Enhancement Detail (Total Surface Protection Bolt On)
Quite possibly the rarest car I've ever worked on. Like rocking horse stuff some may say. Any enthusiast knows that Escort Cosworth's are getting rarer by the day. Well good luck finding another one of these, Not only is it a Cossie, Its a Monte Carlo Edition and better than that Its a Factory tuned Brooklyn edition! So essentially its extinct.
So as I'm essentially Detailing a Dinosaur I knew that this one had to be ultra special. As always up first was the decontamination stages. Trying out some new foam currently, Bilt Hamber Auto Foam. Its cleaning properties are fantastic, not as thick as I like but i guess the thickness is just a party piece and its the cleaning part that really matters. Using the foam i worked around the shuts, jams and cracks then left it to dwell for a few minuets before rinsing it off. Doing things a little differently on this detail, the wheels were coming off as the design of the wheel prevented proper access to the dishes. So I just rinsed the wheels off before moving on.
Once rinsed down I used some APC in some areas where the snow foam hadn't lifted the dirt. Then moved onto the washing stages. Using my new Adams Wash Pad and the trusty two bucket method the exterior was safely washed and ready for decontamination. Everyone does the decon stages in a different order, I like to start with Fallout, then tar then clay. I Clayed the car with a clay mitt, these mitts really are far better than any bar, they are just as aggressive when needed to extract stubborn contaminate while also being safe and gentle on the paintwork and 10x faster!
The intial cleaning stages and decontamination are always the grubby bits so it's nice to get them out the way. Decontaminated it was time to move the car inside as unfortunately I spent the first three hours cleaning this beast in the rain so I moved it inside to dry it down using various towels and a metro vac master blaster. The reason I use the metro vac at this stage is to ensure all the water is removed from window shuts, under the mirrors etc so that when I'm taping up I don't get water runs and water affecting the performance of the tape. I always get asked what the tapes for, for the less avid enthusiasts the purpose of the tape has two reasons. The first is to stop the abrasives in the polishes diminishing the appearance of rubbers, plastics and trim and also to prevent the white staining that is often left on plastics when polishing. The second reason is to prevent damage by the polisher when running along panel edges. Quite often the bottom of doors curve in meaning when the polisher follows the curvature of the door the backing plate on the polisher could come into contact with the lower trim causing damage. By laying down two layers of tape you prevent this damage and enable safe polishing.
Time to inspect and take paint readings. The first thing I noticed was the marring caused by the claying process leading me to believe the paint was extremely soft in areas. Readings were fine throughout, maybe a little thin on the wings but that's often to be expected. The car in general wasn't too bad for any heavy defects, more a case of lots of swirling and marring. Readings recorded it was time to start polishing. The polishing stages were fairly straight forward on this apart from the rear spoiler which was Rock hard so took a little bit of work to correct despite it being fiddly as hell.
I spent around 19 hours polishing to reach the desired level of Enhancememt. Once polishing stages were completely the paint had a full wipe down with Car Peo Eraser in prep for the ceramic coatings. I opted for Car Pro C Quartz again on this Cosworth. Two coats were applied, inbetweeen the layers I applied G1 And G2 glass coatings to all exterior glass and coated the wheels in C5 alloy wheel armour. The finishing stages on this Monte were very fiddly, lots of little touches added like the morrette headlights, bonnet vents and engine bay. The list of finishing touches are endless and you could go on for ever but to give you an idea, dressing rubbers, polishing metals, dressing tyres and arches, adjusting wheel centre caps, cleaning locks and the key, dressing the engine bay and the list goes on. After I'd spent all afternoon finishing up the interior had a good Hoover and wipe down. The cloth was a pleasure to see and these kind of cars are so barely used that the interiors are a pleasure to do. One last touch was so seal the matts with a fabric coating to prevent any future staining.
The car was rolled outside for final inspections and photos and I'll let the photos below do all the talking. I'm pleased to report that since completing this detail I've had another Monte owner get in touch and book his in for the same treatment, watch this space!
