .



Step 1: WASHING

You can see I’ve got A LOT of car wash solutions. Of the ones you can see, my favorites are: Meguiar’s Gold Class (GC), Top of the Line Bubble Bath (BB), and Poorboy’s Super Slick n’ Suds (SSS). The GC can be found in HUGE amounts (1.25 gallons) at Costco for a whopping $8…BUY IT. BB is awesome too, and at ~$15 for a gallon, I also find it an unbeatable deal. Today, though, I’ll be using the funky looking thing with purple liquid inside. That, my friends, is called Foam Gun. Inside of it is a pre-made concoction of soap and water. I mix the soap and water in a gallon container of milk and let them completely fuse with one another over a few hours before I use the mixture. I’ll use about 10 ounces (sometimes more) of soap, and the fill the rest with water. If you haven’t inferred it already, the foam gun creates lots of FOAM. This foam will allow for a huge amount of lubrication between the paint and your wash mitt, hence allowing for less marring and/or swirling of the paint. As just mentioned, you’ll also need some sort of wash mitt: I recommend Sheepskin above all. It’s VERY soft and doesn’t trap too much in it’s fibers to pull across the paint to scratch the surface. Microfiber Chenille isn’t bad either, but stick with Sheepskins. Two buckets, one with a soap and water solution, one with just water, should also be around. After doing a panel, the wash mitt should go inside the water bucket to rinse off and get rid of any dirt trapped in the fibers. The soap and water mixture will allow one to keep more of a barrier between the mitt and the paint. So, have at it!
-Prepare your buckets
-Spray down/foam down the vehicle to remove/ help loosen dirt
-Work form the TOP to BOTTOM. First the roof, hood and trunk, the top half of doors, fenders, lower half of doors, and finally the bumpers and side skirts. They are the dirtiest, so we don’t want to start low and drag all the dirt upstairs, do we?
- Begin panel, dip mitt into soap bucket, wash panel, dip into water bucket and clean off well.
***NOTE***: Use HORIZONTAL strokes (back and forth, or towards the windshield and back to the nose) on the hood, roof, trunk, and top of the wing…VERTICAL strokes (up and down) on the sides of the car; this mimics how air travels along the car and helps to not mar and swirl the paint. Avoid using circular motions...they cause swirls.
- Rinse off panel with a gentle flow of water. Don’t let water dry up or you’ll end up with water/mineral spots…which will mean more work later.
- Repeat these steps until you’ve finished washing the entirety of the painted surfaces on the car. You can get into details now and open you doors and wash the jambs, as well as the jambs in the trunk and the bottom of your hood.

Step 2: Drying
Microfiber Waffle Weave Towels are a MUST for anyone who enjoys not $%&$ing up their paint. They are soft and absorbent. Chamois, the absorber, and any towels with any backing other than 100% Made in the U.S.A Cotton will cause damage. The drying process is fairly simple. Just:
-Dry the car with the same movements you used to clean it, back and forth on panels facing up towards the sky, and up and down on side panels. If you really want to get ALL the water off your car, get compressed air and blow around the mirrors or just drive around your neighborhood. Then, once you see al the water lines, dry them.

Congrats, you’ve finished the easiest part of maintaining your car. IF this was hard or new for you, shame on you: this should be done at least once a week…sometimes more (especially if you have a color like mine ).

The next steps will entail more work on the paint and outside for the car…normal, you would wash the wheels in a car wash, but they will be pulled off and completely detailed in here so deal with it. Look to step ___ on page ___ to see what to do and what to use to keep them blinky, otherwise read on to see how to REALLY detail them. Otherwise, go onto perfecting your paint.

