# Mk1 Focus RS Bespoke Detail - CQUK



## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Hi all, not posted in this section for ages so thought I would start a thread for a detail I'm doing this week on my Mk1 FRS. It's not been machine corrected since April 2012 so it was long overdue but was put off as the car lived outside and I washed it every other week - if not every week! To make things worse my old house never had an outside tap, so no pressure washer. Moved into my own house last October and now have my own garage to keep the car clean and dry. So I started planning this detail. With the world of ceramic coating taking off and being a keen detailer I wanted to try my hand at them so I decided on CQUK as it seemed from the marketing gumpf to be less particular in terms of temp, humidity and panel temps. After literally 6 months of research in how to use them I am finally ready!

So the detail actually started last week. I want to create a smoother look with a sea of un-interupted gloss - so the badges and armour fend had to go:

















Heated up and carefully prized off:

















Glue removed with AS Tardis, leaving:

























That might upset the purists but I want a clean, sleek, smooth look and if I realise my vision of glossiness I think it will look great. And the same for the armourfend:

























Then onto today's work. I have recently purchased a set of 4 pot AP Racing calipers and 350mm 2 piece discs from Reyland - they will arrive this week and will be fitted on Saturday. So what I wanted to do today was get the wheels off, detail the wheel, ceramic coat it and then detail the arches. So to begin:








(This is my damaged wheel, hit the garage a couple of months ago. The rest are of my good wheel but I forgot to do a before pic)

























Process was:
*wash with I4D non acidic wheel cleaner
*iron with AS fallout remover
*tar with Tardis
*clayed with Autobrite clay
*rewashed and dried

























Which gave:

































Then I wanted to give the face a quick machine polish. A quick go with Menz 203s on 3M yellow spot, before>1 hit>after:

























Some deeper scratched in tricky places done by hand:

















Inner face was cleansed with CS Deep Clean. After polishing:









I wiped with 15% IPA along the way but I did a second wipe down before coating. Then onto the coating:









Applied via suede but not with backing as I thought wheel was awkward shaped, next to a dehumidifier that had been running all afternoon (although the garage was wipe open, lol). Applied to the inner dish first and then the outer face. The package says to remove after a minute but with this heat and humidity I wiped straight off - although to be fair that probably was a minute! An hour later the reload was applied, giving:

















Tyre to be dressed on completion of the detail. I was happy with my first attempt at the coating. Seemed to go on and come off easy enough, I could see it flash on the face but not the inner dish, I put that down to lighting. It feels slick to the touch.

To finish, the wheel nuts were polished with the Britemax Metal Twins:









While the CQUK was curing it was time to do the arches and suspension:

























Cleaned with Megs APC and brushes, then with a steam cleaner for good measure (although not sure this did much). The brake calipers were left as they are coming off next weekend. The tar removed with AS Tardis:









Another quick wash with APC and a rinse and then all dried off. Then the plastic arch was dressed with 303 Aerospace and the suspension strut with Britemax Vantage, leaving:









































And to finish, the wheels back on:









So that's it for today. I have the week off work to get this done, although I have an appointment tomorrow. So Tuesday it will be my job to get the back end up and repeat with the back wheels - with an additional hub and caliper paint. Then onto the paint!


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## luke w (Dec 11, 2012)

Nice!!! Looking forward to this!


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## ffrs1444 (Jun 7, 2008)

Top work miss my old beast, wish I knew what I know now about detailing


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Cheers. I recognise the build number from your name, lol.


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## bazz (May 15, 2007)

great work fella and love the colour of your wheels


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## Mr Gurn (Dec 9, 2009)

HHHmmmmmmmm........ MK1 RS.... 


There is one down the road from me that I see every morning.... still really like these cars!!!!


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## hovnojede (Aug 9, 2012)

Great work so far.


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## Sicskate (Oct 3, 2012)

Very nice, I hope you don't chip your arches now?!?

Have you considered painting the hub face?


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

2 piece discs going on front, will be doing it on the back though. Stonechips all over the place, dontbsee why arches should be any different, lol.


