New guy with old car restoration questions

[robcpalmer]

I am super brand new to restoring an e30. I recently inherited my sons 1990 e30. He had bought it from someone that had the car in storage for years. It's got some seriously low miles, but some questionable rust spots. I removed the the front fender trying to find the water route for some rust behind the dead pedal and discovered what think must be fiberglass. My question is - is it fiberglass and it is in fact how the cars were built. Or, did someone do a repair years ago that is cracking and falling apart. Lastly, any suggestion on how to repair? Many thanks!

[Panici]

I would not expect fiberglass.
There would typically be seam sealer in the joint between the fender and the engine bay.

Hard to make out in the pictures, but probably an old rust repair. Those bottom corners/jack points are typical areas of corrosion.

[robcpalmer]

Thanks for the response. My plan is to repaint this thing eventually, so I am going to remove all this fiberglass stuff - bad idea?

[packratbimmer]

As Panici stated, it is seam sealer

[robcpalmer]

Here are some tighter shots. Does the seam sealer have strands of fiber? I've circled a crack above, that is about an inch away from the windshield. I'm assuming removing it is ok? I just need to re-seal?

[roguetoaster]

It's probably fiber reinforced filler, meaning old damage of an unusual sort since that area doesn't typically get bent or too rusty. Maybe a tree fell on it or something, hopefully it didn't get a chassis leg repaired on the cheap.

First step is to remove the filler, bur be prepared for anything from an easy sand/fill/paint to the car is a hidden write off.

[robcpalmer]

Awesome, this totally tracks. I appreciate it.

[packratbimmer]

That's a better pic. I've never seen any original E30 have any material like that in it. If it looks somewhat stable (the former repair work), you might buy some time by priming with a good primer such as PPG epoxy and then seam sealing it. Chopping all of that out and welding in new metal would be quite a lot of work.