Bringing the shine back to the 1990 Mazda MX5

[sevendust]

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 . 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 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)



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:




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. After vacuuming and OPC-ed the seats, the trims were protected by OPT Leather Protectant:



The finished product:




More after shots:







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

[Marc08EX]

Wow nice revival!!! You made the car look totally different! Great job!

What foam pads did you use with Ultimate Compound? How many pads did you use on the entire car? They became red quickly huh? What polisher did you use?

[Rix6]

There never was clear coat on that paint, it was single stage red. The car came out great, you did a great job getting rid of the oxidized red paint! Single stage paint has it's benefits. If it had been clear-coated and you had clearcoat failure, you would have needed a repaint. Not so with your single stage and a lot of TLC.

[sevendust]

Wow nice revival!!! You made the car look totally different! Great job!

What foam pads did you use with Ultimate Compound? How many pads did you use on the entire car? They became red quickly huh? What polisher did you use?

Thanks Marc for your compliments. I used a variety of pads for this job: Optimum Double-sided foam pad, Meguiars Polishing pad, and a wool pad. I didnt use much of the Ultimate Compound because it didn't pack enough cutting for me. I used M105 for most of the cutting work. Yep, all my pads were red haha no fun cleaning them up once i was done. I'm using the Hitachi rotary

[sevendust]

There never was clear coat on that paint, it was single stage red. The car came out great, you did a great job getting rid of the oxidized red paint! Single stage paint has it's benefits. If it had been clear-coated and you had clearcoat failure, you would have needed a repaint. Not so with your single stage and a lot of TLC.

Thank you Rix6 for the compliments. And with single stage paint, the before and after effects are simply amazing. The only downside for me was all my pads now have a tinge of red hahaha

[Marc08EX]

Thanks Marc for your compliments. I used a variety of pads for this job: Optimum Double-sided foam pad, Meguiars Polishing pad, and a wool pad. I didnt use much of the Ultimate Compound because it didn't pack enough cutting for me. I used M105 for most of the cutting work. Yep, all my pads were red haha no fun cleaning them up once i was done. I'm using the Hitachi rotary

Thanks for the response! Did the pads come out completely clean? How many pads did you use?

[Monster Shine]

Gorgeous, I love the first generation Miatas. I plan to have a track one some time soon.

[donb]

Wow! That looks great.

[Slava]

Nice save.

Car looks like new again.

[zckid]

car looks brand new.

Owner must have been very happy!