Polished Makeover

Rawr...

I may not be a female expert, but as far as I know, most women like to get makeovers when they're depressed. I figured, "what better way to cheer up Serenity than to pamper her with a full polish and detail?". Since we couldn't make it out to Nationals this year, this was the least I could do. Big thanks to Jordan for helping me out with a lot of this, especially the polishing part, as the car had never been fully detailed before it seemed.

Black Mirror

Had an appointment with Jeff today to give the car some serious TLC. It needed it badly, as the last time the car received such treatment was almost 2 years ago now, back at Josh's. Jeff is a good friend of mine, as well as the owner of Show Shine Detailing & Performance, a small business that has a promising future, offering amazing detailing services at a competitive price, along with installation of aftermarket parts service as well.The entire job took us close to 10 hours to complete, along with painting the calipers black. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but all of the pictures can be seen here. If you don't have the time but want your car cleaned up, I'd shoot Jeff a line now and work something out with him before his schedule fills up. Trust me, his work is worth it, and that's why I'm proud to be sponsored by his company.

Spring Cleaning 2009

NEPOC held is 4th year Spring Cleaning meet this sunday! This meets turn out was great, with right around 30 cars this time. All the usual suspects were there, along with plenty of car detailing. Not much to say, other then a big thanks to Mark for allowing us all to come together at his place, and big thanks to everyone for the great time. Below are a few links to the many pictures that people have taken.

Josh's Pictures
Joel's Pictures
Ashley's Pictures
Kim's Pictures
Mark's Pictures

Patch Work

Took some time to give the car some of the love and car that it deserves the other day. I wanted to remove the side skirts, buff out a scrape that a SUV had left me when I parked in ChinaTown, and remove my foglights. Thanks to the help of Josh, we got right on that.

Removing the side skirts was a bit tedious, as it had to be cleaned from the 3M tape and dust. Then we had to plug the holes with "hole plugs" from Home Depot, painted with touch up paint and clear coated, and then some slight super glue around the edge to make sure it is on against the body firmly. Will have more side shots soon.

Bumper was buffed out, again thanks to Josh. Looks brand new, except for the few rock chips, so looks like someone put white out here and there. Headlights needed a serious makeover as well as they were hazed and scratched from the baking we did. Much better with a much better output.

Lastly, the fogs were simple to remove, just 3 screws from the foglight assembly into the bumper and they're off. The PIAA's I had previously were blown, and I had slowly gotten out of the fog light phase, so I removed them.

More pictures can be seen here. Thanks a million to Josh for the help!

Minor Body Work

After removing the rear aero flares that are apart of the appearance package that came from the factory, I noticed they left these nifty drill holes at the bottom of my rear bumper. I had gotten together with Marcux from RX8 club (Donnie) to patch this up.

Below is the steps I observed him perform on my bumper. I'll have him chime in if I missed something or spelt something wrong, as I'm not exactly very "body work" savvy.

1. Clean out the drill holes using a small sanding pen
2. Fill the holes with JB Weld - Let dry for 1 hour
3. Coat top layer of JB Weld with spot putty - Let dry for 30 minutes
4. Sand down flat with 2000 grit sand paper
5. Make sure it is smooth
6. Apply touch up paint over the spots - Let dry for 1 hour
7. Coat with clear coat brush - Let dry for 1 day
8. Wet sand with 2000 grit sand paper lightly
9. Rub in the rubbing compound to smooth out - Then buff out
10. Rub in polish compound - Then buff out
11. Apply wax
12. Buff out

Below are pictures in respective order-

Quick Detail

Had a small get together at Bob's house to educate him on proper detailing, while also washing ours cars. Really small, just me, Oleg and James to help out. Bob had gotten the full treatment first, starting with a wash. We then lightly dried the car to get it ready for the clay bar.
For those who are unfamiliar with "claying your car", it is a process in which it removes built up surface dirt that normal washing of the car cannot remove. Sometimes you may need to clay off cone rash or tarmac, but after claying, you will need to reapply wax, as it also removes that.

