Fast wagon finally gets what it deserves

[LegacyGT]

Love ... it is what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

Subaru owners, myself included, are an interesting breed; we are intensely loyal to our cars and fellow owners, and we carry a certian amount of pride that comes from owning a rally bread AWD vehicle. We get giddy with excitement when it snows, when the pavement gets twisty or ends all together, and a wide open 360' on ramp becomes one of life's great pleasures. DRIFT! We laugh at SUV owners that get stuck, but we also pull them out. We loath getting rental cars, and are relieved to get back into our own vehicles after a trip. We are unique.

I have recently been more involved with the Local Iowa Subaru Owners Club, resulting in been introduced to a lot of really great people, and amazing cars. The ability to tune more power out of the flat four boxer engine is simply staggering, and our local club includes everyone from bone stock to highly tuned stage 3 fire breathing monsters.

Scott is a really outstanding guy I met through the club and he puts a lot of his own time into the club, and is always available to help out a fellow member with a tear down or install. I had some new products that I wanted to try, and it only seemed natural that with the opportunity to give something back for all of his hard work that he would be a natural choice. He let me know up front that he had lived on a gravel road for several years, and was the second owner of the car, so it needed some work. He had been just about at the point of trying to find someone to polish it out, so it ended up being perfect timing

I first checked out Scott's Legacy GT Wagon (which is now quite rare an no longer produced; from what I understand, it is the only one in the state) while racing at an SCCA event. I got a couple of rides from Scott as he was helping me to learn the track configuration, and when my head was not embedded into the back of the head rest accelerating down the straights, my eyes were being ripped out of their sockets under the savage braking power. I am not able to remember all of the specifics, but the wagon is a full Stage 3 tune, front & rear sways, new bushings, new inter cooler, up/down pipe, coil-overs, lowering springs. All this resulted in my being tossed around like a rag doll around the track ...

Ignore that this has my car's info on the reports.




The car upon arrival -

We got started at 7:30am as we had a long day ahead of us. The car had recently participated in a rally, and had a bunch of vinyl that had been removed the night before, along with a Dawn wash from the owner. There were plenty of water spots, but that was not a big deal considering what we had in store for the car.









Our weird October weather - it has been so warm lately we still have a lot of bugs out












The Process:

I got started on the car by attacking the wheels, again the woolies were a pleasure to use and absolutely no splatter. My Daytona brushes are now only used in a few niche places. The paint was then treated with Griots Paint Prep, then Iron-X after which the paint was very well stripped.





Clean Wheels






I was a bit apprehensive having Scott help out while I did the detail, but he had a real desire to learn some tricks and a desire to keep his car in good shape when we were done; however, it turned out to be a really great arrangement. He was a huge help and picked things up very quickly. In the end he helped save me a lot of time, and got some ownership of the results to be very proud of. I would not co-detail a car with many people, however, Scott would be one of them.

After the paint was cleansed, I tested out the Ultima Elastrofoam system. This is a unique system that can be used in place of clay. I had been very interested to try it out since buying a bogo pack from AGO a few weeks ago, and this was a perfect opportunity. I started off on the glass to break in the foam block, and had a bucket of warm water to rinse the block with frequently. The car was cleansed while still wet, but also using the included lube. The Elastrofoam did a good job, but I was somewhat shocked at how aggressive it was on the paint. I had several sections of orange peal that looked like I had been doing a 3000 grit wet sand which is way more aggressive than I was expecting from the system. I am not going to say I was using it perfectly, but I don't think I was too far off. I will have to use this system again on different paint to make a conclusion as there has been very positive feedback from Keith on the system.

Condition of the paint ... what are we working with?



You can see how the Elastrofoam literally sanded the orange peel here:




If you are doing a rally, a tip learned here ... the adhesive in electrical tape (used for car numbering) will etch the paint.


Drivers door:


The car certainly proved to be a worthy candidate for a dramatic correction. Being is this is a daily driver, as we setup our test spot we decided to try for a 90-95% correction. This early decision turned out to be a good thing, as I found myself wanting to chase down some really deep rids as we were working on the car which would have required removing quite a bit of clear to get out. I found it is really easy to get caught up chasing perfection, so it was good to set our expectations at the beginning.

The test spot:


Ta Da!



