Nasty 16 year old: 1999 911 Carerra

**richy** · 09-13-2015, 09:16 PM

Oh, yes, she's one nasty 16 year old 911. This paint was rough. The hood and front fenders had been painted and the hood wasn't a great paint job. I worked at least a full hour on it if not more to try to get it back in shape. The car is good mechanically so it just needed the looks to match the guts. Hopefully I succeeded. Here it is as it arrived:

The RF headlight was really faded. I ended up wet sanding it.

The wheels were very pretty. I think he said they had been upgraded from the originals. Thankfully he agreed to allowing me to pull them and coat the barrels and calipers too.

The tail lights also needed some spiffying up:

Ready to see some very heavy swirls??

I didn't even photograph the multitude of chips on this thing as I was so overwhelmed by the heavy swirls and scratches on the whole car!

The "Carerra" script on the back had just been removed and the glue was still there. That was first up. Tarminator was tried and was only mildy successful and the same with TarX. GooGone ended up working the best.

The wheels were first up to be washed. The barrels were cleaned with Tarminator followed by Zep citrus and Megs HW with the mini Daytona brush. The faces were cleaned with a demoted wash mitt and HW. The tires were cleaned with Zep 505 and the wells cleaned with LATA.

Next the car was washed with Megs HW followed by a decontamination wash using IronX paste. The car was then brought inside and clayed and then blown off with the Master Blaster. I had this car for several days as I had some personal things to do during that time so the owner was gracious enough to allow me enough time to do everything I needed to.

First up was removing the wheels. Before I found the owner's manual, I called Ken at Autowerkes who is a resident Porsche expert to ask him what he thought the wheel torque specs would be. He thought 90...he was close...it was 94. Each wheel was removed and then intensively cleaned. The barrels were then polished using my Megs DA and a 4" yellow B/S pad + Sonax Perfect Finish. That was followed by a chemical cleaning of DG Squeaky Clean. SC works so well, especially on wheels! Here is the face of a wheel just done with SC alone (you can see the shine it has!):

Now compare to having 2 coats of CQF:

Here is another wheel done:

The wells were treated to WETS. The calipers were also cleaned with SC and then coated:

The next day I got to play with the paint finally. But first I needed to attend to the cloudy headlight. I wet sanded it using a Megs 1500 grit sanding disc and my GG 3" DA. That was followed by a Megs 3000 grit disc and then it was compounded with a 3" TB pad + M100 + rotary which was followed by M205 + 3" pad + rotary. The other light got the last 2 stages to improve it as well. They would get coated with CQF as would the rest of the car. Now onto the paint! I was eager to see what was going to work with this car. I tried several things and what worked the best for the initial cut and defect removal was my Rupes + Megs mf + M100 with a bit of M101 mixed together (for the tougher areas; if not so tough, just M100). That was followed by M100 + TB black wool + Flex 3401. That stage really brought the "pop" to the paint. A third stage of M205 + CarPro Gloss pad + Flex 3401 finished it out. I had tried the gloss pad with Reflect too but I gave the win to the M205 and used that for the remainder. My other constraint on this car was paint thickness: the factory panels all had less than 100 microns and the roof measured in the 80's! I had to be very careful!! The whole car got all 3 stages. The tail lights were just given the TB wool + M205 stages. There were probably over 100 chips to fill as well too.

The windshield got treated to Fly by 30 for free since this was a big job. The paint, glass head and tail lights were all double coated with CQF. The wiper blades had been removed so he could paint them. That gave me easy access to apply DLux under them and to the side mirror mounts. The rear rubber bumperettes were treated with Solution Finish. The tires were shot with Opti Bond at 100% using my air gun and then leveled. This whole job took me just over 20 hours to complete. I did not strive for perfection on this car but I'd say I got 90-95% correction. Here it is, but only after one coat of CQF as I was running out of daylight by the time I would finish it:

Remember the heavily swirled roof?

Thanks for looking. Comments always appreciated!

**banzaitoyota** · 09-13-2015, 09:27 PM

Nice

**fly07sti** · 09-13-2015, 09:31 PM

WOW. You took that dirty girl to church! I've been eye balling the gloss pad from Corey but haven't seen any reviews on them. How much do you like it?

**davey g-force** · 09-13-2015, 09:35 PM

Great work once again Richy!

Those wheels look so clean now!

**richy** · 09-13-2015, 09:38 PM

Originally Posted by banzaitoyota

Nice

Thank you!

Originally Posted by fly07sti

WOW. You took that dirty girl to church! I've been eye balling the gloss pad from Corey but haven't seen any reviews on them. How much do you like it?

I do like it. I got it on the recommendation of Claude, who I trust. I like the fact that the hole in the centre helps centre it on my Flex. It's different in the way that the backing part of it is very stiff. Makes it difficult to wring out after cleaning but I spin mine dry on the rotary anyway so that's not a big deal. Is it better than the white B/S? Maybe, maybe not. They're close. I do like it better than the yellow Megs finishing pad as it's too thin and clogs up very quickly I find. Hope that helps.

And thanks for your comments on dirty girl..

**Sicoupe** · 09-13-2015, 10:32 PM

Wow! You definitely brought it back to life my friend, looks fantastic!

Kyle

**richy** · 09-14-2015, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by Sicoupe

Wow! You definitely brought it back to life my friend, looks fantastic!

Kyle

Thanks kindly Kyle.

**Heisenberg** · 09-14-2015, 08:30 AM

100 chips! Looks great.

I have a couple of those gloss pads too... I have been enjoying them. I think they run a little cooler on my Flex too but that might be my imagination.

**richy** · 09-14-2015, 09:57 AM

Originally Posted by Heisenberg

100 chips! Looks great.

I have a couple of those gloss pads too... I have been enjoying them. I think they run a little cooler on my Flex too but that might be my imagination.

Thanks! Your imagination? I don't think so. I notice my Flex's heat seems to impact the centre of the pad. It will distort. I still pull it off to let it cool, but I don't think it gets as hot as other pads. The thick backing might help in that regard too.