Nissan 350z - Show Car - Custom Paint Job - Minor Paint Correction Detail
Hey All,
Firstly, thanks for reading and secondly I apologize about the long write up. Please feel free to skip forward I won`t take offense.
Background
This Nissan 350z belongs to someone I work with. We got to talking a month ago about cars and he mentioned his show car. He started talking about detailing it (he did not know I did detailing at this point) and was saying how he had just bought a clay kit but was nervous about using it. Well there I went on about asking him about the car and how he details it today etc. and then I started going on about proper detailing methods, claying, polishing etc. I told him to bring his car by sometime and I could help him with the wash and decontamination and show him how to take care of the car properly. I did not hear from him for for a while then last week he came over to my desk and said he had a show coming up and if I could work on the car. Hell yes I never turn down a detail job, unless its a really horrible interior lol. Anyway, we talked a bit more and I talked to him about a minor paint correction since he said the car is barely driven, mostly parked in the garage and he trailers it to shows (later come to find out its an open trailer lol). He wanted the paint ready for Tuner Evolution in Charlotte on the 26th so we booked it for this past weekend.
A little about the car
The car had been painted 2 years ago in Lexus Molten Orange. Its a beautiful color and it has an amazing metallic flake to it. This was sadly subdued due to the car being riddled with above surface contaminants and overspray. The car was also resprayed a few times on certain panels by different painters which will tie in to my challenges with the paint section. The wheels are powder coated custom Art in Motion 3 piece forged and add a nice contrast to the orange. The car is also on air ride which is great so he can lower it and raise it as needed. In the after pictures/ video you can see how low the car is. The defects were hard to capture on camera due to the color/ metallic flake but I hope you will catch them and the difference after the correction.
Some challenges with the paint
This was a challenging paint correction because the panels just behaved different with my initial combo which worked really well on the front driver fender - Sonax Perfect Finish and Rupes yellow pad. That combo didnt cut too well on the hood so I tried another one step compound/ polish product with another one step pad (not sold here). No bueno, left haze which is odd because this combo usually always gives me a nice cut and great finish for a one step. Then I decided whatever I did I was going to finish with CarPro Essence on gloss pad on the entire car just to give it that extra. At some point, I think the driver side fender perfect finish again wasn`t giving me a good finish, too many swirls remained compared to other panels I finished. so I switched to Sonax Cut and Finish and the Rupes yellow pad to try, good but I thought it could be better. Then I tried it with a boss orange, better correction. Nice! Then the door. Same combo no bueno! I was not getting the same cut and finish ha. The heck is going on! Ok more aggressive - Rupes Blue Pad and Cut and Finish - There it is! Finally. This combo thankfully worked on the rest of the car! In all honesty looking back I should have just hit the entire car with FCC or similar and finished up with CP Essence. Live and learn.
BTW Sonax Cut and Finish. Awesome product! Will definitely be one of my go to one step products from now on. A little goes a long way, tons of working time, literally no dusting, and easy to wipe off.
Another challenging part was the amount of sanding marks left by the body shops so close to the panel edges. I had to be careful and took my time with the ibrid but I was not able to remove them in some instances. Lots of edge work was done with time due to the curvy panels.
I apologize about the crazy amount of writing. If you read it I appreciate it. On to the good stuff:
Products/ Tools Used
Wheels/ Exhaust tips-
The wheels were powder coated so I cleaned them using Iron X and CG Citrus WG in the bucket - Assortment of wheel whoolies, dedicated mitt, and dedicated wheel brush
Chrome lips were polished with Mckees 37 Fast Metal Polish
Exhaust tips polished with Fast Metal Polish and #0000 steel wool
Paintwork -
Foam presoak with PB Super Slick and Foam
Megs Hyperwash with 2BM
Gyeon Wash Mitt and second dedicated MF wash mitt for lower panels
Assortment of brushes and Megs APC 4:1 for intricate areas, around badges etc.
Decontamination - Iron X and Tarminator, Clay - Griots Garage Paint Clay and Nano Skin pad on the PC with Nanoskin Glide as lube. It needed two round of clay and took roughly 2 hours just to clay the car fully to remove the contaminants.
Paint correction - Assortment of Pads and Polishes - Sonax Perfect Finish, Sonax Cut and Finish, CarPro Essence, Rupes Yellow Pad, Rupes Blue Pad, Boss Orange Pad, Boss White Pad, CP Gloss Pads, BnS Urofiber pads. All in an assortment of sizes.
Rupes LHR21 MK2 (W/ Kamikaze Beast Backing Plate), Boss G15, but mostly the Rupes LHR75 and Ibrid Nano 12mm DA mode were the real stars here
LSP - Polish Angel Master Sealant followed by show car paste wax
Headlights/ Taillights polished with McKees AIO headlight polish and purple wool pads
Assortment of lighting - Scangrip sunmatch, Rupes pen light, LED lights.
LSP -
Polish Angel Master Sealant (Sold on Autopia so I hope this is ok to state here)
Topped with a show car paste wax not sold here
No interior work was completed on this one. The owner likes doing the interior himself. No issues with that at all J
Car as delivered:
The paint looks pretty good at this point.
After thoroughly cleaning and decontaminating the vehicle I inspected the paint to find wash induced marring, buffer trails, orange peel (this would not be addressed), and sanding marks (closer to edges on panels):
The correction - Again this was a bit challenging but in the end I stuck with Sonax Cut and Finish with Blue Rupes and Yellow Rupes pad depending on the panel. An assortment of other pads were used to spot correct certain areas as well. The entire car was finished off with CP Essence on a gloss pad since the owner did not want to pay for a full correction I wanted to provide that extra gloss/ filling since he takes the car to shows. I think I would say I achieved around 80% true correction with the Sonax Cut and Finish step. The pictures below illustrate just the Sonax Cut and Finish step. The front bumper was repainted 3 weeks prior so it only received Sonax Cut and Finish. No Essence or LSP.
Engine bay was lightly cleaned and I polished the CF pieces. The cut outs were for the air ride system. He is planning on cleaning it up and putting some rubber gasket around.
Air ride system and sub - this was all custom installed by the owner himself.
The star of this correction:
A few finished shots.
Unfortunately the sun was setting by this time as the LSP had to cure 2 hours before seeing sunlight and the owner was on his way to pick up the car. I hope it still illustrated the difference.
Re: Nissan 350z - Show Car - Custom Paint Job - Minor Paint Correction Detail
Originally Posted by AZ Mike
That car looks great! Beautiful work.Thanks for sharing.
Thanks very much AZ Mike!
Originally Posted by custmsprty
Nice work
Thanks very much custmsprty!
Originally Posted by LSNAutoDetailing
Nice work! Looks amazing!
Thanks very much LSNAutoDetailing!
Originally Posted by Mike Phillips
Beautiful car and top notch work their my friend!
The owner must be thrilled!
Thanks very much Mike! That means a lot. Yes he was very happy with the results. Said it looked the best it looked since it was painted two years ago so that was really nice to hear!
Originally Posted by Sizzle Chest
Great work, write up and pics! Thanks for posting!
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Originally Posted by AZ Mike
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