2004 Chevy SSR - Extreme Makeover by Blackfire - Modeled by Tasha
Here's my friend Sharif's black 2004 Chevy SSR right after he arrived and we moved the SSR into Autogeek's Show Car Garage...
Here's how it looked when it arrived...
To say the paint was in good shape or bad shape depends upon your point of view...
If you're hoping for a a lot of swirls and scratches to make buffing out the paint a challenge, then the paint is in excellent condition.
If you're inspecting the paint and trying to categorize the condition of the paint in an accurate manner... then it's a swirled out mess!
We like the challenge so we thought the paint looked horrible but in a great kind of way!
The paint literally looked like it was washed with a scotch brite pad...
Feeling the paint with just our clean hands revealed a surface that felt like 80 grit sandpaper so we clayed using Blackfire Poly Clay and Blackfire Clay Lubricant
Some kind of grunge all over the paint. Not surprising, this is Sharif's daily driver so it's exposed to the environment at least 5 days a week.
Adam and Todd are going to do the Test Spot, here Adam has taped off an area to do some buffing...
The paint on Chevy SSR's is known to be hard and since the entire finish is just as bad as the swirl pictures of the hood we're going straight to a wool pad and Blackfire Scratch Resistant Clear Compound
Adam quickly cuts out the swirls and scratches...
Next up, Todd switches over to a Lake Country 6.5 Foam Finishing Pad and Blackfire Scratch Resistant Clear Finishing Polish to remove any swirls left by the fibers of the wool pad and polish to a clear, high gloss.
Here are the results...
The Compounding or Major Correction Step
Once we had a two-step process dialed-in everyone tooled-up and started buffing...
Adam also tested the Hydro-Tech Cyan Pads with the Blackfire Scratch Resistant Compound and found with the Flex 3401 that it too was very effective at remove the swirls and scratches just not quite as fast as the wool cutting pad. We had a number of people that were brand new to machine polishing so we set a few people up with the Cyan Cutting pads on Flex 3401 Forced Rotation Dual Action Polishers.
This is Sharif, the owner of the SSR machine polishing for the first time...
Rene using the Flex 3401 with a 4" Cyan Pad...
This was Jeff's first time to Autogeek's Show Car Garage and while Jeff is experienced with Rotary Buffers and Porter Cable DA Polishers he wanted to try out the Flex 3401
Took him about 2-3 passes over the paint to dial-in his technique... note Rene in the background...
Here I am tackling the roof... note Rene in the background...
Someone is having too much fun...
Here's Rene inspecting Adam's head for swirls...
Adam's finish was mostly swirl-free but Rene found a few RIDS...
Much better...
Here's me tackling the driver's side of the roof...
Here's Jeff working on the back of the SSR...
And Rene working with a 4" Cyan Pad with the band new 4" Backing Plate from Lake Country...
More to come...
Bookmarks