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## lewis92 (Mar 7, 2014)

Lovely Mk1 mate, Every time i see one i just wish i could have one but cant justify it as a daily, Maybe one day


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Day 2 update*

Hi all, had a chance to do a bit more yesterday, namely stripping the car:









































The I got the back end up, wheels off and gave the arches a clean (same process as before):

















































Arches and suspension unprotected at the moment as my next job today will be to prep and paint the caliper and hub. The wheels will then get a detail and CQ and then I will dress the arches and wax the suspension and put it all back together.


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## ted11 (Jul 8, 2011)

I love it.


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## bazz (May 15, 2007)

looking good so far


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Day 3*

Had another productive day today and got a lot more done than anticipated! First job was to clean, decon, machine polish/cleanse, IPA wipe and coat the rear wheels (same process/products as before). Pics dirty > decon > clean:









































All clean and dry:









Machine polished with Menz 85RD3.02 on 3M yellow spot (no pics as they didn't look too bad, resprayed about 6 months ago. Polished just to increase the gloss). There were a few RDSs that were done by hand:









And gone:









Areas not polished were cleansed, including inner dish with CS Deep Clean:









Action shot!









CQUK curing:









Then onto calipers and hubs - tools for prep:









Prep'd:









Painted:

















Whilst that dried, the arch liners and brake lines were dressed with 303 and suspension waxed with Britemax Vantage:

















Finished article:

























Really pleased with how they came out, I think they look great with a good finish. My APs are the same colour - black caliper and silver bells so this wil match. I like that I have silver, to anthracite on the wheels, to black - a complete scale!

So, ahead of schedule I decided to get the car washed and decon'd ready for polishing. To keep the coating dry I masked the wheel up. The Envy snow foam with Megs APC to help strip old LSP off:

















Nooks and crannies and shuts done whilst dwelling:









Then 2 bucket wash with AB banana gloss, de-tar with Tardis and de-iron with AS fallout remover. The clay with AB clay and water to lube, nothing much going on here:









The re-wash, dry with Megs last touch as drying aid:

























I also took out the front indicators and fog lights for a more thorough clean and polishing access. The car was then brought into the garage and taped up:









And then paint readings taken:









And that concluded the day! Tomorrow will be a hardcore polishing day, aiming for full correction if paint will allow but I suspect not, I'll see how I get on. Only planning a 2 stage polish but will do repeated cutting hits if need be to remove the swirling and scratches.


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## Deefa (Jan 31, 2014)

Needs the discs skimming both look badly scored.


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

yeah, came up on MOT the other week. will get to that. or upgrade.... Now I think about it, might see if my mate can do it when fitting APs.


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## Sicskate (Oct 3, 2012)

Did the drivers quarter have a bare metal respray?

The results don't look high enough in my opinion.


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## 66Rob (Sep 25, 2007)

Lovely car, one of my favourites, looking out for one myself.


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## Ed_VeeDub (Sep 22, 2008)

great work, will be keeping and eye on this :thumb:


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## JamboRs (May 25, 2010)

looking good mate


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## ffrs1444 (Jun 7, 2008)

Outstanding buddy when your driver side wheel is off there is a metal pipe have a look when I had mine it was starting to corrode


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

I had a repair done to the arch on the driver quarter panel, not sure if it was bare metal, I just asked them to repair it. Whole car looks to have had work done. I have had bonnet and rear arch done myself.


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Got about 2/3 of the way through polishing today. The rest to do tomorrow with some pics.


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## ocdetailer (Apr 9, 2014)

Amazing work so far, I'm looking forward to the end results


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## Shep (Apr 22, 2011)

Looking forward to seeing this finished. Have you removed your arch liners? It's surprising how much dirt is under them.


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## Dift (May 22, 2011)

I miss #0435.

Cracking cars, I used mine as a daily. 

Your doing a fantastic job!


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Day 4 and 5 update*

No the arch liners were kept it. I will be doing some resto work in years to come so that will get done then. Hoping Oxford RSOC will help me, they al have concourse minters!

