1 of only 300 Plum Crazy SRT8 Chargers - Correction and Opti-Coat

[Windows & Wheels]

So usually when a guy with an FR-S contacts us lately, he wants HIS ride done...well...not in this case! I was contacted this time about us doing his girlfriends Charger...a purple one he told me. My sister Dani lit up right away when she heard that. As usual we set up a time to bid it so we could see what we were working with.

 

Well...we were working with a lot...a whoooooole lot! Starting with lots of dirt:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then some nice faded trim:

 

 

 

And of course...tons of swirls everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

Then there were the wheels....the wheels with 2" thick brake dust lol

 

 

 

Thats an Arizona Road Coating there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there were a few rather deep scratches:

 

 

 

And bugs..

 

 

 

 

 

 

And kitty paw prints!!!!

 

 

 

 

And of course with all this...came lots of water spots...

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like someone has been setting cups on the roof...bad bad bad!

 

 

 

Oh yeah and more swirls...under the dirt:

 

 

 

 

And more of this:

 

 

 

 

This is what a sad Hemi looks like:

 

 

 

And some more trim asking for help:

 

 

 

*Sigh* and bird droppings:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok so, now you see what we saw during the bid lol. We set a price and a time....he said he wanted it to be opti-coated as well...which got a big thumbs up from us for sure. We arranged for it to be dropped off Saturday afternoon and picked up Sunday afternoon...and we used almost every minute of that time (except our few hours of sleep in between!)

 

The drop off day came...he was able to get it to us a few hours earlier than expected, about 2 p.m

First thing was first, those wheels, tires and wheel wells HAD to be taken care of....and it took over an hour just to clean them:

 

 

 

Foaming goodness to the rescue:

 

 

 

 

Thank God for Wheel Woolies, they clean barrels so nicely without slinging stuff all over me:

 

 

 

 

Then of course time to clean the faces:

 

 

 

 

Needed a brush angled at 90 degrees to get behind the spoked parts:

 

 

 

And then pressure wash the hell out of everything:

 

[Windows & Wheels]

Then it was time for the tires to get their scrub on:

 

 

 

 

And the wheel wells needed much love too:

 

 

 

 

 

So yeah...like i said...over an hour later that fun was done. We had our tent set up since its getting to be pretty warm out here already (90's), and we needed some shade so we could foam and wash this big baby down:

 

 

 

 

 

After a VERY thorough wash it was time to rinse:

 

 

 

Once she was clean and dry, the deeper waterspots stood out like sore thumbs:

 

 

 

Etched right into the paint, isnt that nice!

 

 

 

Oh and there were clusters, yes...many clusters...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time to decontaminate the paint (clay, but with an autoscrub). Man did it need it, the paint had SOUND to it when you ran your towel or hand over it...many bonded contaminants, but that was ok...we'd smooth it all out:

 

 

 

There was a little left over tar on a lower panel:

 

 

But in no time flat the autoscrub disc by hand took it right off:

 

 

 

While i did that...Dani was busy in the backyard giving herself a near concussion! Yeah see what happened was..she was back under the awning where we store a lot of our supplies (no room in the garage but they stay stored in cabinets and in the shade outside) and thought she was going to clear the awning and BAM! Near concussion....i haven't seen her hurt that bad in a long time. She had to take a minute inside to get herself back together, but...being the trooper that she is...she was right back out there to keep plugging away at the Plum.

 

She got to her tires/wheels and wheel well duties. Wheel wells were cleaned and dressed very nicely:

 

 

Rims and tires turned out sweet as well...especially with Opti-Coat on them!

 

 

 

After all that fun was done, it was time to tape of a LOT of vinyl stripes (Dani's job again, bless her heart) and then find out what we could do with these swirls!

 

Some areas just required some good ole hand polishing,

 

 

 

 

It wasn't perfect but, it cleaned up pretty nice between the vinyl:

 

 

 

Then it was time to break out the Dyna-Brade/Makita combo (this was before we got our Rupes from Mr Kevin Brown!) with a Megs microfiber cutting disc and some 105.

