This belongs to Matt of i4Detailing fame, Father, he’d dropped it of with me a while ago to get it ready for an upcoming feature in LRO International Magazine (August edition)
Not your typical defender either, this has the ability to shame a lot of hot hatches thanks to its 5.0 litre JE Engineering V8 lurking under the bonnet!
I was also given a bit of a challenge with this one, to see if I could do the complete detail using only Britemax products, now I’ve used pretty much all of the britemax range over the years, and on the whole found them to be pretty good, however I always felt the compounds/polishes better suited to DA use – never the less I was prepared to give them another go!
So how it looked on arrival
First up wheels, arches, shuts etc. cleaned using Grime Out APC
Also used as a pre-soak via foam lance
Rinsed and then washed with Clean Max (love the smell !)
Followed up with a session with the clay bar, but TBH very little in the way of contaminants, dried and paintwork assessed
Pretty swirly, but considering the cars age (I’ve seen far newer cars in worse condition!) not too bad at all
So on with the machine polishing, first stage was carried out using Resto Max and a yellow 3M pad, this took a couple of passes to get a satisfactory result, I found it has a fairly short working time with the rotary, and if overworked can become a bit dusty – nothing a quick change in technique didn’t solve though
Some before and afters
Some general afters, as you can see the odd deeper mark was left, mainly down to clear coat preservation (was a tad thin in some places!)
The paintwork was then refined using black max on a blue 3M pad, nice product to use with the rotary
Then all sealed using Extreme elements (tip use a foam applicator rather the MF!)
While that was curing I went over the chequer plate with Final Shine metal sealant, using a black spot pad on the rotary
Tyres were dressed with Rubber Max, once the sealant had cured and was buffed off, a final wipe down with Spray & Shine QD and outside ready for a few shots
