Hi Guys,
This one has taken a little while to be ready, and I know a few people are waiting for us to unveil the finished pics!
We were contacted by a local VW restoration company who carry out the occasional paintwork for us, to give this Camper a refresh after some fresh paint. The Van had a full restoration around 6 years ago but required some repainting to some of the more prominent areas. The van attends shows throughout the year, so is no garage queen, not just in the UK but all over Europe too.
The Van is a 1967 Australian import (RHD). Its sits on lowered suspension, and has a 2276CC bored/stroked flat 4 engine (so sounds as good as it looks!). Disc brake conversions etc, rack and pinion steering conversions as well as Playstation/TV on the inside.
Following a fresh front end, and rear panel re-spray it was dropped to us with these panels having been freshly painted and sanded with 1200 grit. These areas would require fully wet sanding to perfection and machine polishing, whilst the rest of the paintwork would require a 1-2 stage correction to remove swirl marks, oxidisation etc from the several years since it was re-painted.
It arrived with the front end looking a little bare and dull!
We got straight too it, and carried out a full wash/decontamination including 2BM wash, wheels etc. The non-fresh paintwork was also de-tarred/iron x/clayed to remove any contamination due to meticulous maintenance, of which there was little but we still felt it worthwhile.
Wide fan used to avoid forcing water into anywhere it shouldn't!
Pulled back inside, after now washing it we realise just how much paintwork there is! Lots!
Straight too it, front end and rear panel were sanded with 2000, 2500 and 4000, this alone took several days due to some tight curved spots on the front end!
These areas were then machined using Scholl Concepts S17+ with various pads including Wool and the Scholl Spot Spider Pads. Refined using 3M Ultra Fine/Yellow pad.
The original paintwork was single stage, so we opted for the Meguiars D300 Compound via MF pad using DA polishers to avoid any issues with holograms etc which can be inflicted via compounding via rotary. It was clear that there was a definite haze robbing the finish of any gloss/clarity!
Before:
After around 4-5 days working on the paintwork, we also cleaned up the interior (Valet Pro Interior Clean was used, along with a thorough hoover and Auto Finesse Crystal on the glass). The wheels/exhaust were polished using the Britemax twins, and tyres dressed with Car Pro Perl. For protection we opted for Dodo Juice Super Natural, the paintwork received two layers to ensure optimum coverage.
I'm also incredibly proud to announce that since the detail, the van won Best in Show at a recent VW show in France!
So, the finished pics, fortunately the glorious sunshine was out, however i'm still getting to grips with my new camera! Anyway, Enjoy!
Thanks for looking, comments/questions etc welcome! More on the way!
