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Basket case 1998 Astra (56K – 67 Pictures, but well worth the wait!)

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69K views 130 replies 117 participants last post by  SimonBash  
#1 ·
Some of you will recall that my most common complaint is that I am not experienced enough at this detailing lark. So far I've only cleaned mine and my wife's' car and these are in pretty good nick, so there is not much to challenge me…..

….. and then along comes this basket case.

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This is a 1998 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 Expression in Flame Red. This car is not just sun-faded, it's been abused. It's absolutely filthy inside and out, has probably only been washed 4 or 5 times in it's entire life, has scratches and dents all over it as well as bird-lime burns and the wheel trims have severe kerbing. The interior has some pretty awful staining and the car has bits hanging off it.

This is my Bro-in-laws car, and after 10 years of faithful service, he's decided to PX it in for something newer……..only any garage will probably laugh him out the door if he were to ask for a PX value on it. To be fair to him, he has been living on a building site for the past 3 years and cleaning the car is just not a priority for him, neither is it practical when the car is parked on sand and is used to take all sorts of rubbish down to the dump every weekend.

So how did I get it? Well allegedly during an excellent barbeque when the weather was good earlier in the year (remember then?) after one to many Stella's, I volunteered to sort it out for him.

So, for a period of 2 weeks whilst my Bro-in-law in on his hols, I have the car to try and get it back to a half decent condition, whilst using it as a test-bed to practise new techniques on that I have read about but don't dare try out on the brace of BM's that we have.

I have a lot to learn.

Lesson number 1. Never offer to do stuff when you are drunk.

As the car arrived

Notice then algal build up on the window rubber.

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Badly kerbed wheels

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Interior

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Broken NS Front indicator

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Broken OS repeater

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Missing NS Wing Mirror (allegedly caused by a car wash!)

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Missing Aerial (note the rusty coat-hanger!)

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Oxidised paint.

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Note the dirt build-up in the crevices

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#2 ·
So first things first, the wheels. Following on from mattm's excellent thread on alloy wheel refurbishment, I decided to see if the same principles would apply to plastic wheel trims. Firstly they were soaked in Megs Wheel Brightener cut 4:1 and given a damn good scrubbing.

On the car

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Cleaned up

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After they had dried out I attacked them with my power-sander and 100-grit glass-paper to remove the kerbing. Once all the kerbing was removed I moved to 600 grit and then 1000 grit and finally 1500 grit wet and dry using Megs NXT Quick-detailer as a lube to remove all the sanding marks.

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They were then washed again and wiped down with CG's New car solvent. Then sprayed with Vauxhall Star Silver paint (The closest match I could find) and lacquered over. This photo shows the trim being a bit orange-peely. This was an early attempt and I had applied the paint too heavily, but I soon learned to be a bit lighter and was quite impressed with the final finish.

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Here are all 4 hanging in my garage drying.

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Lesson #2, ensure all sanding marks are completely removed prior to painting. I had to re-do 2 trims because there were a couple of 600 grit sanding marks left that the paint did not fill.

Lesson #3, lots of light, even coats are preferable to a couple of heavy ones.

So on to the interior. All rubbish, mats and child seats removed and the interior thoroughly hovered out. I removed the front seats to get better access to the interior and then started on the headlining.

Pretty much all the interior was treated the same way: Megs APC cut 10:1 (or 8:1 on really bad areas) sprayed onto the headlining/fabric/carpet with a pump-spray, agitated with a soft brush and then extracted using the vax. I had clean, warm (not hot!) water in the reservoir with a dash of Lilac fabric conditioner, just to help remove the odours and condition the material.

Headlining

½ done

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This was the dirt removed just from the headlining. Hot chocolate anyone?

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So on to the seats.

As you can see, the seats were in appalling condition…..

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An action shot of the dirt being removed (God alone knows what was spilt here, I 'd rather not think about it…………….)

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Front seat ½ the back done…..

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…..1/2 the seat done……

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……completed.

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4 buckets of dirty water later and then on, dear friends, to the carpets…

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Boot mat (50/50, well more like 60:40, but you get the idea…..)

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Boot arches before and after

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Drivers footwell before……

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…hoovered out…

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…shampooed (twice!) and extracted.

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#3 · (Edited)
Door cards.

Before.

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This was a leaked pen in the drivers' door pocket. Megs APC a brisk scrubbing and extracted - all gone.

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This is what I really love about Megs APC. Spray it on, leave for a minute or two, agitate and you can see the dirt being lifted off the surface.

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Note the green coating on the inside trim…

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…gone

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Finished door card (Speaker grill repaired)

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Then on to the 'hard surfaces', starting with the boot, wiped down with Megs APC (still 10:1) and then finished with Megs NXT Tech Protect. (Sorry, no pics, I was racing to finish)

Door shuts and sills next and lesson #4. Do these before the rest of the interior, as the dirt flicked off them means you have to do the interior again. Megs APC cut 4:1 and agitated with a variety of brushes.

