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Polished Bliss: Impreza 22B...

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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 10:34 AM
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Default Polished Bliss: Impreza 22B...

This was the latest one just completed this morning

You're lucky if you ever see a 22B on the roads but this was the second we've had in within 12 months, this one was booked in after the owner saw the write up from the previous one.

The car has just recently been imported from Japan and as with most imports it was looking a bit dull and lifeless with old product residue in just about every panel gap.















Onto the wash stage...


As usual, the pre-foam was first using R222 @ 60 degrees:




This was repeated 2 or 3 times and then rinsed off at high pressure:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...B_Chris/C8.jpg[/img]


The wheels were cleaned with Gloss-It Wheel Gel, which cleaned the faces up nicely, but I quickly discovered alot of underseal overspray on the inner rims. It would have taken an eternity to remove this with the wheels on so off they came...


Overspray pictured below:



I soaked the wheels with Autosmart Tardis and left it for a minute or two:




Then with the pressure washer @ 50 degrees and good old elbow grease I managed to remove all the overspray and old weight stickers with just some small areas of pitting and blistering remaining:






Each wheel was sealed with Blackfire Metal Sealant and while that cured I cleaned up the arches:




With the car back on all 4 wheels again I carried on with the rest of the jobs. All the exterior trim were cleaned with a Meguiars Slide Lock Brush and R222 and then I moved onto the shuts:

Before:



After:






The engine bay was also sprayed with R222 and agitated (the alternator and alarm siren were covered up) before being rinsed at medium pressure (60 degrees):






Finally it was then time to get the car washed, using Shampoo Plus and a lambs wool mitt:




After a going over with Tardis followed by a rinse I put the car inside for claying.

It wasn’t too bad contaminant wise so Meguiars Quick Clay was used:




One final rinse was done and then I got the drier out and got rid of any water hiding in the panel gaps etc:




Paint readings next:






The gauges revealed that pretty much the whole car had seen paintwork at various times of its life with readings varying from 120-700 odd in places.


I made polishing the bonnet a bit easier by removing the vents:




See what I mean about dull and lifeless? (not to mention some nasty scratches)










When it came to polishing the original panels I was expecting sticky paint but when I did my first test pass on the roof the polishes worked nicely, although the paint was alot harder than the last one which was a bit surprising...

I had to finally settle on Gloss-It Extreme Cut and Gloss-It Fast Cut Pads to achieve the desired results.

Moving from the roof to the bonnet:

Before:



During:



After:




Pleasantly surprised at the lack of sticky paint, as I moved onto the sides Sod's Law came into play

I have never experienced such horrible sticky paint in all my life (and I've done a few now! ). The paint was just soaking up the polish instantly and the amount of EVP Pad Prime needed to keep the pad lubricated was starting to cause product sling which I cant stand so in the end I swapped over to the G220 but needed to step up to Menzerna Compounding Pads (and 2 or 3 drops of EVP Prime) to get acceptable correction.

Usually re-sprayed panels don’t ever present a problem when it comes to sticky paints but this was obviously an exception. The bumpers were ok though so I was able to polish these with the rotary :thumb:


Still, even with the G220 the results were pleasing and the hard paint allowed the compounding pads to finish down pretty well

Before:




After:




By this point Martin from Dent Devils had turned up to remove a few dings so I swapped sides for a bit...




N/S A-Pillar showing signs of an old wind deflector that had marked the paint:



After:



Some of the marks were too deep to fully remove as can be seen in the above pic.


N/S rear quarter before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Before:



After:




Boot lid after:




Underside of spoiler before:



After:




Boot lid before:



After:




Before:



After:




Number plate recess before:



After:




Sideskirt corrected:




With all the 1st stage correction done on the paintwork it was time to turn to the exterior glass which had some of the worst water spot etching I've seen for a while:




Just aswell we have the Lake Country kit to play with now




When going for scratch removal on glass you need to use the felt pads and polish provided but as I was only aiming for removal of the water marks (full glass correction could easily take a day or two in my experiences) I was able to just use the polish with a Menzerna Compounding Pad (80mm):




I worked the polish @ 1800rpm's with medium pressure, spritzing with water when needed to keep the polish working:




Before:



After:




There were still some really deep etching marks on the rear screen in places but they were hard to see if you didn’t put the sun gun over them so overall I was happy

I gave the glass a thorough wipe down with Menzerna Top Inspection and then sealed with the Werkstat System.

The second polishing stage was done with Meguiars 205 and a Gloss-It Polishing Pad, spending a good amount of time lightly burnishing the paint to achieve as much clarity as possible.