Step 3: Claybarring
Claybar is a godsend to many in the detailing community; before its introduction into the world of detailing in the mid 90’s (1995 I believe), cleaning up a paint job always required some compounding. Now, if you have bug crap, tree sap, paint transfer...it can be taken care of with this. What a Claybar does it remove surface contamination that washing doesn’t: rail dust, sap, insect droppings, and especially TAR can all be taken care of with a Claybar, Clay Lube, and elbow grease. I buy clay in bulk, so Chemical Guy’s Clay is good for me. The Evo will be getting two different bars today though. For stubborn parts, I’ll sue the CG clay, while less contaminated parts will receive Sonus Fine Grade Clay: this clay is gentler on paint. The best lube is a true Quick Detailer (QD), such as Meguiar’s and Finish Kare #425. I’ve read about and used lubes made at home with car wash solution and water…but the only thing I’ve ever gotten with that was dead bars; they would fall apart in my own hand with far less uses than with a true QD. With a QD though, I’ve gotten close to 8 cars out of one 200 gram bar. This number varies since I work on well maintained vehicles and cars from hell, such as our test subject. While claying, make sure the surface is free of dust and debris, since all you’ll do it grab it and drag it around on the top of the paint. The purpose of the bar is to abrade away at contamination not level with the paint. Of all the prepatory steps, claying is the easiest for anyone to do since the materials are available at your local Pepboy’s or AutoZone. Onto the claying:
-If your Claybar is new, open it up and cut it into sections. I usually cut into 8 sections, and with my 200G bars, that is about 25 grams a piece. We do this for multiple reasons, the main ones being that if you drop the clay on the ground, it’s rendered useless and has to be thrown out. This way, you don’t lose a whole abr. The other reason is that many parts of the car may have A LOT more contamination than others, so disposing of the dead clay will allow for a brand new piece to be used rather than a really messy full bar.
-Spray some QD on your hand, on the clay, and finally on your panel. We don’t need clay sticking to anything…it needs to be gliding over the paint.
-Begin working a 2’X2’ section of paint. Use the same motions as previously described in washing and drying. Sometimes, when you have a lot of tar and tree sap, you may need to deviate from the regular strokes and go the opposite ways; this is fine, but for areas where it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of $#&% like that, just stick with the regular motions
-Continue spraying the area with lube so that it’s easy to move the clay.
-When the surface stops sounding like rubbing sandpaper, you’ve done it! Wipe off the excess QD with a good Microfiber or 100% (Made is USA) Terry Cotton towel.
-Repeat these steps for the rest of the car and marvel at your work after you finish.

At this point, many of you should skip forwarding to sealing and waxing, the reason being that the next steps will be polishing, and to polish you’d really need a PC (Porter Cable 7424/7336) or Cyclo machine.





Step 4: POLISHING
Ahh yes, this step is the most frustrating, but BY FAR the step that makes your paint what it is. The point is to get the paint flawless…dare I say, perfect? Swirls, scratches, spider webs…those all need to be GONE if you want to compete in a real show. Hot Import Nights makes me laugh…maybe 1 or 2 good paint jobs there, and even so, they lack depth and clarity most of the time. No, I’m talking shows like Pebble Beach, where cars are shipped off to detailers for multiple days to be prepared.

What you’ll need: Polisher, Pads, Compounds, Polishes, 50/50 Mix of Water and Isopropyl Alcohol, QD, Microfiber towels, and a VERY POWERFUL light.
I’ll be using a Cyclo polisher, which I’m borrowing from a client of mine. It is a random orbital, which means the pads spins, and the spindle its on spins as well, so the pad is never in one place on the paint, like a Rotary buffer i.e. the Makita I have pictured. This is safer, since you have the ability to burn through paint with a Rotary . Another unique thing about the Cyclo is that is has small 4” pads on twin heads, and as everyone learned in grade school, 2 heads are better than one: lol:. For tighter areas, I’ll be using my Porter Cable 7336, which works just like the Cyclo. Normally, I use 6.5” pads on a 5” backing plate, but I have a 4” pad plate as well, so both will be utilized on different potions of the car.

My compound and polish choice will be Optimum Hyper Compound, Menzerna Final Polish 2, and Menzerna PO85RD. Optimum polishes are awesome because they have an INCREDIBLE working time and they create virtually no dust. You’ll see what I mean when I start using the Menzerna polishes. You may ask, why am I not using the whole Optimum line if they are so good? Well, The Menzerna polishes work a bit faster when finishing down, and FP2 followed by PO85RD has been the absolute bets finishing combo I’ve ever done on black. You can buy all these online with the exception of PO85RD, because it no longer meets VOC requirements. No worries, you will not notice much of a difference between the FP2’s paint and the PO85RD’s paint…so much so that I may not even use the last polish.

My pad choices will be from two companies: Meguiar’s and Propel. Meguiar’s has 3 pads of different colors, burgundy for cutting, yellow for polishing, and beige for glazes and last step products. Propel pads are of 5 colors: Orange-Heavy Cut, Yellow-Medium Cut, Green-Polishing, Blue-Light Polishing/Glazing, Grey-Last Step Products. I also have 4” Propel “Turbo” Pads that follow the same color “cut” as the normal pads. Meguiar’s pads can be found on many of the online detailing supply companies, but Propel’s can only be found on www.exceldetail.com. Patrick, the owner, is the best, I mean THE BEST person ever to deal with. His customer service is second to NONE. I can also give thumbs up to www.autogeek.net, www.properaurocare.com, and www.chemicalguys.com.

