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Refined Detail - '73 Porsche 911 2.7 RS Carrera Lightweight

24K views 65 replies 58 participants last post by  Refined Detail 
#1 ·
:wave:

Firstly, a belated Happy New Year to everybody :thumb:

As I'm sure a few of you reading this will be aware from my recent postings on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I have had the immense pleasure of working on this incredibly rare 1973 Porsche 911 2.7 Carrera RS Lightweight. This is not a replica, but a genuine 1 of 17 RHD examples (of 200 Lightweights ever made) with an extensive racing background / history!

So with me being rather quiet on here of late, it seems like the perfect car to post as my first write up of 2013! :thumb:

The car was delivered to me in an already very presentable condition - from a few yards back it already looked immaculate, but with the owner considering restoration work, I was commissioned to thoroughly detail the car to establish how much restoration work was really required. I was also to tread carefully around any 'battle scars' that hinted to it's racing past in order to keep the car's authenticity and 'life story'.

I will skip most of the initial wash & decontamination stages as it's something we're all too familiar with...

Obligatory snow foam shot - Auto Finesse Avalanche:





Wheels and arches were to be addressed more thoroughly during the course of the detail but were provisionally cleaned none the less with Bilt Hamber Surfex. Engine bay was also deep cleaned with Surfex & G101.

Paintwork washed via 2 bucket method and lambswool mitt with Autosmart Concentrated Car Wash to begin degrading any existing LSP's. Tar spots removed with Autosmart Tardis and paintwork clayed with Bilt Hamber medium grade clay (very little removed)

Re-rinsed and bought inside before being towel dried and panel gaps / crevices blown dry with warm air. Time to get it under lighting and assess what I'm up against:

With the car having been extensively raced previously, it's seen more than it's fair share of paintwork, having also received a colour change too - some areas of paint were immediately going to need to be given extra care and weren't going to correct particularly well (especially given sporadic paint readings in some areas):







With this in mind, I settled for the bulk of correction work to be carried out via DA polisher with a microfibre cutting pad and the Meguiars DA system compound. This kept temperatures down, yielding great results but with minimal clearcoat removal.





The corrected paint became a much more vibrant white leaving the uncorrected paintwork looking somewhat grey in comparison:







Brilliant levels of gloss starting to come through too even before refinement - the DA system leaving minimal hologramming:



Even the tight areas were machine polished with smaller pads:

















Note the deeper RDS on the wing - numerous marks around the car like this that appear to be wet sanding / flatting marks inflicted during respray work - far too deep to even begin to touch as a couple of test areas demonstrated (numerous hits barely touching them)





Porsche badge removed from bonnet to ensure I was able to polish the whole bonnet:



cleaned with IPA and later machined:



Grille removed from boot lid to allow me to get tighter to the recess around it without the risk of catching it with the polisher (and to allow me to clean the grille properly later):



The infamous duck tail machine polished:



This heated up very quickly and had some pretty hefty RDS so is far from perfect, but much better nonetheless:



A blend line along the leading edge of the bonnet from a previous blow in. This will definitely be seeing paint to rectify it as it was not easily correctable:



Some areas that didn't respond too well to the DA combo were machined with a spot pad via the rotary with Scholl S17+







Another blend line this one I was able to correct a lot better:





Staining from the exhaust was too tight to access with a machine polisher so was polished by hand with Scholl S17+





Then everything refined with 3M Ultrafina via the rotary (larger panels again with a full size pad!)



De-masked:



Then given a CarPro Eraser wipedown to ensure all correction was genuine:







Grille cleaned with Auto Finesse Citrus Power and refitted:



At about this point the snow hit. With a manic diary for the next couple of months I was glad of the winter tyres on the van which allowed me to still get to the unit and crack on!



Car jacked up with specific jack pad adapter:



and supported with axle stands at suitable jacking points as per a diagram I found on an owners forum:



Wheels before:



cleaned with Meguiars Wheel Brightener as Smart Wheels wasn't up to the job. Then decontaminated with CarPro Iron X:



Old wheel weight residues soaked with Autosmart Tardis to aid removal:



Polished by hand with Scholl S17+, then Auto Finesse Rejuvenate and sealed with Auto Finesse Mint Rims:





Arches deep cleaned and at the owners request, removed as much underseal as possible - the yellowing underseal wasn't shifting with anything!



(note the colour change of the shock absorber!)











Also fished this out from the bottom end of the engine whilst the wheels were off!



Wheels refitted. Tyres dressed with Auto Finesse Satin Tyre Gel:



Paintwork cleansed with Auto Finesse Tripple:



Sealed with 3 coats of Auto Finesse Tough Coat:



and given a Auto Finesse Finale wipedown:



Tailpipe polished with Auto Finesse Mercury:







Windows deep cleaned and sealed with Werkstatt Prime Strong:



along with chrome trim / brightwork.

Polish residue removed from fixtures & fittings (largely caked on compound which was present on the car upon delivery and didn't shift with normal cleaning)











Little hard to reach areas tidied up with Auto Finesse Rejuvenate on a cotton bud:







Interior was pretty spotless to begin with but was thoroughly vacuumed, deep cleaned with Meguiars APC and wiped down with Auto Finesse Spritz:



Spare wheel well cleaned:



and spare wheel cleaned & sealed:





I'm unsure of the exact amount of time spent on this one tbh as it was a labour of love in the end! But with a rough calculation I estimate around 40 hours was spent in total on this awesome machine. Cue plenty of after shots! :eek:



















Engine bay finished with Autosmart Finish, Tango and a sample of Kleers metal polish I picked up at Autosport 2013





































and parked up next to my M3 showing just how small it is!



If you've made it this far, well done! :lol:

Thank you for reading.

Rich @ Refined Detail
 
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#5 ·
Fantastic write up my man. Was a pleasure to see the work in progress on instagram but was nice to see the finished shots. Hell of a lot of work gone in to the Porsche and the final shots show off your hard work.
Cracking shine from white and the car looks super clean especially those nooks and crannies you paid attention to.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk 2
 
#26 ·
Thanks for all taking the time to read it and comment guys, much appreciated :thumb:



It's a combination I've used for quite a while now without any issue (several of the cars I maintain regularly so get to see how long LSP's last for) - I'd imagine the solvents in Tough Coat help it to bond without any issues - I find it'll sit quite happily over most things tbh.

Love it Richard and your attention to detail is at almost OCDish levels :)

I especially liked the fact you took the care to look up the jacking points on a forum.

Did you check the date on the crisp packet to work out how long it had been there?
Cheers Chris! :) The underside of these classic Porsches have next to no suitable points so felt it a better idea to be safe rather than sorry!

Have to admit I completely forgot to look at the date on the crisp packet :lol:

Superb result......been looking forward to seeing the outcome of this since seeing it on Twitter...worth the wait ;-)
Cheers chap :)

Very, very nice :cool:

Although I think you should've left the blue tape on as it really suited the car lol
Ha, I did think that myself at one point!!

Really enjoyed this write up Rich, great pictures and goes without saying that the work is incredible!

Jon
Thanks John, much appreciated :thumb:

Utterly fantastic Rich, I can only imagine the pleasure of working on such a rare work of art. You must feel very privileged.
Level of workmanship is superb too mate :thumb:
Cheers Dave, certainly been an enjoyable detail that's for sure! I do love getting stuck into a rare beast :D
 
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