A Tale of Two Stingrays - Shark Grey Z06 and Black C7 Convertible - Correction / CQuartz Finest / Wheels Pulls / Suntek Ultra PPF

[Wills.WindowsAndWheels]

It’s March 2017 - the weather is getting hot and so are the cars in the W&W shop.
Last week we had a lot of gloss and a lot of horse power sitting in the shop.
Two C7 Corvettes – one a black convertible and the other a Shark Grey z06.



I don’t care who you are – getting to come to work and see that sitting in your garage never gets old!

On the menu for the black C7 convertible was full frontal Suntek Ultra clear bra, full paint correction, CQuartz Finest nano-ceramic paint coating, wheels pulled and coated and CQuartz Fabric applied to the cloth top.

For the Z06 – more straight forward with full paint correction and CQuartz Finest applied to the wheel faces (it already had Xpel applied to the full front).


First up was the z06 since it was on a bit of a tighter time schedule than the black C7. While usually we have some insane before and after photos of how beat up the paint was prior to us getting our hands on it, this was not one of those cases!
The owner was very savvy when it came to maintaining his cars finish – and it really showed when we began work on it.

So, that being said, many of these will be more eye-candy photos than insane before and after’s, but when does Z06 eye candy ever get old !




Here she is getting pampered with a foam bath by big Noah with Iron-X Snow Foam prior to us pulling her in and claying her.




You can see the black C7 in the back anxiously awaiting its turn







In the background you can see the z06 in the beginning stages of correction. Meguiars M100 and a microfiber finishing pad on the Rupes MK 21 and ES 21 were seriously slaying the swirls. Followed up with CarPro’s Essence on a green Buff n’ Shine pad…it was beginning to glow.

Up front however, you see the starting stages of the Vert’ C7 having Suntek Ultra applied to it. Oh it looks messy now, but it’ll be a gem soon enough.

A little Photo Grid action here with the C7 getting protected with Suntek Ultra:





Vents pulled – you know it. Badges pulled as well….of course!




Eventually the rolls were reversed and the z06 was brought back out into the main garage to receive its CQuartz Finest treatment, while the black C7 was pulled into the polishing bay for it’s turn under the Rupes…you may notice something else kinda cool in the back though as well:





Easy enough to see the wheels are pulled, but whats holding the C7 up is our newest addition to the shop!

While we’ve had a mid-rise lift for quite some time – it was not ideal for all the different types of cars we’d have in and need to put up. Sometimes the arms were to short to reach the proper lift points and we found ourselves spending as much time setting the car up as we did actually working on the wheels!

Fast forward to now…our new friend, the Quick Jack!



Here I am positioning the passenger side rail. If you’ve never seen one of these…rather than having a cross link to connect both sides, this guy actually has two separate lifts rails, one for each side. It comes with hard rubber blocks at 1” and 3” in height which fit PERFECTLY in the very small cut outs these C7’s have at their lift points.



Up she goes. You can see the two hydraulic lines which connect via two quick connect fittings to the power source / fluid reservoir and plugs directly into a 110v.



It has two locking lift points – the lowest of which is seen above and the highest of which maxing out at 21.5” (about 1’ higher than seen). With a 7,000 lbs lifting capacity but super easy functionality (I can easily carry both of these lift rails – they weigh maybe 50 lbs each?) this baby was love at first sight.

At one point, even with 2,500 sqft…things were a bit snug in the shop.



The C7 was behind me in this photo and in front, the z06, a Dodge Hellcat (also wearing CQ Finest), an 81’ Z28 Camaro with 5,000 original miles and all matching parts as well as original paint (so sweet!), a Tesla Model S and a Fiat 124 Spider Abarth. Quite the bit of eye candy yes, but it did make things pretty cramped up for a while!

Our Hellcat friend was getting some vinyl installed while the Tesla was finishing up getting a full PPF wrap (that’s a LOT of film)



Now this C7, being black, did not quite cooperate as nicely as the Shark Grey. It was swirled, but not the worst that we’d seen. However, we wanted to make sure we cut out everything possible so we used the same M100 / Megs Microfiber Finishing Pad combo. It DID cut out the swirls, but also left a nice amount of haze that took a little doing to fully remove. Under most any other lighting, it would have looked flawless, but in the light room, VERY faint marring (which I could not even capture in a photo) was evident and required another final polishing step to fully remove.

FINALLY – we got to the point where we could eraser the paint and start applying CQuartz Finest.





That’s some pretty black paint…just sayin’.