So, onto the most rewarding part…get ready to not feel your arms, back, and sides tomorrow. Polishing will be different car to car, since it depends on the swirling. Mine is pretty bad, but I’ll still try and use the least aggressive combo I can to not take off more clear coat than necessary.

Another thing: many polishes and waxes have the ability to stain your rubber trim and black plastic. I’ve gotten to the point where I can polish without worrying about that on most of my customers’ cars, but with really high end ones, I always tape off areas like these. Now even though this is no $160,000 911 Turbo, it’s my baby and I’ll be using tape and newspaper to cover up trim, vents, and windows. Lights I’m not worried about because those will be polished too.

Steps:
-Tape everything off…I’ll let the pics speak for themselves.
-Make sure your surface is once again clean and free of debris. Use QD and Microfiber to clean it off.
-Put you pad on your polisher and prime the pad with a light, quick sprits of QD from about 8” away.
-Apply an “X” across the pad and then dab the pad around your 2’X2’ section of paint.
-Turn on the polisher to low speed (3 on a PC) and spread the polish around the area so that it’s evenly distributed. We will use HORIZONTRAL and VERITCLE strokes here. No going in circles; straight lines only. If you want to cut even more, you can go diagonally on a 45 degree angle. This should take maybe 15 seconds at most.
-Start turning up the speed and applying pressure. This is where newbies will show…DO NOT be afraid to push down on the paint. I use a good 10-15 pounds or pressure. TRUST ME, it’s the only way to get flaws out. Work the polish as described earlier.
-Time wise, when you are really getting swirls out, you’ll be moving very slow…I’m talking 1(ONE) Inch per Second. This snails pace is the method to use for the first few passes, then on the final passes before the polish flashes, move at about 4” per Second. Also, overlap the passes halfway. My 6.5” pad only does 3.25” of work on each pass .
-Continue working the polish until it starts to “flash” or dry i.e. start looking hazy and not greasy. DO not let it get to the point of heavily dusting everywhere; the pad will trap this dust and scratch your paint.
-With the polish dry, wipe the mess away with a Microfiber towel. Use QD if it takes a lot of pressure to wipe the polish away so that it loosens the polish and prevents marring.
-If you are using something like Meguiar’s DACP (#83) or any type of polish that contains “fillers” (I know 3M is synonymous with this), get your 50/50 combo or water and isopropyl alcohol spray some on the surface that was just polished, and wipe away with a Microfiber towel. This will ensure you haven’t masked the problem and instead actually taken the swirls out. If you know for a fact your polish has no fillers, disregard this step.
-At this point, if you put a dent in that area and made the swirls smaller or disappear period, you’re doing the right thing! If nothing really happened, do another pass to make sure. If it’s still bad, move up in aggressiveness on pad and polish/compound.
-Repeat all these steps until you polished the whole car. After you’ve primed a pad, you only have to add a nickel sized drop to your pad per panel. The pad is doing the work, and only needs some polish to cut. Also, the pad will become “caked”, and this is where multiple pads of the same type come in handy. Otherwise, you’ll have to stop, remove the pad, clean it, dry it, and continue work.

Wow, just wow. See what I meant by “it’s all in the prep”? The paint is CLEAR, DEEP, and WET looking without anything on it. No more words…just drool.

Step 5: Glazing

Another step many can ignore. I want my black even blacker and deeper, so I’m going to use a glaze to do this. There are many glazes on the market; my favorite has to be Clearkote’s Red Moose Glaze (RMG). Their Vanilla Moose Hand Glaze (VM) rocks as well. Meguiar’s has a glaze you can pick up from Pepboy’s called #7 Show Car Glaze. It’s wonderful as well. I also bought a new glaze I’ll be trying on customer cars before it goes on mine…just to see if it can beat RMG.

You can apply Glazes by hand or by machine, I’ll be using my PC with a blue pad and speed 4.5 just for the sake of speed and the fact that the more even pressure allows for a thinner coating. The thinner you spread glazes, sealants, and waxes, the better off you are. You use less product, since all you need is a one molecule thick layer on the paint.

-Prime the pad with just a sprits of water. I don’t like to use QD till later.
-Once again, make an “X” of product initially on your pad. We’ll be using A LOT less material so this should do a whole hood and maybe a fender.
-0Turn on the PC and work in the glaze at about 4” per Second, over lapping passes again.
-Since we aren’t trying to polish anything out, once vertically and once horizontally will be enough.
-Do this on all the paint. By the time you get to the last panel, the front the first should have been sitting for about half an hour.
-Wipe off everything with your Microfiber towels.

Drool again…doesn’t that glaze kick some major $@*^ing A$$?



