Transforming This Ford Mondeo ST200 (PART 2)
After hearing the news that Ford will be ceasing production of the Mondeo in March 2022, working on this barn-find has never felt more special. Here’s p art TWO of our Ford Mondeo Barn Find Detail.
In our last blog we thoroughly covered the cleaning steps on this Ford Mondeo ST200 prior to taking it into our bay for a decontamination, polish & wax. You can read up on these first steps here:
As with any detail, preparation is key. We began by removing any potential obstacles such as windscreen washers from the bonnet, then further obscuring plastic & rubber trims with tape. By taking this step, you are saving yourself potential headaches down the line, ultimately making the process a breeze. However, before we could crack on with the fun stuff (polishing), we had to thoroughly decontaminate the paintwork. Prior to having it in our detailing bay, we washed it outside and used our alkaline snow foam, Snow Foam Combo 2 . Being alkaline, this broke down and removed most tar and general contamination from the surface; however, despite its cleaning power, nothing gets deeper than a Heavy Contamination Removal Bar aided by Clay Rider, a lubricant which allows the clay bar to glide thus reducing the risk of marring.
Once we completed decontamination, our first victim to polish was the bonnet. Sadly, areas on the lower part were beyond saving as something in its lifetime had stripped most of the paint back (we believe brake fluid), exposing areas of primer and bubbling a lot of the surface. Even wet sanding in this instance would not suffice nor have been an appropriate attempt due to the lack of depth to the paint; so, we set about trialing various combinations of pad & compound to see what would give the best results safely. For this Mondeo ST200’s paintwork, we found the combination of Advanced Compound with our Maximum Cut Polishing Pad worked wonders for the first couple of passes, however it left some minor defects – something this harsher combination could not refine. To rectify those, we brought in our Medium-Heavy Polishing Pad. Having divided the bonnet into two for the purpose of demonstration, you can see the results we achieved.
Elliott set about with this same pad combination throughout the remainder of the car, concluding the polish work in around 8 hours. With a few hours left, the attention turned to protecting our hard work with some Mad Wax – our montan based paste wax, excellent for durability. Trims were untaped and those prior obstacles were reinstalled, leaving us with a few finishing touches to complete: Glass & Tyre shine. Being a future classic, we opted for Classic Tyre Dressing to keep those tyres looking ‘OEM+’, then of course our Glass Cleaner to give the glass a near-invisible appearance – something that’s very satisfying on a low mileage example with no chips or scratches to the screen (it’s only done 29,000 miles!).
There’s no better way at admiring your work than rolling it out into the sun. Whilst it was by no means perfect, it’s a light-year better than the state we found it in… This is just the start of a new life for the Mondeo.
Fancy a full image story recap on this process? Head over to our Instagram Highlights and look for ‘Mondeo ST200’!
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17884443877962827/
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