# Spirit Detailing Ireland: 320D CQuartz Detail



## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

Hi Guys,

My first International Supporter's thread! My company is Spirit Detailing, based in Leixlip, County Kildare, Ireland. Its just 2 mins outside Dublin. I mainly do Paint Correction Details, but my interior steam-clean and coat details are pretty popular.

I will put up a few details as I am going along but also a few from the recent past. I've been detailing since before "detailing" as we know it became popular. But I've been running Spirit Detailing for about a year and a half.

This E90 320D M Sport is a cool car - very tidy! I have a slight preference for a 335D but this particular 320D is very alluring in this dense metallic Graphite colour and carbon fibre trim. An ideal car for CQuartz coating - but in need of a good prepping and polishing first!

Here's how it arrived:




























Detox begins with tar removal from paint and wheels:



















Looks like the sills had been ignored for a long while!










Next up, Acidic-Contaminant Neutralising wash applied as a dense foam and left to dwell for 8 minutes.










Rinsed, dried and then the wheels were cleaned but were in need of a refurb so no pics of that. Then Alkaline Neutraliser applied directly to the dry paint and wheels as a dense white pasty liquid. This removes metallic and other inorganic contaminations.










This removes most organic and inorganic contaminants and cleanses the paint to a pore-deep level (if paint had pores!). Its a very good cleansing that clay just won't compare to. The only thing it seemingly won't do is tar!

Here's the clay bar after doing bonnet, roof and boot.










Fairly spotless! And after doing the whole car, the only thing it picked up was a few stray bits of tar that I missed down low!










The car was then towel dried and moved inside to blow the excess water out of the lights, wing mirrors and other gaps with the compressor.










Then moved down into illumination section.










Detailing weapons of choice: 
Flex XC3401 DA 
Flex L3403 Rotary
GTechniq P1 Polish
Lake Country Purple Foamed Wool Pad
3M Polishing Pads (Yellow and Blue used on this car)
GTechniq Wool Polishing pad
(also used a HD Uno Orange pad for some spot polishing)
Gloss-It Pad Prime
IPA
FK1 QD
H2O
CQuartz



















Bird -Droppings had left a deep etch in the bonnet, there were a few heavy compression scratches in the area as well.










A wee bit of gentle sanding with 2000, 3000, 4000 paper.










Roof had plenty of swirling -










Boot lid before:










Boot lid after










That ended day one. Back in early next morning and I thought the car looked well in the glow as the Metal Halide lighting started to warm up...










Finished the lower part of the bumper and boot-lid using a HD Uno orange pad to "spot" polish the narrow areas.



















The next few hours were spent polishing the side panels with the wool pad on the Flex OR, then to enhance gloss I used P1 with a 3M yellow polishing pad at 1500 RPM on the small rotary, slowing down to 1100 with even pressure. Then I switched over to the Blue 3M finishing pad and did a similar process again, but just spent a bit more time on each panel. The sides of the car had pretty deep briar-scratches running the length of the car, too deep to sand off, so the edges were rounded off as best as I could.










As always, prior to CQuartz the glass also gets polished to enable better bonding to occur.










Mid-Afternoon, time for the first coat to cure under the IR Lamps










While that dried and cured, I tackled the exhaust tips...










Not too bad - build-up of carbon on the steel and very sooty inside.










Brilliant 2 Metal Polish










Lots of wiping with cloths before I did a bit of polishing with me old woolly balls:lol:


















It came up nice and tidy, so a coat of CQuartz was applied straight away.




























That brought me to the end of day two. Just another half day to do the following afternoon. The car got another coat of CQuartz on the paint, glass and wheels, left to dry for a while before buffing off.

Then some time for the after shots...

Inside -
































































Then some photos in the 5 O'Clock sunshine, so nice and bright .
































































An enjoyable one for me! Thanks for looking. 

Brian


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## zippo (Mar 26, 2008)

one of the best detail/write ups of the year so far.


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

zippo said:


> one of the best detail/write ups of the year so far.


Thanks Zippo. :thumb:


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## DMH-01 (Mar 29, 2011)

Cracking work buddy.


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## [email protected] (Sep 22, 2009)

cracking job 

thats a pretty cool unit you have brian is it just your garage extended?


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> cracking job
> 
> thats a pretty cool unit you have brian is it just your garage extended?


Hi Mark,

No, its an industrial unit. Took me a while to find one that had zero light pollution so I can build up a high wattage of Metal Halides and Halogen lamps.

Cheers.
Brian


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## Lovescars (Dec 17, 2010)

top work chap


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## JBirchy (Oct 9, 2010)

Awesome work, love the detail on the BM, the carbon trim etc. Great stuff!


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## FlawlessDetailing (Mar 13, 2010)

Some lovely work there Brian. 
Must get my hands on some of those "wooly balls" !!!!

Lovely work

Padraic


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

FlawlessDetail said:


> Some lovely work there Brian.
> Must get my hands on some of those "wooly balls" !!!!
> 
> Lovely work
> ...


Not getting your hands on my ones though!! LOL

Thanks Padraic.


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## james_death (Aug 9, 2010)

Nicely done nice concise write up....:thumb:
How you finding the Cquartz?
Not such a curing issue with having the unit...:thumb:


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

james_death said:


> Nicely done nice concise write up....:thumb:
> How you finding the Cquartz?
> Not such a curing issue with having the unit...:thumb:


Cheers James.

I like to layer it up so I find the UV lamp invaluable for getting an even coating more quickly. Its not a big lamp, but I just move it around from the back to the front of the car, usually as I apply CQuartz to the far side of the car. Time is money, ya know, so anything that makes the job more efficient is good with me.:thumb:


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## Keith McK (Mar 2, 2011)

Very nice work 

Looks great, nice write up too,

Is them last pictures at Cartron House by any chance?


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## rdig1984 (Feb 28, 2011)

Awesome BMW detail!!! realy good.

Only one note is safe not to use the rings and the watch when you working


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

rdig1984 said:


> Awesome BMW detail!!! realy good.
> 
> Only one note is safe not to use the rings and the watch when you working


Thanks for the compliment. And for your note:thumb: You're not the first person to comment on that.

I've been detailing for a long, long time. I find that you need to be a contortionist to damage a car with a watch or a ring when doing paint correction.  I wear latex gloves at other times when my hands come into contact with the car directly. Just took the gloves off for the clay photos as the camera would have gotten wet.:thumb: Besides that, I'm right handed so no jewelry on that side!!


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## slrestoration (Nov 11, 2009)

Very nice work, some great photos:thumb:


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## alfajim (May 4, 2011)

wow, a proper job. no stone left unturned there. one squeaky clean beemer, you must have put a smile on the owners face. :thumb:


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## Cquartz (Jan 31, 2009)

Great work Brian !

how long you waited to cure the cquartz before wiping?

with the UV lamp or without it?


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## Spirit Detailing (Mar 29, 2007)

Thanks Avi.

I'm giving it about 20 minutes with the lamp before buffing off and re-coating. The second coat is always much easier to apply. CQuartz seems to like being applied to itself so the second and third coats are much faster to apply. 

Having said that, I leave the third coat for about 40 mins to an hour before I touch it. All haze comes away very nicely and the car buffs to a beautiful gloss. 

Need to check the latest batch of the CQuartz with you though, so will send you an email.


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## tonyy (Jul 26, 2008)

Very nice looking...


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