Step 6: Sealing/Waxing

You’d have to INSANE to stop now…you want to leave at that hard work unprotected?
Sealants and waxes preserve everything underneath them, keeping water, minerals, animals, and UV rays out. Some well known sealants would be Zaino, Klasse SG, and Wolfgang. Of those, I only have the Zaino line. Many swear by Zaino…I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, it shines incredibly well and is my winter solution since it can last 6 months (sometimes more ), but I feel I can get a way nicer look from different sealant topped with a true Carnuba wax…if anything just a Carnuba. The sealants I have that I use often are Poorboy’s EX and EX-P, Klasse All in One (AIO), FK1 #2180, and JW Acrylic Jett. Even though many would call AIO a chemical polish, it leaves behind a strong layer of protection and a very good surface for more bonding, so I personally classify it under sealants. Poorboy’s EX is for more non-metallic paint, and EX-P is for most any color and metallics. I’ll be using AIO followed by a coat of Acrylic Jett for added protection. As for wax, there are even more choices. Of what I have, my favorites are Pinnacle Souveran,

tony_b

iTrader: (31)

VERY nice writeup! (so far). I'm looking forward to the next "chapter".

ziggy_juju

Good lord mitch!!! Do you travel??? As a painter most of the products you meantioned scare the heck outta me. I cant go play in silicone based stuff and then go back to work on monday and expect the paint to flow freely with no fish eyes. But geez man great write up, and excellent attention to detail.

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

Which products? I travel, but only in the Chicagoland area .

ziggy_juju

Oh just anything silicone based really, I am sure most of your stuff is silicone based like the Meguiar’s products. Its just a fact that detailers use a lot of things like that cause they work better. A detail shop in a body shop( if you can even call it a detail shop) is really limited to what they are allowed to use, so that there is no contamination of any sort messing with the painters. Armor All is the worst when it comes to fish eyes and contaminents. So really just anything that is silicone based is a big no no for me to mess with. I am not sure if all your stuff is that way, cause I am not a detailer in any way, but I am a very solid painter, so I would be afraid to get near most of that stuff. In fact why do you think I pay a shop to detail my car, and I only let them detail the outside. I clean the inside myself.

Josh

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

Most of my stuff is FAR from silicone based...I know exactly what you are afriad off, I am too...I HATE things with fillers. Yes, Meguiar's #83 and #80 may have some silicone in them, but a good 50/50 IPA/water wipedown can take care of that. Menzerna and Optimum polishes are silicone free. I don't use Armorall for anything but wheel wells...pretty much only water based stuff, such as 303 Aerospace for interior and Zaino Z-16 for tires and whatnot.

Theibault

Great write up. I could be insane, but you refer to pictures and I don't see any.

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

You're not insane, I wrote it in anticipation of posting it with pics...didn't get my friends camera all summer... . He's back in town soon so I need to finish this damn write up...

draconx

iTrader: (6)

i wash my baby every friday night (and wax her every other week(just the liquid stuff)). very good write up.. ill belookin foe some of those products tomorrow probably. l8rz man

- shane

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

Online is the way to go...

astrocreep96

I would add a bit about sealants/waxes:

Sealants are not waxes. Zaino is a good sealant, and many people use Zaino products exlusively. But when using other (Menzerna, Werkstatt, Poorboy's, etc.) sealants, top it off with a carnuba (not sure if I'm spelling that correctly) wax as well. Typically, two coats of sealant with a cure time of an hour on the first coat followed by 24 hours on the second coat, then start to apply your wax.

I'm gearing up for a winter prep in the next couple of months - not sure on products, but probably a good combo of some of the stuff I mentioned plus the Clearkote I'm using now. A solid sealant should protect you throughout the winter season (and Utah winters suck).

gl4662

iTrader: (9)

Subscribed!!

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

Hehe guess what I was literally JUST typing . I love Werkstatt too, looks damn good on my buddy's GG IX.

astrocreep96

I would imagine - I'm not fully decided on all of the products I'm going to buy, but I'd like to try the Acrylic Jett. Menzerna's also looks appealing, and although I shouldn't - I'll probably break down and pick up some Pinnacle Souveran sometime to try it out.

On the Evo's paint - from what I've heard on autopia, the IX's and '05 VIII's have a clearcoat on all paint, whereas on the '03 and '04 models, only the Apex Silver has a clearcoat, while the rest have a single stage paint. So...your buddy may have something to help out with that you and I don't. Oh well, mine is yellow anyway. I can spend an entire weekend working on mine and it still looks the same.

Mitchubishievo

iTrader: (310)

I have CC on my TB VIII...its red, yellow, and blue that I know are single stage. And I worked on a LY 2003 already....TRUST me, it can change ALOT .