So here’s my 91 318is I picked up and have working on for the last two months or so.
After about a month searching for a decent E30, this one popped up on craigslist only 15 miles from me. It's a 91 318is, had some minor front end damage but mechanically mostly sound. Picked it up for $2k after talking the owner down a bit due to the cosmetic problems. A big selling point was it was in Germany till 96, then spent it's whole life until two years ago in the south and desert states. So there is literally NO RUST. Also already has fairly new Bilstein struts and H&R springs aswell as a UUC short shifter. The odometer doesn’t work as per usual buy rears 103,503 miles and from what the owner could tell me it stopped working about 3 years ago (his friend owned the car before him) so an educated guess is around 140K miles.
The bad, the muffler wasn't connected so it was loud, really loud! Had a muffler shop weld on a Dynamax super turbo muffler. After that I could hear that both front wheel bearings were humming. Awesome. Didn't realize how easy they were or I wouldn't have had my buddy's shop put them in. After those minor hiccups it’s been geat.
Here's the day I bought it. Not bad but looking pretty neglected and in need of some love.
My Focus wasn't happy to relinquish it's garage space while the BMW got some work done, lol.
Front bumper fell off and was run over apparently [IMG]file:///C:/Users/Nick/AppData/Local/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]
Interior was decent. Sports seats with very minimal cracking and the rear cover was starting to come off at the sides, dash cracked, the usual.
Over all though, the car was in good condition and I saw alot of potential in with a good detailing and alittle TLC. So here I'll show what I've been up to the last couple months to get it from the picture above, to this:
First up was the interior. Pulled the seats and most of the center console.
Yuck
That's better
Seats cleaned with Meguiars APC and then treated
While cleaning I found a $.50 german coin under the console too.
Next up on the interior was a set of Matt-B shift boots and a Momo shift knob.
The stereo didn't work right at all, didn't turn on all the time. Speakers intermittently worked so I decided to pull the headunit and check the wiring...
Yikes, what a mess.
Rewired according to a wiring diagram found on here and sounds great now. Also while on my stereo I decided to add a bit of bass. Built a fairly basic box loosely based off the Luke box. No pics of it installed but it's a Rockford Fosgate 10" punch sub and amp.
Punched out the ski pass panel
Also relieved to find everything nice and clean under the carpet.
Next up was the exterior. It was pretty tired, faded and dull. Some spots unfortunately were already worn through the paint nearly to primer. Anyways, it's not a show so on with the polishing.
Products are my Griots Garage random orbital and 3M Perfect It compound and polish.
The trunk was particularly water spotted so I opted to wet sand it.
Little progress:
My pad started out a nice tan..lol
Shot of the completed quarter vs un touched door.
Door vs fender
With that done I started on the front end. Thankfully, the PO gave a pair replacement grills to fix it. Unfortunately, the car had euro grills so I had to ditch those. Oh well. I did my best to pull the fender back into place too. Not perfect but much better. The hood unfortunately I can't fix with my very minimal body work experience and was pretty badly faded and had a few rust spots so I'll eventually hunt one down.
I opted to bomb the hood black. Was unsure at first but it's grown on me quite a bit, it hides the damage more too. Don't hate to much, it's not permanent, it needed resprayed anyways. Also did the kidneys aswell.
After a month or so of searching I finally tracked down a front bumper cover for a reasonable price. Doucy on here hooked up it pretty good with some random trim bits aswell.
I decided I wanted to keep this on a budget a bit so after some research on here I found Rustoleum Sunrise red is a very close match to Brilliantrot so I went the rattle can route with a few good coats of clear.
After it dried I wet sanded with 2000 grit and hit it with 3M compound and polish and surprised myself a bit with the results.
Used Dupli-color Trim Black paint on the bumper trim
Not to shabby! Also re-did my valance.
While keeping on a budget (also because my other car had to hit the shop , I needed turn signal lens and didn't want to $30-40 on new or used one. I cut up a cracked Tupperware container and made my own!
Then tinted them so they're less obviously incredibly cheap
Cleaned the turn signal housings
Boom! Again, don't hate. These aren't permanent either.
My fogs were in awful condition. Passenger side was cracked beyond use so I bought one off a user here. Pretty beat as well but I had plans.
Started with this.
Sanded with 80 grit to knock off most of the grit, then 100, then 180 then 250. Then used Dupli-color clean enamel to fill in the scratches. Wet sanded with 800 and cleared again. Repeated this till I had around 4 coats of clear then wet sanded with 800-> 1500 -> 2000 then buffed to another surprising finish.
Here's a good comparison
Figured the clear coat alone wouldn't hold up so I ordered in some Lamin-x
Finished product. Not bad for $30 worth of product and an hour or two of time.
Always liked lightly smoked tails so of course I decided to do mine. Was relieved again to find no rust what so ever on the rear end.
Taped off
Nightshaded
Back on
Wayyyyyy to dark for my liking or to be close to being legal. I don't want to get rear ended. Wetsanded with 2000grit and buffed out to a much better finish.