 

 

 

 

Dani in the mean time was doing her thing, cutting the lower stuff, the small/tight areas around the vinyl and anywhere that i wouldn't be able to get a real GOOD cut on the paint due to my pad size:

 

 

 

 

Inspecting the paint closely to see what kinda progress we were making:

 

 

 

 

Of course you're wondering, what kind of progress WERE we making?! Well, pretty damn good progress. We were taking this:

 

 

And turning it into this:

 

 

 

Dani had the seriously difficult task of removing some very deep water spot etching marks on the small painted area above the window on each door...if you look closely in this pic you will see the water spots on the right side of the light...but not the left....(the left was where she had compounded already)

 

 

 

 

We were able to work out quite a few panels that night. We kept going till about 11:30 p.m. I wanted to see what we could do with that faded trim...we were able to get some life back into it with UTTG. It took a couple of coats but...not too bad huh?

 

 

 

 

 

I left it to sit overnight so i could see how it looked once it was totally dry. The next morning it was a bit faded in a couple spots, but all in all...much better. I applied another coat and it seemed to do the trick.

 

 

We called it a night just before midnight, went in and got some food and crashed a bit after. Got about 5-6 hours of sleep and then popped up the next morning. Rise n' shine...look what we were greeted with!

 

 

Oh yeah...those guys...swirls...

 

 

 

 

 

It was time to suit back up into our wonderful super hero outfits of head lamps, aprons and blue gloves! Ok only i wear all of those at once, Dani tries to continue to look cute even while working lol.

 

Either way...the results were easy to see:

 

 

 

Before and after was like night and day:

 

 

 

Dani was up top polishing out the compounding i had done the night before:

 

 

 

At this point...it was camera off and petal to the metal. We had to have this baby done by 5..we started early but still had a LOT of work to do. I kept compounding away...Dani following behind with the polishing. Then it was time to wash the car again, do an isopropyl alcohol wipe down to be sure we had a totally oil free surface to apply Opti-Coat to.

 

It took close to another 2 hours for us to coat all of this bad boy...but we made it JUST in time. With about 5 - 10 minutes to spare...we pulled her out in the sun to check out our results:

 

[Windows & Wheels]

 

Ohhh yeah, THAT is how paint should look :

 

 

 

 

A couple chips were left but, no more bugs!

 

 

 

 

A couple of Opti-Coat streaks to touch up but no swirls on this paint:

 

 

 

 

Spoiler and the whole back side was lookin' sharp too:

 

 

 

NOW it wore the HEMI sign well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the bumper had crazy gloss and reflection:

 

 

 

 

There she was, ready to go home:

 

 

 

 

 

Now as always with any Opti-Coat job we do, a few weeks later (today actually) we followed up with a free wash so we can check the beading and touch up any high spots. Well...beading was a BIG check:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I LOOOOVED these shots:

 

 

 

 

That, my friends...is intense paint protection.

 

 

Wheels were holdin up just fine too:

 

 

 

Had a few high-spots to touch up but they were knocked down just fine:

 

 

 

And in the end...serious gloss and reflection:

 

 

 

 

 

The owner was very happy...and she informed us that only 300 SRT 8's came in the Plum Crazy color....that was pretty sweet! It was definitely our pleasure to work on her car...and looks like next on the list is for us to do some work on the interior.

 

Hope you all enjoyed reading the write-up and all the sweet pictures that went along with it. Take care all.

[Paul S]

Great tag team turn around Wills.

[dc52nv]

Great save. Thanks for sharing.

[Windows & Wheels]

I had been putting off reading this because I knew I wanted to give it my full attention. I loved he detail and the write up. I was very sad in the first few pics actually saying "poor brembos" out load. And I'm glad Dani wasn't harmed too much in the making of this write up. Wills, you've got to use Opti-Lens on your trim though. You'll give your current trim stuff away once you do.

Chris, maybe im missing something but...Opti-LENSE on trim..you can use it on trim?

[Windows & Wheels]

We were so focused in addressing the specific issues with lenses that we didn't do much testing on other surfaces. I did some tests on paint and it works well, but is harder to work with and would need to be diluted...but Eric "TRU SHINE" Witt had the vision to use it on his black plastic mirror on the TRU SHINE van and immediately called me being very pleased with the results. I called Dr G and verified the surface was suitable and that we could expect permanent performance on this substrate. The next day I tried it and was blown away. I now think we should actually market it as Opti Trim that can also be used on headlights!

Wow thats pretty crazy...next question then...what about FADED trim (like in the case of this Charger) ?

[sydtoosic]

nice save, great work.

[Perfections Detail]

Great job and crazy color!