# ##Nitroused BMW Z3 Stealth paint correction##



## matt (Jun 29, 2006)

*Polished Perfection vs BMW Z3 stealth*

First of all, apologies for the lack of 50/50 and work in progress pics as we were seriously pushed for time on this job and had to concentrate on sorting some horrendous defects.

Russ contacted me after he had seen some work we had done on a local modders forum. He has owned this BMW Z3 for almost 3 years, and over this time had spent around 5K on subtle modifications and looks. He recently bought a nice Skyline GTR and had decided to put the beemer up for sale as he felt he had taken the car as far as he could.

Some of the mods hes done-

EBC Rear Discs / Pads 
Brembo Front grooved Discs / Greenstuff Pads 
FK High Sport Coilover Kit. 
Air intake system. 
Chipped By Chipped UK 
Zex Nitrous Oxide Wet Kit 55-75BHP 
17" Shnitzer, Sprayed Gloss Black with Carbon centre Badges. 
BMW carbon fibre badges. 
Replaced Chrome front Kidney Grills with Gloss Black. 
Replaced Chrome side vents with Gloss Black. 
Z3 Eyebrows, BMHEAVEN 
Hamann Z3 Front spoiler Lip, BMHEAVEN. 
Front Bumper Insert removed and replaced with Mesh. 
G-Power Z3M Rear Lip, Custom 1 off to fit 1.9, BMHEAVEN.

Here she is










Russ felt that prospective buyers were being put off by the dull, milky and heavily scratched paintwork (the local cats have left deep scratches all over) plus the fact that one day he was spraying his fence with creosote and a gust of wind blew it all over his leather and car interior. He couldnt remove it so asked us to have a go.

In an attempt to hide the defects Russ had applied a few coats of Colour magic Black paint sealant. You can see it beading the water like mad in the above picture.

Paint readings were taken at the PDI, which revealed 85um on the wing curvatures up to 120um on the boot lid.

The drivers door had seen a bad respray in the past, which gave not only plenty of orange peel but a 'wavey' effect to the paint. Also some heavy marring was evident.

Bright and early sunday morning the car was dropped off at the shop looking like this. Russ had taken it out on a 130mph run the previous day 





































Interior was grubby too.




























So onto the wash.

Treated the bug spattered front end to a 5 min soak in AG Active Insect Remover.










Rinse
APC 4.1 via foaming head, whole car
Rinse 
Wash with a combo of CG Strong Wash and Maxi Suds 11
ShMitt main body
Lambswool mitt on lowers
MF mitt on the wheels



















Those wheels look PANTS with all that dirt on them 










Engine bay and under bonnett was APC'd and rinsed too.




























The car was then rinsed off and dried with two Sonus Der Wunder towels.

Notice the Colour Magic still beading like crazy.



















Next step was to roll her into the shop and while Ali taped up and removed the lower front window trim i Clayed with Megs Quick clay then applied Megs paint cleaner to remove the Colour magic and see all the defects.

A few random defect pics in no particular order.

They look light in these pics.




























Lets take a closer look.



















Passenger door.










Bonnet



















Drivers door (where the bad respray was carried out.
Ignore the huge scratch at the top of the pic, this was caused by Russ's dad trying to get out the car in the garage the previous day. Nothing could be done with that as it was down to the metal, although after 2 hrs machining just the door i managed to round off the sharpness and lessen its effect.










Poor pic but this was the result after 6 hit with the pc using IP 3.02



















I carried on around the verticals as Ali fired up the rotary on the bonnet.

Im hoping Ali took some pics of the bonnet as i didnt 

A couple more afters




























At this point AndyG popped in to say hello as his mrs was in town shopping.
We quickly roped him into helping us for half an hour (Many thanks Andy you were a massive help) :thumb:

Andy polished up the exhaust pipes with NXT metal polish and 00guage wire wool.










APC'd pretty much the whole interior including hoovering and mats.
Cleaned the leather with a soft brush and Gliptone leather cleaner.
Treated the leather to Gliptone leather feeder (smells like a dead cow!!)
Plastics to AG Rubber and Vinyl care



















Ali Cleaned the Fabric hood with mild solution of APC and a soft brush.
Treated the hood to Chemical guys Fabriguard.
Rubbers were manky so Ali cleaned them as i follwed with Einzsett Gummi Pfledge



















Sealed the wheels with CG Wheel Guard.
Tyres Megs Endurance gel
Sorry no pics, Ali may have taken some

I wiped down with Last touch and applied by hand
CG Ez Creme Glaze
CG factory Sealant
Collinite 476s for durability.

Earlier we removed the lower window trim you see here.










This was cleaned with APC and treated to plenty of AG Bumper Care, then fitted back to the car.



















Some more after pics.





































In this pic you can just make out some of the deeper scratches we couldnt remove as there was so little lacquer in this area, and i felt it better to be safe than sorry.










Russ's mate come to collect her










Some outdoor pics





































In summary, Myself and Ali had a very tough job and it was clear at the beginning we would'nt be able to completely remove all defects. We achieved around 80-90% :buffer: correction over the car, which given the state of it was better than we hoped for.

Russ has emailed me to thank us for the 'Amazing job' we did on his paintwork.

Thanks for looking!!

Matt and Ali :thumb:


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## King Eric (Feb 27, 2006)

Good job boys. Looks fantastic. 