After about a month searching for a decent E30, this one popped up on craigslist only 15 miles from me. It's a 91 318is, had some minor front end damage but mechanically mostly sound. Picked it up for $2k after talking the owner down a bit due to the cosmetic problems. A big selling point was it was in Germany till 96, then spent it's whole life until two years ago in the south and desert states. So there is literally NO RUST. Also already has fairly new Bilstein struts and H&R springs aswell as a UUC short shifter. The odometer doesn’t work as per usual buy rears 103,503 miles and from what the owner could tell me it stopped working about 3 years ago (his friend owned the car before him) so an educated guess is around 140K miles.
The bad, the muffler wasn't connected so it was loud, really loud! Had a muffler shop weld on a Dynamax super turbo muffler. After that I could hear that both front wheel bearings were humming. Awesome. Didn't realize how easy they were or I wouldn't have had my buddy's shop put them in. After those minor hiccups it’s been geat.
Here's the day I bought it. Not bad but looking pretty neglected and in need of some love.
My Focus wasn't happy to relinquish it's garage space while the BMW got some work done, lol.
Front bumper fell off and was run over apparently [IMG]file:///C:/Users/Nick/AppData/Local/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]
Interior was decent. Sports seats with very minimal cracking and the rear cover was starting to come off at the sides, dash cracked, the usual.
Over all though, the car was in good condition and I saw alot of potential in with a good detailing and alittle TLC. So here I'll show what I've been up to the last couple months to get it from the picture above, to this:
First up was the interior. Pulled the seats and most of the center console.
Yuck
That's better
Seats cleaned with Meguiars APC and then treated
While cleaning I found a $.50 german coin under the console too.
Next up on the interior was a set of Matt-B shift boots and a Momo shift knob.
The stereo didn't work right at all, didn't turn on all the time. Speakers intermittently worked so I decided to pull the headunit and check the wiring...
Yikes, what a mess.
Rewired according to a wiring diagram found on here and sounds great now. Also while on my stereo I decided to add a bit of bass. Built a fairly basic box loosely based off the Luke box. No pics of it installed but it's a Rockford Fosgate 10" punch sub and amp.
Punched out the ski pass panel
Also relieved to find everything nice and clean under the carpet.
Next up was the exterior. It was pretty tired, faded and dull. Some spots unfortunately were already worn through the paint nearly to primer. Anyways, it's not a show so on with the polishing.
Products are my Griots Garage random orbital and 3M Perfect It compound and polish.
The trunk was particularly water spotted so I opted to wet sand it.
Little progress:
My pad started out a nice tan..lol
Shot of the completed quarter vs un touched door.
Door vs fender
With that done I started on the front end. Thankfully, the PO gave a pair replacement grills to fix it. Unfortunately, the car had euro grills so I had to ditch those. Oh well. I did my best to pull the fender back into place too. Not perfect but much better. The hood unfortunately I can't fix with my very minimal body work experience and was pretty badly faded and had a few rust spots so I'll eventually hunt one down.
I opted to bomb the hood black. Was unsure at first but it's grown on me quite a bit, it hides the damage more too. Don't hate to much, it's not permanent, it needed resprayed anyways. Also did the kidneys aswell.
After a month or so of searching I finally tracked down a front bumper cover for a reasonable price. Doucy on here hooked up it pretty good with some random trim bits aswell.
I decided I wanted to keep this on a budget a bit so after some research on here I found Rustoleum Sunrise red is a very close match to Brilliantrot so I went the rattle can route with a few good coats of clear.
After it dried I wet sanded with 2000 grit and hit it with 3M compound and polish and surprised myself a bit with the results.
Used Dupli-color Trim Black paint on the bumper trim
Not to shabby! Also re-did my valance.
While keeping on a budget (also because my other car had to hit the shop , I needed turn signal lens and didn't want to $30-40 on new or used one. I cut up a cracked Tupperware container and made my own!
Then tinted them so they're less obviously incredibly cheap
Cleaned the turn signal housings
Boom! Again, don't hate. These aren't permanent either.
My fogs were in awful condition. Passenger side was cracked beyond use so I bought one off a user here. Pretty beat as well but I had plans.
Started with this.
Sanded with 80 grit to knock off most of the grit, then 100, then 180 then 250. Then used Dupli-color clean enamel to fill in the scratches. Wet sanded with 800 and cleared again. Repeated this till I had around 4 coats of clear then wet sanded with 800-> 1500 -> 2000 then buffed to another surprising finish.
Here's a good comparison
Figured the clear coat alone wouldn't hold up so I ordered in some Lamin-x
Finished product. Not bad for $30 worth of product and an hour or two of time.
Always liked lightly smoked tails so of course I decided to do mine. Was relieved again to find no rust what so ever on the rear end.
Taped off
Nightshaded
Back on
Wayyyyyy to dark for my liking or to be close to being legal. I don't want to get rear ended. Wetsanded with 2000grit and buffed out to a much better finish.
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