After claying his car, we had then applied 3 coats of this special wax that Oleg has, that you actually need to mix before using. After waxing and buffing on and off 3 times, we pulled Bob's car out for the final touch, some wheel wax. All in all, the end result was great and his paint (White pearl) really shimmered. Products used were:
Poorboy's World Super Slick & Suds Concentrated Car Wash
Zaino Z-18 Claybar with diluted Zaino Z-7 car wash
Jeff's Werkstatt Prime Strong
Zaino Z-5 Pro Wax (Synthetic Sealant)
Zaino Z-8 Grand Finale Sealant

Pictures, including pictures of Oleg's new 2006 Mazda Miata are all here!

Detail Bonanza

The annual NEPOC "Fall Clean Meet" was held today over at Mark's house in West Bridgewater! Not only do These meets seem to get bigger and bigger, but the fun just never ends. Mark (as usual) was working on his car instead of cleaning it, installing a transmission cooler that he has had lying around for awhile now. James was trying to install his new REALLY stiff Progress Tech sway bars (same sway bars used by the SpeedSource RX-8 in the Rolex GT series) but had no luck as he unfortunately snapped the bolt off in his rear somewhere. Poor guy had to drive home with a sway bar half on at the end of the meet!
Josh did some talking with Poorboy's World and they sent us a ton of great detailing supplies for the meet! Things ranging from wax, to detail and polish. Unfortunately I did not get to use the "Black Hole" product but from what I saw, it was an impressive product.

With the good times, seeing new faces and hanging out with the usual buddies, it was a hell of a meet. Pictures taken by Josh can be viewed here few while pictures from Chris can be viewed here! Thanks a ton guys!

Polish Power

(Thanks a million to Oleg for the compounds and goods, and thanks a ton to Josh for the time, effort, garage, and food. Oh and the cruise in Cape Cod after with two good looking cars.)

2 guys + 1 power sander + 3 pads + 3 different compounds + 1 wax = 7 hours of work. This was a task and a half. Me and my girlfriend went up to the Cape to Altspace's (Josh's) house early in the morning to complete a full polish on the car. He told me all about the pains and long hours we would go through, but because of my inexperience I assumed it would be cake walk. Just for a few hours. Boy, was I wrong.

We started off with a quick car wash, making sure we got to every detail: the wheels, the plastic parts, everything. After drying the car, Josh used a vacuum that could be used as a blower to go along the lines of the car and blow out any remaining water. This ensured that the car was as dry as possible. Then, we rolled it into the garage and got ready for the polish.

We started off with a heavy compound to take care of all the small surface area blemishes, going along from top to bottom. As Josh went along with the machine, I followed behind him with the buffing towel to use some serious elbow grease and rub the polish out.

After, we used a heavier compound to go deeper into the clear coat and really work out any smudging. We could already start to see an impressive difference as the smudging was almost gone, and the car had become more like some sort of mirror.

As our fifth hour approached, we finally finished applying the last and heaviest compound to really get deep down and smooth out as much etching as possible from the car. It worked well, and the car literally became a mirror. But, sadly not all the etching that the previous owner left for me had dissipated from the clear coat. I haven't really decided what to do about that, but for now it looks good enough for anyone else who sees my "brilliant black" coat... or the black mirror, whatever works for you.

After we were done, we applied some PoorBoy's wax and wheel wax and headed out to catch some dinner. We cruised around the windy back roads of the Cape, as well as along Main Street.

For more pictures, take a peek here.

NEPOC Spring Cleaning

NEPOC (New England Protege Owners Club - Though it's become more of just a New England Mazda Club) held a great car wash meet over at Bazooka Joe's (Mark) place over in West Bridgewater. All detailing, cleaning, and an install or two. Got to finally meet the great Altspace! He was getting his brand new Mazdaspeed shocks installed when I arrived. For lunch, grabbed some BBQ, curtesy of Mark, and stuffed our faces.

All pictures, thanks to Josh, are here.