I finally had a chance to take some good pictures of the full paint detail I did a couple of weekends ago. It took me a full Saturday and Sunday to get her back in shape.
Same old routine as before, but I figured I'd I write it down again in case anybody forgot or needed a push to get their truck back in shape once the cold and snow give way to spring. I gave her a good wash, clay, washed again and then started the process after I kicked the Suburban out from under the carport. Probably what initiated my wife saying I spent too much time detailing my truck. lol I began with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, but was having some issues with water spots on the hood not budging. Sure it looked shiny when it was clean, ....but not great.
So I pulled out the 3M 39060 Perfect-It Rubbing Compound and gave it a bit more effort with a slightly more aggressive pad. I could now see the water spots start to come up and a true shine start to come through. The hood took me some time to get it right, but was worth the effort. I decided to keep at the rest of the body with the same compound and changing pads along the way.
While polishing out the passenger front door, I must have gotten the buffer a little too close to the door handle and it managed to vibrate/crack some of the paint. It didn’t look too bad, but will need to be recoated at some point. Grrr...
The weather was perfect in the mid-70s and not too humid. The rest of the body and windows went by fairly quickly so I decided to go ahead and finish them up with a coat of Surf City Garage Nano Seal, Surf City Garage Nano Glaze and topped off with my favorite Collinite's 845 Insulator Wax. I removed the Esky roof rack in preparation for Sunday's assault on the roof and called it a day.
I was pretty shattered from the long day before, but ready to knock it out. I Rain X'd the windows and polished the few pieces of chrome (Esky rack, exhaust tips, grille and wheel center caps as it was too early to spin the buffer.)
The hood was pretty easy compared to the roof. I worked in small sections, going over some spots 3-4 times in 2x2 sections, adding small dabs of compound to help shift what was coating the paint. I worked my way around the roof clockwise, reaching across the roof as far as I could from one side as it had better light to see the imperfections. Once I finished the entire roof, I came back and hammered away at the ridges from front to back. That will test your patience for sure.
It was starting to look much better and then I looked too closely. I carefully got up on the roof, layed down and started polishing again in some of the troubled spots and I got that roof pretty damn good...well 3 hours later it was good enough.
It looks heaps better, so I went ahead and finished it off and coated it the same as the body. I tried to take comparison photos while I was up there, but the camera could not really do the old vs. new justice.
Here are some of the finished detail pictures.