Befores and afters.

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So that's the interior finished, all that remained was for the seats to be put back in, some air freshener to be sprayed liberally around (CG's new car scent) and the windows to be cleaned with AG Fastglass.

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#4 ·
On the exterior I started with the wheels, arches and under-sills. The amount of dirt build up was so great that I just jet-washed the arches to remove all the dried on dirt, and then sprayed with Megs APC (4:1) and scrubbed down, then jet-rinsed again.

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Hmmm, looks like cleaning up the drive is my next job……..

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Next I soaked the lower half of the car and all the cracks and crevices with APC (4:1) and agitated with a paintbrush. The car was jet-rinsed and washed with Megs NXT shampoo. I don't have many pictures of the wash process as the car is parked in an easterly direction and I was washing it at 6am in the morning to get it done before the sun breached the houses opposite and made washing impossible.

I did not adhere to the 'ideal' wash using the 2-bucket method and I wasn't going to let my wash-mitt anywhere near this heap, so it got a good scrubbing using a sponge wrapped in fluffy terry cotton. I figured that this car had so much damage on it a couple more swirls would be infinitely preferable to a buggered up mitt……

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With a clean body I was then in a position to go around and assess the damage. All paint defects were marked with a black pencil. There were loads of stone-chips, a couple of scratches and this:

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To anyone that wonders what damage Birdlime does to your paint - here is the evidence. I originally thought this was dried on bird droppings that would wash off, but soon realised that it was birdlime that has actually burned through the paintwork to the undercoat (SHOCK) so I filled with touch up paint and flatted back.

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All stone chips and severe scratches were treated the same.

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Lesson #5 - Halfrauds touch up paint is not an exact match to the rest of the car. You don't notice it on stone chips, but it does notice on large areas of repair.

Flatted back and ready for polishing.

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The car had visible bonded contamination so I knew that it would have to be clayed. First I had to remove the tar build up from the lower flanks, so for this I used CG's New car body solvent, which worked a dream.

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For claying I used CG's clay with Megs NXT Quick Detailer as a lube. This was just after the front NS wing.

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#5 ·
After this I decided to replace the missing parts on the car (combination of eBay and the local scrap-yard)

With a fully decontaminated and complete body, it was time to start polishing. I used a Cyclo Polisher. But first, paint depth readings:

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After some experimentation I found that Megs #83 on orange compounding pads removed the oxidisation quite well and then to refine the finish I used Megs #80 on white finishing pads. Some of the really badly oxidized paint required an intermediate step, which was #80 on a green light cutting pad. I used Pinnacle XMT pad conditioner as the spritz.

Front NS wing

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Bonnet, some nice reflections of clouds there.

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50/50 on the roof

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Really bad scratch on the bonnet which took a couple of attempts to get out.

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This is a 50/50 of the whole car, one one side a shed…..

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…on the other quite a respectable car, actually.

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For the trim I used Megs trim detailer (which I now hate as the rain washed it all off - CG's Trim detailer on order!)

After paint correction I used CG's Blitz sealant, topped with Megs #16 Carnuba wax, I really love this combo as the blitz gives an awesome sharp reflection, but the Megs adds warmth and depth.

Wheels were also blitz'd and tyres done with Megs Endurance, Glass cleaned with AG Fast Glass and windscreen treated with rain-X, wipers treated with 303 wiper cleaner

Here are some of the finished car.

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And finally the gratuitous reflection shot

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The night that I finished it rained quite heavily, so here are some beading shots for those of you that suffer from Beading fetishes…

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I had this car for 2 weeks; I spent 3 whole days on it and a couple of hours most evenings.

Last lesson - Never volunteer to do stuff when you are drunk…….

Comments, questions and correction to any errors that I have made are, as always, welcome, but any errors that I have made are intentional and for your amusement only.

Jules
 
#7 · (Edited)
I love this kind of detail -- you can have all the nice new cars you want - you can spend a day and they dont look that much different -especially to the untrained eye.

But get an old basket case like this and you can immediatley see the difference - cant wait to see the paintwork when thats complete.

A little tip for the algae on the seals -- P21 Autowash - spray on, agitate with a trim brush and rinse off - will come up like brand new, did just this on my last Astra.

DOH!! -- Should have given you the chance to finish uploadinf the pics!!

Looks absolutly fantastic - your brother in law should be gob smacked when he see's it.
 
#15 ·
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Now that is superb! I was looking at that and as I was scrolling down thinking 'please replace those wheel trims' but you went one better and got a brilliant result. You know the paintwork is dull and lifeless when you can draw on it with a pencil! Amazing turnaround, all that hard work has really paid off. Top job indeed :thumb:

Monthly comp contender for sure!
 
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