Nice looking Z3 that


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## andburg (Feb 13, 2006)

great job, not a lover of Z3's but that looks fab!


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## shane_ctr (Dec 17, 2006)

great job looks a nice ride:thumb:


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## Slangwerks (May 10, 2006)

Nice work, some serious defects on that!
Not normally a fan of the Z3 but that one looks pretty hard!


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## Paul-T (Nov 2, 2006)

Fantastic result given time pressure and dealing with thin paint, and a very enjoyable write up.


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## 182_Blue (Oct 25, 2005)

Excellent mate, top job


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## Ant GTI-6 (Nov 30, 2005)

Nice one Matt, a bit of a toughy that one.

you certainly made a huge impact on the defects, work to be proud of fella:thumb: .

superb levels of gloss and reflections are great in the afters 

Ant:wave:


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## Detail My Ride (Apr 19, 2006)

Awesome :thumb:


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## chris_20 (Sep 7, 2006)

yep i hate z3 but that is lovely. cracking job lads


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## CK888 (Apr 23, 2006)

Looks much better, very well done fellas:thumb:


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Glad our z3 isn't in that state! Top defect removal on really bad paint!!


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## Thomas-182 (Mar 5, 2006)

Fantastic job done there mate, looks excellent. Great stuff


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## Elite2.2DTi (Oct 26, 2006)

Top Job!:thumb:


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## rockape (Feb 18, 2007)

great turn around:thumb:


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## Alex L (Oct 25, 2005)

That looks great guys :thumb: :thumb: 

Looks like a nice place to detail too.


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## AR-CoolC (Feb 9, 2006)

Sorry Matt, all my pictures are pants (no pun intended ). 

I can honestly say that on Monday morning I was aching all over :wall: 

Matt and Myself were very happy with the correction made to the paint. Once all the colour magic was removed it really was a case of :doublesho and then :wall: 

And a big thank you to Andy Green for the helping hand, we certainly needed it on this one.


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## matt (Jun 29, 2006)

Thanks for the kind comments fellas.

No more flat black German stuff for a while methinks :wall:


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## BIG BAVARIAN (May 7, 2006)

mint job that matt,welcome to my world  :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Loads better there mate, brilliant work on some very severe defects. Nice one, great finish. :thumb:


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## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

awesome job! stunning motor!


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## *MAGIC* (Feb 22, 2007)

Job Well Done Mate


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## Andy_Green (Oct 27, 2005)

nice work that boys, didnt see the car in its original state but the finished article certainly looks like a vast improvement over what it was. Matt/Ali - yes i think we need to find you a soft paint to work on next time so you achieve a level of correction your happy with. Laughing at the stripes in the mat, lol, think i'll stick to just hovering the one way in future, the stripy look really doesn't do it for me. No problems about popping in a lending a hand, shame i couldn't finish the interior completely for you guys, found it quite enjoyable even tho I did break one of Ali's detailing brushes which the hoover then ate, ooops 

I did wonder what all the orange/red spots on the interior was, did detract from the finish but needed something more powerful than APC to get them off as that wasnt shifting them.

Ali - what is it with you and cameras, you never get any decent shots? 

Might have to try some gummi pledge next time we meet, been meaning to buy some of that for a while, didnt realise you had some


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## Jameshs (Sep 11, 2006)

Good turn around looks great now


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## matt_mph (Jul 26, 2006)

Looks ace  love the Z3 compared to her big sister the Z4


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## andyr34 (Jan 17, 2006)

Good work guys, not surprised he was having a problem selling it!!! I'm sure he'll move it soon now:thumb:


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## GlynRS2 (Jan 21, 2006)

A top job and great turnaround :thumb:


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## corksta (Mar 5, 2006)

Great work. That's one tough looking motor.


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## AR-CoolC (Feb 9, 2006)

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/178031.htm

For anyone interested (or knows anyone who might be interested) this Z3 is now on Piston Heads in the classifieds :thumb:


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## streaky (Dec 2, 2006)

lot of work on a small car :buffer: :thumb:


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## matt (Jun 29, 2006)

Car now sold thanks to us!! Yay!! 

Taken from the forum Russ has sold his car.  

"But would like to say a big thank you to you guys for doing the paintwork, I'm Sure had it not been done I wouldn't have got a sale with the paintwork in the state it was 

Was seriously bad bad these guys sorted it and made it look something special"

Russ


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## Wozza (Mar 3, 2007)

Top Job :thumb: Good correction work :buffer: :thumb:


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## GSI-NIGEL (May 17, 2007)

Niec work M8 lovely job, i seem to know that site very well as i use that car park on sundays when i take my son to Lincoln.:thumb:


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## AR-CoolC (Feb 9, 2006)

Hi Nigel

There is a local Lincolnshire car site that might interest you. Look in my profile for the website address.


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## autostars (Oct 24, 2010)

*Need help*

Guys u did a real good job on the Z3....... I attempted my very first detail on saturday which was on my dads Z3.... its pretty much in the same if not worse condition than the 1 you did and the same colour.

what compound/pads did you use to get these results and time scale.... e.g how long did it take you to correct the bonnet.

dont think im using the right gear cuz wasnt really getting the results i had hoped.

any help would be much appreciated

cheers 
Tony:detailer:


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