Bonnet vents were polished by hand with US Intensive Polish and a CCS Light Cut Pad:




Another Top Inspection wipe down followed but this time for the paintwork and I then applied the LSP which was Zym0l Vintage.

A few Sun Gun shots (no wipe down had been done at this point):































The interior was detailed, the tyres were given a final buff (after 3 coats of Gloss-It Signature Tyre Gloss), tailpipe polished with Brilliant Show Metal Polish and engine bay dressed and protected with Aerospace 303 Protectant.

It was then time to go to bed, although it was quite an early finish compared to some




This morning the car was given a final wipe down with Gloss-It Gloss Enhancing QD and while I went to go and collect the owner Rich took the final pics :thumb:

This is the result of just over 37 hours worth of work and I couldn’t have been much happier in all honesty
























































Thanks for taking the time to read,


Clark
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 10:46 AM
  #2  
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what did that cost to do if you dont mind me asking?
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 10:55 AM
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Originally Posted by paul thornton
what did that cost to do if you dont mind me asking?
i was thinking that to wouldnt mind the coss being done
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 10:57 AM
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Top job as ever. I sooo enjoy reading these
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 11:03 AM
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Again a very nice job, there seems to be alot of money up Aberdeen way l guess it's all those oil workers

Mike
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 11:11 AM
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Originally Posted by paul thornton
what did that cost to do if you dont mind me asking?
The 3 day major correction is from Ł995+ VAT and then Ł100 extra for the application of Vintage wax so just over Ł1,200 for this job mate.

Originally Posted by MikeR
Again a very nice job, there seems to be alot of money up Aberdeen way l guess it's all those oil workers

Mike
2nd richest city in the UK apparantly, pretty much due to the oil industry as you say
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 11:23 AM
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Bloody hell! Thats awesome!

Your work is really second to none!

What an awesome car to detail too.
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 11:41 AM
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Top work as usual.

Fairly priced as well, for the efforts (and obvious results) involved.
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Old Jun 22, 2009 | 11:55 AM
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Now that's my idea of a car! Love these. Stunning work.
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Old Jun 25, 2009 | 06:42 PM
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i love reading these threads. second time going through this one!
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Old Jun 25, 2009 | 07:00 PM
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Are the 'after' pics taken using HDR or are they really that good with no correction?

Not to put the work down in any way, it looks really stunning, especially looking at the 'before' pictures
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Old Jun 25, 2009 | 07:07 PM
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That is truly amazing
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Old Jun 26, 2009 | 10:35 AM
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With regard to the images, unless specifically stated, we do nothing other than resizing and sometimes a tiny dash of unsharp mask if the focus was a bit off at the time the image was taken. We do use a very high camera, and this makes a huge difference to image quality - we're currently using a D300 Nikon DSLR and 16-85VR lens. Cost an arm and a leg, but worth every penny to show off our work propertly!
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Old Jun 26, 2009 | 02:49 PM
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Brian
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Old Jun 26, 2009 | 03:07 PM
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Stunning.
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Old Jun 26, 2009 | 03:54 PM
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Great work that is, worth EVERY penny imo, so much hard work to get a car to that level form what it was...
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Old Jun 26, 2009 | 04:19 PM
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Absolutely fantastic!!!
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Old Jun 27, 2009 | 07:36 PM
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top job man
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Old Jun 27, 2009 | 09:59 PM
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That just looks fantastic
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 09:59 AM
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awesome turn around, theres only been a handfull of fords that iv seen detailed

Ł1200 for that job - makes much more sense doing that than getting a Ł1200 respray because i know it wouldnt come out like that

will you be running any competitions to win a detail
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 10:35 AM
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Superb buddy

Very nice car aswell, like that
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 06:48 PM
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Absolutely amazing. I've seen you post on Scoobynet too, but I didn't realise you were in Aberdeen. Plenty of nice cars to detail up there!
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 07:03 PM
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Awesome work,i wouldnt want to drive it after that
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 07:10 PM
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Wow!
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 07:25 PM
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WOW

I want...love 22b's


Fantastic work lads
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 08:06 PM
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lets be honest, it came in looking like a shitter and nothing special, left looking like a showroom fresh example (weve seen showrooms arent fresh but you know what im saying), good job well done
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Old Jul 21, 2009 | 08:31 PM
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A1 job,its good to see some people take pride in there work.22b impreza's are rare but the jap's drive the shit out of them and then we get the shit over here.They need 98 octane too
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Old Jul 22, 2009 | 05:50 AM
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Perfection
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