The fun part about these Vettes…is the fender wells are carpeted. A traditional scrubbing and power washing doesn’t really 100% clean them. Often times a brush and vacuum is what’s needed to really get these babies clean (as seen here with Mr. Henry working away to get them looking right).



Both Vettes were I.R cured after the coating was applied – which always looks cool:





After being pulled and CQuartz coatings applied to the faces, barrels and calipers…the C7 wheels were looking stellar. We’ve been spraying on CQuartz Finest for more intricate wheels as of late and it really does look amazing when finished:







When you can see GLOSS from the barrels of your wheels – life is good

As mentioned…we cured both cars with IR lights…but when we were curing the black C7 we decided to black out the shop at night – and what we saw was pretty damn cool:







Bake my lovely….bake!








Wings with a halo?




Once we kicked the lights back on…the last thing to do as the coating cured, was apply CQuartz Fabric to the top:





If you look closely you can see a SLIGHT bit of darkening to the fabric from where I’ve applied.

We applied two coats – and then I went and got my spray bottle with water just so I could have some fun!






Looks more like water crystals doesn’t it ?


As with all good things, they eventually come to an end…well, almost. We still got to take some more pictures once we pulled her out of the polishing bay:







Slippery when wet...



The next morning when the owner came to pick up – he was quite blown away (which never…ever…gets old).




Serious gloss:




The Z06 turned out equally as stunning:











Now our “house policy” is – if you have CQuartz Finest applied to your car – we do the first follow up wash. While we consider ourselves very good at what we do – when you rack up lots of hours into a job – it’s usually a good idea to lay a fresh set of eyes on the work you did. We also like to inspect to make sure the coating bonded correctly to everything and lastly, we give our customers a 1 on 1 lesson on how to best care for their newly protected finish.



The owner and myself chatting about his baby after his follow up wash – answering any questions he had about maintaining it.



During the wash…water hardly stayed on the paint!







As for CQuartz Fabric on the top….water was literally running away from it!



Daniela took a funny angle shot here…me and the owner loading up his maintenance supplies he purchased to be able to care for his baby moving forward:

[Wills.WindowsAndWheels]

And of course the sexy finished photos:














Our Z06 friend has yet to come in for his follow up wash yet due to not being in town – but I’ll get some pictures of it up next.

Two very sweet cars – two very satisfied owners. That’s a win/win in my book!

Thanks for checking everything out guys – be back with more soon!

[ronkh57]

Can you please describe how to spray cq on the wheels, and what tools are necessary?

THanks

[Wills.WindowsAndWheels]

Can you please describe how to spray cq on the wheels, and what tools are necessary?

THanks

Ron,

Of course meticulous prep is needed first. I also recommend blowing dry once cleaning is done.
For the spraying, I just use the small HVLP sprayer from Harbor Freight Gravity Feed Spray Gun - 20 Oz. HVLP

Mine is actually smaller than that one but I couldn't find it on their site.

After Eraser wipe down of the wheels, I usually set my PSI down to around 40 and dial in my spray pattern to be fairly fine. Then I go about spraying the coating onto the wheel just like i would if it were paint.
Allow it to set the appropriate amount of time and then wipe clean.

The main thing is to thoroughly clean your gun after and make sure when spraying you do not over apply (or else it will run). Other than that, pretty easy!

[Marc08EX]

Great work Wills and Dani! The Vettes look stunning!

[Wknd Dtlr]

You two keep upping your game. Thanks for sharing your work with us!

[FUNX650]

Now that's the way to make two
Corvettes Brutally Sexy!

Thanks for sharing.


Bob

[atgonzales]

Nicely done

[ronkh57]

Ron,

Of course meticulous prep is needed first. I also recommend blowing dry once cleaning is done.
For the spraying, I just use the small HVLP sprayer from Harbor Freight Gravity Feed Spray Gun - 20 Oz. HVLP

Mine is actually smaller than that one but I couldn't find it on their site.

After Eraser wipe down of the wheels, I usually set my PSI down to around 40 and dial in my spray pattern to be fairly fine. Then I go about spraying the coating onto the wheel just like i would if it were paint.
Allow it to set the appropriate amount of time and then wipe clean.

The main thing is to thoroughly clean your gun after and make sure when spraying you do not over apply (or else it will run). Other than that, pretty easy!

Thank you !!!

I have the hf gun sitting here....

The Z wheels are a pain! This is exactly what they need.

[GSKR]

Nice shop you got there.