Time flies so fast. I realized it is already half a year since I posted some update. There are so many projects I was neglecting the GranSport a little. I didn’t really drive it much, nor worked on it a lot, however I kept buying bits and parts all the time with many future plans.
The main thing taking all my time (expect job and family of course) was that I was working ******* my new garage construction to have it closed and partially furnished before winter. And I succeeded and even though there is still a lot of work to do I finally started to use my new garage as intended and before Christmas I managed to move my GTA and GS inside.
Due to the missing pavement and difficult access, they will probably stay closed there for the coming few months until I sort out the driveway, but they are already in their new home what also cleared for me the yard and the olded 1-car garage for other things.
Nevertheless, in the last months I did some jobs on GS as well.
One of the bigger ones was paint restoration and detailing. Generally, the car looks great for almost 20 years old paint. Maybe it was even resprayed, who knows, but I am certainly happy with it. Of course, it had some scratches and some stone chips, but still amazing for its age.
First, I sorted the stone chips. Except a dozen of small “usual” ones, the only significant issue was one bumper location where the paint peeled off in the size of two fingernails. I decided to give a go to this repair system:
https://colorndrive.com/
Here is the big chip.
The paint fills the hole and preferably stays protruding from the paint.
Then with a special liquid and sponge is flattened to become smooth with the rest of the surface like if it was sanded down.
Of course it is not absolutely perfect, but with some polish it will do.
After sorting the stone chips I detailed the paint. It took me about a month, but I worked only 1-2 hours a day and only evenings. All together it took me about 30-35h of work. This were my steps:
- Good wash
- Cleaning the body with clay bar
- Polishing. This was the most time-consuming step. I use Rupes DA polishers, pads and compounds. Each body panel was polished 3 times, with medium, fine and ultrafine combination of pads and compounds while some heavily scratched areas like doorsills had to be polished with a coarse pad/compound first as well to get rid of deeper scratches.
- After polishing I cleaned al the body with 3M Isopropyl alcohol
- I applied 2 layers of my favorite ceramic coating as a base:
- https://www.carboncollective.com/product/molecule-9h-ceramic-coating/
- Finally, a top ceramic coating layer that has less durability but more shine
- https://www.carboncollective.com/product/nero-ceramic-coating/
Carbon collective says that this process should protect the paint for up to 8 years. And I do find it realistic. I did it on my new Giulietta in 2020. This car I use heavily, I did 85k kms in 2,5 years. In summer heats and on winter salty roads… And even thought the coating is not “like new” anymore you can still feel it when touching or washing the car even after 2,5 years. So if it is good enough for 2-3 years on a heavily used daily driver parked always outside, on my GS it should last a decade at least.
Here is the paint condition before the polish:
And here is the polished body, but still before the final clean and ceramic coating:
I just realized, I have not really driven the car since. I have no pictures in the sunlight, only in the garages but it looks great to me. It is also probably at the limit of detailing what can I do. Probably some professional detailer could get more of it, but I am fine with my job. And so far, I just did the paint, I didn’t have time to detail the glass, trim or interior at all…