Anyway, after the best part of 2 days polishing the car is finally corrected. I was aiming to correct as much as possible that the paint allowed and in the time I had. The main bulk of the polishing was done with Menz PO85RD3.02 on 3M yellow pad with small areas being worked and a lot of the areas requiring 2 hits. Some of the deeper marks did remain but there wasn't many, the car is largely fully corrected. Refinement was done with Menz PO85RE on 3M blue. I was working in my garage as I wanted to stay out the sun but space was tight which made polishing quite difficult! This combined with my poor photography skills meant I couldn't get too many decent pics or 50/50s. The pictures don't really show how swirly the car was but it was pretty bad in certain light!

So, a few pictures. First up a 2 stage polish on my tail lights (after a wipe with APC and clay):









Bonnet and wings before:

















And after:

















Other side of bonnet:

















Wing before:









And after:









Tailgate before:









After:









Rear bumper before:









And after:









Drivers door before (excuse the moobs, car was brought outside late today as the sun had moved around and I didn't have space to squeeze around the garage!):









And after:









With the polishing done the car was pressure rinsed and snow foamed to remove polishing dust and then dried off. I had a bit of a nightmare with water spots on my newly polished paint as I was so concerned about marring the paint with my towels I started tap drying but was so slow I had water spots drying. Didn't want to use QD to dry due to subsequent ceramic coat but resorted to it in the end - I'll do an IPA wipe tomorrow to remove garage dust. So after an extensive drying session and brought back into the garage I had this:









The garage is all closed up and dehumidifier running overnight. Tomorrow the CQUK will go on, along with all the trimmings and that should finish the job. And put the car back together of course!


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## rs_si (Apr 20, 2010)

Great thread. Will keep my eye on this!


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## Mike! (Jul 3, 2010)

Great thread, get some foam on the wall to protect the doors when opening them!


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Drivers side has the boiler pipes which do have foam.


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## ffrs1444 (Jun 7, 2008)

Depo lights i had them 







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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

*Day 6 - The final day!*

Ok, I finally got the car finished and back together about an hour ago, it's been a long slog but worth it in the end and I am pleased with the results. One of the reasons I wanted to take it this far was to challenge myself and see if I could do it and there was also the ceramic coating which I'd never done before.

So with the polishing completed yesterday I started the day with yet another IPA wipe down to make sure there were no polishing oils leftover. Then the first coat of CQUK went on - I'd watched a few videos of it's application so knew how much to add to the applicator and and how to apply it. I was quite surprised at how easy it was to use and how accurate you could be with the applicator. So the whole car was done and left to cure:

























I had enough to do 2 coats and a third to the front end (bonnet, arches, headlights and bumper). To my horror the IPA wipe down marred the paint on the bonnet with pretty much brand new towels (used once and washed). Thankfully the CQUK seemed to fill this ever so slight marring and as the durability is so long I don't mind that. After the third coat to the front the car was then wiped down with Reload:

























To finish, the plastic trim and window seals were treated with Gtechniq C4:

































Exhaust with the Britemax metal twins:









Tyres with 303:









Bonnet vents coated and reloaded:









Fogs and indicators polished:









Areas under the lighting and boot shut Cherry glazed and then Vantaged:









The part of the boot under the tail light was polished by hand and then Vantaged. And the rest was put back together with just enough time and light to take some pics outside:

































































The daylight didn't do the work any justice really. So some more in the garage!

































































So there we have it! 6 days non stop, morning until night! I thoroughly enjoyed this detail even if it was way more in depth than I needed to do. I'm hoping I get the quoted durability from the product, I followed all the prep instructions so I should do. And I'm looking forward to a car that stays cleaner for longer and look forward to seeing the water behaviour in action! I'm having my AP Racing 4 pots put on tomorrow and then going to Ford Fair next weekend - I'm hoping I won't need to wash it before then to allow the coating to cure fully.

