1981 380 SL-A Mini Restoration

[richy]

I was really looking forward to working on this car. This brings back so many memories of back when I was in the car business years ago. I have always loved these SL's! Putting it in gear and having it squat down brought back memories that I had forgotten that they all do that. These have always been beautiful cars and 32 years later, this one still looks attractive....it just needed my love. 18 hours of it to be exact!


There is one thing that I tried on the soft top plastic that worked like a charm that I'll share later, so please do read this through, hopefully you'll find the journey as rewarding as I did. I titled it a "Mini Restoration" because that's really what it felt like. Paint, chrome, convertible top, and trim all received a fair bit of attention. Let the journey begin!


Here it is as it arrived. In need of some love. Good quality chrome that can be polished and single stage paint! Here's what I was up against:




















A Sizeable Scratch





















I had plans for that lower piece!






The wheels were too far gone to be polished out, but they still ended up getting coated.





The interior was dirty, but good quality leather will clean up nicely with steam!












To begin, I started with the wheels/tires/wells.

Tires got cleaned first with Zep 505 and then a 2nd time with LA Totally Awesome. They were very dirty.
The wheels were cleaned first with Megs WB and then the acid was neutralized by a cleaning with Zep Citrus.
The wells were cleaned with LATA.

Next up was the roof. I always clean canvas roofs with Amazing Roll Off. It was designed for Marine use and I feel it does a great job on canvas tops. It does take some repeated rinsing as I used the ARO at 100% and agitated it with a brush.

Next up was a strong soap foam bath. The emblems and seams were done while the soap was dwelling. Here is the soap at work:





After that came a wash with DG 901. The rubber trim got washed with LATA and a brush.


It was brought in and normally would get clayed immediately, but for convertibles, I always take my PF51 and vacuum out the water from the top first. After that was done, it was clayed with the CarPro foam block.

Next came the task of what was going to turn this paint around. I had hoped a one step would have done it, but that was not to be the case. I tried several different mf pads with products ranging from D300 to M101. I settled on my rotary + black TB wool + M100. That was followed up with Opt Hyper Polish on a white B/S pad with my Rupes. Here is a 50/50 where the right side is done, and the door not. Check out the clarity of reflection:

[richy]

At one point, I lowered the roof and was doing the pop-up piece that hides the roof. You can agree that one needs to be very skilled with the right amount of product so as to not get any slung into the exposed interior! And that was with using my rotary!

The chrome got a 2 stage correction with M105 on a white 4" B/S pad followed by M205 and a black pad.

I put the roof back up and got looking at the plastic windows. I vaguely remembered something I had tried before, so I got my small BP back on the rotary and tried the black pad with some M205 on the outside. The haze that I was seeing was on the inside, so I shoe-horned my fat ass in the back seat, holding my rotary and tried it on the inside haze. Wow. Home run. I actually tweaked it and switched to a white B/S with the M205 just to give it the smallest more bite. Freaking Awesome! I was so excited for them to see this transition. Check out the 50/50:



Now it was time to apply the coating. I first coated the glass (Oops, I forgot to tell him I did that, LOL) with the small bit of Opti Glass coating I had left. All 3 glass windows got that.

Next up was Opti Guard to the paint and chrome. I used the compressed air method to speed up the drying and to ensure a thicker coat with higher gloss.

The trim was done with CarPro Dlux. I tetered on going with Solution Finish, which would have probably darkened it up a bit more, but, its durability is nowhere as good as the DLux. That bottom air dam? It got Solution Finish due to being so badly faded. A lower trim piece at the rear got it as well.


Now, on to the interior. The leather was cleaned with an Autoglym Interior pad + Optimum Power Clean at 100% followed by my steamer wrapped with a white terry towel. The door panels and seats and trim around the roof hiding piece all got that method. The carpet mats were vacuumed and steam cleaned. I was using the extractor on the Gaia and pulling out a ridiculous amount of dirt. Again and again and again. I probably spent close to 1/2 hour on the driver's mat alone and close to that on the passenger. Big improvement, but it was not perfect. At some point the time spent doesn't seem worthwhile. The leather areas once cleaned, were treated to Ultima Interior Guard. I love how that makes the leather feel afterward! The wood was treated to that too. All interior chome was polished with M205 and a mf.

Finally, the next day, I gave it a wipedown with UWW and the tires and wells were shot with DG Wet Gloss Tire spray from an air gun.

18 hours later, here are the results:















Bye Bye Scratch!








































Your comments, as always, are welcomed and appreciated.

[Pureshine]

Great job Richy you should check out 1Z einszett Plastic Deep Cleaner this stuff works great for those kind of windows. Have you tried Raggtopp products.

[Marc08EX]

Nice job as always Richy!!!!

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Incredibly done Richy! Looks great!

Thanks for taking the time to put all this together. I enjoyed the read.

[vet]

Awesome job, as usual, Richy! That car looks like new!

[JSou]

[richy]

Great job Richy you should check out 1Z einszett Plastic Deep Cleaner this stuff works great for those kind of windows. Have you tried Raggtopp products.

Thank you! No, I haven't. I don't seem to get a lot of 'verts so I've never looked into it before. I've actually never tried any of that line or the Raggtop.

Nice job as always Richy!!!!

Thank you Marc!

Incredibly done Richy! Looks great!

Thanks for taking the time to put all this together. I enjoyed the read.

Thanks for taking the time to comment too. I really appreciate it.

Awesome job, as usual, Richy! That car looks like new!

Thanks very much!

And thanks for the feedback!

[Mike Calloway]

You did a really great job Richy! It was a great read. Felt like I was there.

[richy]

You did a really great job Richy! It was a great read. Felt like I was there.

Thanks Mike...I would have given you a cigar if you had been here, LOL.