Official Rally Red Evo X Picture Thread
jeff, take care of her!
You got it Rudy. I spent 3 solid days with the paint. That was last wed-fri. Yesterday I removed the wheels and cleaned the undercarriage, wheel wells, and added extra clearcoat to the calipers to avoid futer flaking. There was some very slight curb rash on the passenger side of the wheels I had repaired as well. Trust me it is in good hands.
Last edited by suprawillis; Aug 24, 2009 at 10:50 PM.
Now disclaimer: Some professional details may see this and freak out because I may be doing things the wrong way, but this works for me. I used menzerna products because this car will be driven a few times a week.
But I started by washing the car using Turtle wax ice car wash. I like it because it suds really well, and it smells nice
I then re-washed the car and used the water for the clay bar lubrication. I used mothers' clay bar and carefully did every panel.Afterward I dried the car using a leaf blower, and an air compressor. I didn't want water coming out of the seams of the car and all the crevices. Next I used 3m blue masking tape and taped off all the door edges, light edges, handles, basically any area where I didn't want wax to get into:
Last edited by suprawillis; Aug 25, 2009 at 12:16 AM.
Now onto the polishing. I have a few polishers, but I used the standard Porter Cable 7424. It is very user friendly, mainly because it is oscillating. You cannot burn the paint with this polisher. And they are very affordable. I used lake country medium cut pads with Menzerna Super Intesive Polish at first. I started on level "3" on the polisher to spread the polish around, then I moved to level "6", which is the highese level and worked small sections, until the entire panel was done.
The paint on the evo is very soft. Luckily this paint was still on good shape from just normal everyday use from car wash brushes and terri-cloths. But for the most part the first pass of polish got all the microsratches out. Here is a pictures of the first pass. Not that those aren't water marks, those are all reflections from the ceiling:
The next polishing process was the menzerna 106FF. I didn't have to use much of it because most of the micro scratches came out. I just used it on some of the panels from where someone may have leaned against the car with their jeans.
In between polish rounds, I would re-wipe the panel with a 50/50 mixture of water and alcohol so I didn't get "polish on top of polish". And for the final round of polish, I used a soft buffing pad, and Menzerna Full Molecular Jacket which is a sealant. This sealant doesn't have the greatest reputation because 1, it is expensive, and 2, it only lasts for about 6 car washes before it looses it's "slickness", I wanted to use up as much as possible before trying another sealant product. So I applied 4 coats and allowed 8 hours of cure time in between coats.
The paint on the evo is very soft. Luckily this paint was still on good shape from just normal everyday use from car wash brushes and terri-cloths. But for the most part the first pass of polish got all the microsratches out. Here is a pictures of the first pass. Not that those aren't water marks, those are all reflections from the ceiling:
The next polishing process was the menzerna 106FF. I didn't have to use much of it because most of the micro scratches came out. I just used it on some of the panels from where someone may have leaned against the car with their jeans.
In between polish rounds, I would re-wipe the panel with a 50/50 mixture of water and alcohol so I didn't get "polish on top of polish". And for the final round of polish, I used a soft buffing pad, and Menzerna Full Molecular Jacket which is a sealant. This sealant doesn't have the greatest reputation because 1, it is expensive, and 2, it only lasts for about 6 car washes before it looses it's "slickness", I wanted to use up as much as possible before trying another sealant product. So I applied 4 coats and allowed 8 hours of cure time in between coats.
Last edited by suprawillis; Aug 25, 2009 at 12:17 AM.
When the paint was done I removed the tape, cleaned the tape residue with alcohol and applied mothers' "back to black" on all the black trim on the car. When that was done, I cleaned, polished, and waxed the door jams using cheap wax. I used meguires' nano techwax.
Lastly, I cleaned the wheel wells using just a soft scrub brush and P21S total auto wash:
Lastly, I cleaned the wheel wells using just a soft scrub brush and P21S total auto wash:
Last edited by suprawillis; Aug 25, 2009 at 12:32 AM.