Whilst I'm here I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Craig from CarPro who I have absolutely hounded with questions for nearly 6 months or so! I was very keen to make sure I knew fully what I was doing and how to go about it and wasn't shy in asking him every question under the sun! So thanks Craig, your information and advice was crucial and I'd have definitely buggered it without you!

Thanks for reading


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## subarufreak (Oct 20, 2013)

damn, photos not working!


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Doh, bandwidth used


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

my apologies to those who can't see the pics, i'll bump when bandwidth resets. in the mean time, some pics from a facebook album https://www.facebook.com/daniel.and...90246.1073741829.637230245&type=3&uploaded=31


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Bump for this, I have bandwidth back!


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## Steve (Mar 18, 2014)

Beautiful mate.


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

Right, it's been over 6 months since I applied the CQUK so I thought I'd do an update with how the coating is doing.

First of all how the car looked before todays wash:


















Lots of salt on the road at the moment, especially on the A40 between Oxford and Gloucester. One thing I have noticed is how much more effective snow foaming has become! The car is virtually clean after snow foaming!










This makes me happy when it comes to cleaning  So 6 months on the beading after washing looks like this:










I don't have any recent pictures of the beading after it rains but needless to say that it beads just as strongly as the day it was applied - nice and tight beads, small and compact and the water angle still looks high. I then tried to do a video of the sheeting:



Not the best camera work but you get the idea! So then I got my light out and looked at the condition of the paint under sun gun (registered rip off) and halogen. One of the biggest selling points of ceramic coatings for me was their resistance to wash marring. My car has had respray work (some by me and some by previous owners) and I actually find my paint quite soft and despite my best efforts to wash and dry safely I used to pick up terrible marring quite easily. So I'm pleased to report this is how it looked under various lighting:










































































Needless to say I'm over the moon with the results! 6 months on and it's picked up very minimal marring. So then a couple of gratuitous reflection shots:


































So there we have it! Well worth doing in my opinion and I hope it continues to perform. The whole car had 2 coats with a third on the bonnet, wings and front bumper - I'll be pleased if it lasts 18 months, delighted if I get 2 years from it!

Thanks for reading.


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## dubber (Oct 2, 2011)

A mighty fine example of a proper rs focus. Great work.:thumb:


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## Jonny_R (Oct 23, 2012)

great work mate and good to see the wash marring is still being kept at bay


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

dubber said:


> A mighty fine example of a proper rs focus. Great work.:thumb:


thanks. the tail lights normally divide opinion but the tie the smoked theme together nicely IMO. got a tubular manifold waiting to go on which, with a stage 2 live map, should see me near 320bhp


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## sm81 (May 14, 2011)

How often you have top it up? Reload or something else...?


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## dubber (Oct 2, 2011)

rsdan1984 said:


> thanks. the tail lights normally divide opinion but the tie the smoked theme together nicely IMO. got a tubular manifold waiting to go on which, with a stage 2 live map, should see me near 320bhp


That should be fun.


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## rsdan1984 (Jul 31, 2009)

sm81 said:


> How often you have top it up? Reload or something else...?


I spoke to Craig as I would usually use a QD as a drying aid so I wanted to know if I could still do that. His advice was to use diluted reload as a drying aid and to also maintain the coating. So I use reload diluted 1:5 after every wash.


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## Dan (Feb 22, 2007)

Great work mate, liking the effort gone into it.


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## Nick-ST (Mar 4, 2013)

Lovely RS! Missing mine now after seeing this! Have you had your brake conversion done yet? Wouldnt mind seeing a cheeky pic 

Nick


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## MonsterST (Aug 4, 2013)

When you mention marring, you just mean swirl marks?

I've got a ford fiesta st, 63 plate. I got it brand, made sure dealer didn't wash and I follow all the correct wash techniques yet it's slowly picking up more and more swirls, fords paint is so soft!!

Anyways, stunning work, have you thought of getting a blow dryer. I bought a cheap leaf blower from screwfix, it makes drying so much easier and it's no longer a task! It removes like 90% of the water, then leaves little spots or drops which u can pat dry no problem!


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