Before & After Pictures: 1969 Ford Thunderbird Barn Find - Sitting for 24 years

[Jaretr1]

That's amazing! I'm really looking forward to process pictures.

Me to. That was original single stage metallic paint with 24 years of neglect.

[cyclops]

Subscribed, can't wait to see more pictures!

[Mike Phillips]

***Update***

I have some other hot projects to process first like get some info up for next week's Thursday night free detailing class and then type up my notes for the IDA conference call last night, (took place same time as the 1969 Thunderbird Extreme Makeover), and then I should be able to get to the pictures.


Until there I'd like to share the products, tools and pads we used to bring this 47 year-old paint back to life.


Process

First thing on Thursday morning I rubbed the paint down with Meguiar's #7 Show Car Glaze.

Meguiars Mirror Glaze #7 Show Car Glaze


I washed the car the night before using a 3 step process following the steps I share in the technique I teach called,

The Aggressive Approach to Washing a Car




The #7 Rub Down Technique

To apply the #7 I used the technique I shared in my article from 2010 that's been viewed as of this post 384,576 with 234 replies. That's impressive in the forum world considering the majority of people in the world own a car with a basecoat/clearcoat paint job.


Here's the link to the article,

The Secret to Removing Oxidation and Restoring a Show Car Finish to Antique Single Stage Paints



I rubbed the paint down using a simple cotton terrycloth wash cloth. The actual technique is simple.

1. Use a lot of #7.

2. Rub hard and rub a lot.

3. Leave the thick layer of #7 on the paint to soak in. Preferably overnight but a long as you can depending upon your time constraints.


Around 6:00pm that night my team removed the #7 using cotton terrycloth towels. NOT microfiber. Why? Because cotton terrycloth has a large cotton loop that's STOUT not soft and gentle like microfiber. It's the stoutness of this loop of fiber that SLICES into the layer of oily #7 to slice it up to help you get it off without breaking your arm. #7 is a non-drying oil and it's oily so it's VERY different than most products you've used in your life and most products you'll ever use in your life. With #7 technique is half the battle.


Compounding, polishing and waxing

After removing the #7 we did..... drum roll..... a TEST SPOT. It should be the standard protocol for EVERYONE detailing a car to start by doing some testing to make sure the product you THINK will work do in fact work to one small area of paint. If your results are great then you simply duplicate the process to the rest of the car.

If your results are mediocre or worse, then aren't you glad you only buffed one small section? The answer is "yes". So now you only have to fix one small section if the products of choice are not working. That's why you do a test spot to make sure of your results over the entire car BEFORE buffing out the entire car.

For us the results from the test spot were PERFECTION. For the test spot and the entire car here's the products we used.




3D AAT Rubbing Compound 8 oz

3D AAT Finishing Polish 8 oz

3D Carnauba Paste Wax







Tools and pads

Compounding

For the major correction step, that is removing almost 50 years of swirls, scratches, water spots and oxidation we used the 3D AAT Rubbing Compound with the 7.5" Electrified White Sheepskin Final Polishing Pad on the FLEX XC 3401 VRG HD Dual Action Orbital Polisher.


The FLEX 3401 at this time is the only gear-driven orbital polisher on the market. It's German engineered and that means it's a super high quality tool that you can depend on for years of service duty. The gear-drive feature forces the pad to both oscillate and rotate and no matter how hard you push down or what the shape of the body panel is you're buffing you cannot make the pad stop oscillating or rotating and this means nothing can stop you from doing was I say,


Power through a detail job


And that's because the FLEX 3401 enables you do to high quality production work and high quality show car work faster than any free spinning tool simply due to the fact you can tackle curved panels and tight areas without the pad stalling out which means the pad isn't oscillating or rotating.


Electrified Wool Pad?
The word electrified means Lake Country has taken the extra step to electrify the wool fibers used to make this specific pad which removes the natural sharp barbs found on wool fibers creating a pad that cuts fast but finishes with less scouring of the paint. This is a real benefit when buffing thin, scratch-sensitive clearcoat finishes. It also means cleaning up after the compounding step with the polishing step will be faster and easier and require a less aggressive pad and product. That's win/win/win as you see Richard Rawlings say in his Gas Monkey Garage promos.



The Flex 3401 HD with a Lake Country 7.5" Electrified Wool Polishing Pad





Polishing
Anytime you cut paint with a fiber pad, ANY type of fiber pad everything from coarse fast wool cutting pads to soft microfiber dual action polisher pads the fibers act as a type of abrasive. This means the fibers, like the abrasives in a compound, are cutting the paint. For this reason for a more perfect finish you must follow any fiber pad compounding step with a less aggressive polishing step using a less aggressive product and a less aggressive pad.

For the secondary polishing step for this 1969 Ford Thunderbird we used the 3D AAT Finishing Polish
on a Autogeek ThinPro white foam polishing pad on the FLEX XCE 7 free spinning orbital polishers. Unlike the FLEX 3401, which is gear driven, the XCE 7 is a free spinning orbital polisher what offers a 15 mm orbit stroke length. The results from switching from a powerful gear-driven orbital polisher to a free spinning, large stroke orbital polisher is a not only a dramatically safer polishing process but a polishing action that will create a super high gloss finish. This second polishing step removes any haze in the paint left by the much more aggressive compounding step and maximizes gloss and clarity to take this 47 year-old paint to its maximum potential.


Autogeek's ThinPro padsIt's a fact that thin pads rotate and oscillate better than thick pads on free spinning tool. I can remember when all we had were THICK foam pads borrowed from the rotary buffer world for use with orbital buffers and while they kind of worked they severely lacked in pad rotation performance.

The Autogeek ThinPro pads are only 11/16" or 17.5mm thin. That's THIN! And these are the perfect companion pad for the FLEX XCE 7 free spinning orbital polisher. They are available in 5 different options from super coarse for fast correction to super soft for machine waxing or jeweling.






Then to seal the paint we used the 3D Carnauba Paste Wax with an Autogeek 6.5" ThinPro red waxing pad on the same tool we used for the secondary polishing step the FLEX XCE 7 free spinning orbital polisher.


The combination of pre-soaking the antique, dry brittle paint with the TS oils found in the #7 Show Car Glaze followed by the methodical machine compounding, polishing and waxing process took an antique car with antique paint that most people would have assumed would have to be repainted and restored a finish that looks like the car just rolled out of the dealership show room in 1969.

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

Amazing job guys, looks great.

Wish I could of joined you Mike, had to pick up family from the airport that day 😯

[Mike Phillips]

Just to say....


Sorry I didn't get to all the pictures today... just too much going on and picture processing the right way is time consuming.


Will try to share next week as the process pictures are amazing as are the end results.

[david b]

Before & After Pictures: 1969 Ford Thunderbird Barn Find - Sitting for 24 years

Before






After





More pictures tomorrow!


Thank you to everyone that joined us tonight! Your hard work shines!

The car looks great - the team looks worn out. Not of lot of smiles in the "after" photo

[silverfox]

Incredible. Hope we hear more about the 3D products used especially the AAT technology behind them.

[Craig Parker]

Car looks awesome Mike, congrats to everyone that worked on the Thunderbird.

[GSKR]

I gave mike a hand with this car,and we used 3D products from the rubbing compound to polishing and topped it off with 3D paste wax.The paint was trashed and lifeless,the 3D products got the job done with awesome results.

[axel06]

absolutely stunning work !!! i bet that car didnt shine like that when it was driven off the lot for the first time!!!!