How to detail an Alloway-built Streetrod by Mike Phillips


Last night at the CarSpa Car Show Flathead Eddie asked me if I could give his Alloway streetrod a fresh coat of wax.

Before simply slapping on a fresh coat of wax I inspected the paint and found that while it was indeed in very nice condition the baggie test revealed it needed to be clayed and my swirl finder light revealed it needed to be polished.

After wiping the paint clean using Pinnacle Crystal Mist and then claying the paint using Pinnacle Clay Lube and the Ultra Poly Clay I did a test spot using a Porter Cable with a LC Orange White Foam polishing pad with Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish.

What I found out was the paint was really hard and most of the swirls and scratches remained after polishing. I was hoping a light polishing would do the job because overall the paint was incredible looking.

Next I pulled out the Flex 3401 with a LC Orange Hybrid Foam Cutting Pad and Pinnacle Advanced Compound, (same products Wayne Carini uses in his shop), and did another test spot on the 6 Speed Setting with some pretty firm downward pressure and a s-l-o-w arm speed.

That did the trick.

So I compounded, the re-polished and then machine waxed Eddie's beautiful Alloway built Model A streetrod in the course of about 3 hours.

This shot was taken about 5:00pm, right after we set-up the Autogeek booth.




The car and the paint looked amazing even before we started...





The hardest detailing work
What I always tell people is it's EASY to take a car with a horrible looking finish and make it look great and capture dramatic before and after pictures.

What's really hard to do is take a car with a finish in excellent condition and then do to things,

1. Take the finish to a higher level.

2. Not screw up an already nice finish by inflicting holograms or swirls.
(kind of common in the detail industry)


Here's the process...

Compounding the paint using the Flex 3401 with Pinnacle Advanced Compound




Machine polishing with a Porter Cable 7424XP and Pinnacle Finishing Polish with LC White Foam Polishing Pad.





Machine Waxing
No picture but I machine applied the Pinnacle Liquid Souveran Wax using a LC Black Foam Finishing Pad on the Porter Cable 7424XP


Wax Wipe-off
After machine waxing all the paint the wax was carefully removed using 16" x 16" Gold Plus Jr. Microfiber Towels.





Finished













Thank you Eddie for trusting us with your incredible streetrod!