Yes, I think this will do quite nicely:






Our winning combination in the pictures above was Menzerna SIP w/ Flex PE14 on HT Cyan. In the pictures above those results are after only SIP on Cyan (and Eraser wipedown) .... Menzerna can be dusty, but those results are amazing. Now that we had a process, we cranked up some Pandora, and kicked it into high gear.

Scott was looking kind of board when I got done polishing out the hood, so I asked if he wanted to step up and learn on the DA. Unbeknownst to me, Scott had a lot of sanding experience, so I was pretty shocked at how quickly he picked up the 3401 with no control issues. A few minutes on section passes, pressure, arm speed and polish break down and he was employed to follow up my compounding with PO85RD on an HT Tangerine pad to really amp up the gloss of the paint.





One nice 'feature' on this wagon is the double moon roof ... that saved some time, as it cut down the roof area by about 40% :woo:

We got just over half way through the car when it was time for a lunch break. I was dragging a bit after having to go down to the 4'' pad to work on the tailgate / hatch and my wonderful wife delivered us some food from a local Panera. After a half hour we were back at it, and as I came around the drivers side of the car I needed to switch to a new pad, so I did another 50/50 to make sure things were still on track:

[LegacyGT]

:woot: Still looking good, full speed ahead!


After getting done, and crawling on the ground to finish up the lower rocker panels (ugh) we did a full wipe down with Car Pro Eraser. Guess what IPA .... :rock: you are history in my book. Eraser is one of those fantastic products that I can not recommend highly enough. The stuff is simply brilliant, does exactly what it says it will do, and very user friendly. No streaking whatsoever.

It was time for the LSP ... Opti-Guard.

When I went into this detail I decided to go all out, and give Scott a very high end treatment. I figure it is free advertising for my services, and before we began the day Scott already had another interested owner that he was sending my way.

Applying the new formula of Opti-Guard was really quite easy. I find it is easiest to apply looking at a reflection of a distant light source, that direct on light is actually harder to see the product flash and find any high spots. Honestly it was just like applying Opti-Coat, very user friendly.

The results .... all right, you have been reading this long (or got bored and skipped to the bottom of the page). Time for the car porn:














To say Scott was very pleased was an understatement ... however, the story does not end there. The interior


When doing laps at the track one of the first things I noticed were the seats of this vehicle. To say they were dingy would be a bit of an understatement ... though I was not exactly sure what color they should be I set off to find out with OPC 3:1 and a brush.



:sheep:





After getting that fantastic of results on the seats, we got a major second wind and attacked the entire interior with OPC 3:1 and protecting with UIGP+. I wish I had gotten a shot of the warm water rinse bucket we were using to clean off the seats after scrubbing. It looked like extractor water

And finally a few more shots of the finished product:






Cloudy Paint






Now back to Scott's reaction to the results. We were tired, hot, and exhausted so it was time to share a few beers and relax. I offered to go inside and consume said libations, however, Scott being so smitten with the results requested that we drink in the garage so he could sit and admire his car. And so we did, and spent at least an hour chatting, relaxing, and all the while ogling that beautiful red wagon.

The LGT wagon now looks as good as it performs. It was a good day and Scott is now a good friend.


Thanks for reading! Questions, comments, feedback encouraged; clarifications / edits will be made as I have time, I kinda spent a bit longer than I was planning writing that all up










Before:



After:

[BobbyG]

Bill,

I just love the Candy Apple Reds and how they glow wet with the right products and technique!

Absolutely incredible!

[LegacyGT]

Bill,

I just love the Candy Apple Reds and how they glow wet with the right products and technique!

Absolutely incredible!

Thanks Bobby ... I really like the color of that paint. When he bought the car, Scott didn't really want red; now though, I don't think he would trade it for anything else .

[erock]

awesome

[Matt S.]

Awesome job. The before/afters really display well on that finish and you did an excellent job capturing them. I bet Scott was extremely pleased with the end result...thanks for sharing

[embolism]

awesome work Bill.

That's crazy what the elastrofoam did to the paint! I'm guessing you won't be using it on your Legacy anytime soon.

[Bobby B.]

Awesome job correcting the paint surface. The Legacy looks amazing. Keep up the great work.

I love the paint on this Subaru

[LegacyGT]

A couple more before/afters

[Flash Gordon]

These are the writeups I like to read. Nice job Bill