2004 MX5 (Miata) Major Paint Repair + Triple Coat Americoat

[richy]

This lady found me through her website and brought me the car to examine. Someone had really messed up the paint. In one area of the hood it was badly scratched from their "repair" but the worst was these huge touch up spots that were a different colour. It looked like this 12 year old had a bad case of acne! She took advantage of my sale on Americoat and I ended up triple coating it with AC. That was the first time I had triple coated with AC. Here it is as it arrived:


The perfect "topless for two" plate as well!








Did she need a detailer or a dermatologist???














The wheels were actually in good shape. I was going to be pulling them and coating them too.















While I had the sandpaper out, I might as well have a go at these:










An inside shot of the lousy touch up job:






First up was the wheels. The barrels were shot with BAM wheel cleaner which was followed up with Zep Citrus and Megs HW on a demoted wash mitt. The faces were cleaned with Zep and HW. The tires were cleaned with Zep 505. The wells were cleaned with LATA.

The car was then washed with Megs HW followed by a decontamination wash of IronX. It was then brought inside and clayed. There were many, many small chips and a few larger ones that I forgot to shoot once I had it inside. I bet I spent close to an hour filling them later.

The wheels were removed and the barrels intensively cleaned with Tarminator followed by DG Squeaky Clean. The faces were just done with SC. They were both coated with DLux by hand. The wells were intensively cleaned and the plastic was coated with a DG beta trim coating. The calipers were cleaned and coated with DLux as well. The tires were shot with Opti Bond from my air gun before being lowered to the ground and then the wheels were torqued to spec. Here are a few "in process" shots:











Now it was time to play with the paint. The swirls were very heavy as you can see from the pics. That would have been bad enough without the damned touch up spots! The paint was not really thick either; it ranged from 95-115 microns. I had no idea how thick it was on the hood due to it being non metal. The touch up spots were spot sanded using my GG 3" DA and Megs wet sanding discs. First I used the 1500 grit until it was level and then the 3000 grit. Here's what it was looking like:







I was not willing to sand the spots down completely due to not knowing the actual paint thickness on the hood and being able to monitor it throughout the process like I do when I'm working on metal. It is NOT worth the risk of going through the clear. I improved them to the point where they were very hard to see and I think that was the prudent, safe and intelligent thing to do. I don't want to get into a pissing match over who's responsible for going through the clear #1 and #2, she wants to keep this car a long time, so it's paramount that the clear be left as thick as possible for the health of the paint into the future.

The sanding marks and swirls (the sanding marks were WAY easier to get rid of!) were compounded with SS Chop Top and a black wool TB pad. I also tried the white wool pad from Polish Angel a few times on this car too. Again, it performed very well too. That stage was followed by a yellow B/S pad + Essence. All work was done with the 3401. The exhaust tips were hand polished with M205 and a mf before being coated.

The windshield was double coated with Fly By 30. The convertible top was treated to DG 341. The paint, remaining glass as well as head and tail lights and exhaust tip were all triple coated with Americoat. I think I am on my last bottle now. Shame it's no longer available as it was a good entry level coating for me to offer.


Here it is all done. I was really impressed by the beautiful metallic in the paint:





































A little less obvious now I hope!






















Thanks for looking. Comments are always appreciated.

[VISITOR]

excellent job richy!

[CanyonCarver]

Looks great!

[haris300]

Great turnaround on some really beat up paint. I always liked the Mazdaspeed Miatas. Nice job making this one shine.

[VeloNYC]

This paint looks way better now than my current Mz3 2014 Soul Red. Oh, and thx for recommendation on ZEP glass cleaner, it will last me life time.

[briarpatch]

She must have been floored by the results....beautiful work

[WT Taggart]

Nice transformation Richy, the car looks night and day. When was the last time it was taken care of? Must have taken you about 20 hrs I would guess.

As always, that's for sharing your craftsmanship with us.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[richy]

excellent job richy!

Thanks very much for both the comment and for taking the time to make it!

Looks great!

Thanks bud!

Great turnaround on some really beat up paint. I always liked the Mazdaspeed Miatas. Nice job making this one shine.

Thanks kindly.

This paint looks way better now than my current Mz3 2014 Soul Red. Oh, and thx for recommendation on ZEP glass cleaner, it will last me life time.

She must have been floored by the results....beautiful work

She was very, very happy, yes. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Nice transformation Richy, the car looks night and day. When was the last time it was taken care of? Must have taken you about 20 hrs I would guess.

As always, that's for sharing your craftsmanship with us.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you my friend! Ya, with doing the wheels and whatnot, I think I was 19 hours.

[LSNAutoDetailing]

Outstanding Richy!

[xtina]

Wow! that shine! Came out amazing.