Seven dust Detailing - another extreme make over by Erik

For U create my inmost being & U knitted me in my mothers wombI am fearfully & wonderfully make

taking pleasure to share with you one of my latest student work

My heart felt congrats to Erik

SevenDust Senior Member

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Bringing the shine back to the Mazda MX5

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Hello everyone!. As the title says, this was indeed a major challenge for me to restore the shine back to this 90's Mazda MX5 as the paint was heavily oxidized and neglected by the previous owner. This is by far, my longest detailing task to date. Here's how the car looked like upon arrival:



Notice the lack of gloss and shine?. The paint also appeared dull, weathered and pretty oxidized.



A closeup of the surface condition:



and of course RIDs



But that was the least of my headaches once i saw these marks all over the car:



Notice the white-ish patches on the front bumper between the logo and the signal lights? That's right folks, its caused by them car covers. KC has documented this in his blog :Car detailer: Water Damage from Car Cover - Rewritting History by KC

To make things worse, this car has totally lost its clear coat.

You'll soon see why these stains are by far one of the hardest to get rid off. Now onward to the path of restoring :D . Started the body wash with a mix of car shampoo and degreaser ,and followed by clay. Then i moved on to the rims. Didnt take any photos of the rims because the owner just had them changed very recently.



The white-ish streaks/marks were from the degreaser.

The petrol cap area before:


After 4 minutes of OPC and very minor agitation with a soft brush:


Now moving ahead with the paint correction process. Did a 50/50 shot on the test area:





50/50 on the hood:



A few hours later, i completed compounding the hood :) Pretty satisfying results, aye?



Now here comes the headache...remember the white-ish stains caused by the car covers? well here's how it looks like even after compounding the boot:





After hours of more compounding and advice from KC, here are the results.. g ggone! (pardon the splatter marks on the rear window)



The roof wasn't spared of the stains too :(



Removed the hardtop as it would be easier for me to work on and after hours of pushing on , voila! (i didn't have space to keep the roof, so i had to keep it in the house hehe)



Closeup shot of the crisp reflection:



Now that the roof has been sorted out, moved to the rear panel which seemed to be the worst part that got affected by the carwash:



After compounding magic:


Before calling it a night, i wanted to do a 50/50 of the doors. Here's the test area before:



after:



50/50:



Was already dead tired at this point and called it a night. The next morning, i continued on with the rest of the body panels starting with the rear bumper. Now when working on plastic parts like the bumpers, you really really need to becareful or else you might end up burning the paint.



midway working on the bumper:







after the exterior was done,it was time to coat the car with none other than Opti Coat 2.0. Special thanks to Muyo for sacrificing your Opti Coat to me :) thanks bro!



The following morning, i did the interior. Stains on seat:







After vacuuming and OPC-ed the seats:



Remember before? :



Now: (pardon again the missing hardtop)



More after shots:







After 3 days and lots of sweat and tears it was finally completed :D. Thanks to KC and Muyo for their words of wisdom! Thanks for looking guys! Cheers! - SevenDust a.k.a Erik