e30 M3 minor rust repair.

[Farbin Kaiber]

This thread will be used for decades. I think that a book should be compiled from this.

[AbsorbantNut]

This thread will be used for decades. I think that a book should be compiled from this.

seriously, this would allow people to save so much money and its so helpful its making me feel worthless:crazy:

[xworks]

With the wiring all in, the next thing to do was get the carpet in on top
of it. Despite being 20 odd years old the carpet was in remarkably good
condition. A shampoo and steam clean left it looking as good as new.......



Only one small problem with it, it was grey, I want it black.
So, a gallon of Valeters Pride black carpet dye (e-bay £25)........



an old squirter bottle..........



and a soft-ish nail brush.........



Spray the stuff on the carpet, gently rub it in with nail brush and leave to
dry. Reapply a second coat if needed. It doesn't take a great deal of the
dye to do the job, I only got through about one litre to do it all.

Tried it out on a spare bit of carpet first, just to check it wasn't going
to go arse ways and make a balls of me good carpet. Test went well
so on to the real thing.........







Wasn't sure how the vinyl/plastic bits of the carpet were going to take
to the dye but as it turned out they dyed perfectly black too........



With the carpet all dried out (24 hours for full non-smudge dryness)
it could go back into the car.....







With the carpet in the dash and centre console could also go back in.........



pretty straight forward this, only one little mod to do on the clocks unit......



it didn't seem right having the odo reading 185,000.........



For this next part I'll be forever greatfull to DanThe over on E30zone.net,
about a year ago I received a pm from him to say he had an unused
black non sunroof headcloth for an M3 if I wanted it. Seeing as these are
NLA from the main dealer for years now it wasn't a difficult decision..........





No pictures of the job in progress as it was a complete swine to do.
However the hardship was worth it as it came out nice in the end........





should have the rest of this update up later on this evening.

Till then.........

[dude8383]

This thread will be used for decades. I think that a book should be compiled from this.

Seriously. Pretty please :bow:

[Adrian_Visser]

I just read this whole thread. Started yesterday afternoon. All I can say is

A step by step ground up resto, this needs to be stickied noaw!

[m3manic55]

does it have the new car smell?

[Jean]

Simply awesome! I also noticed your a/c/heater box is different from typical ones used in e30s, it must be the rare non a/c kind :)

[xworks]

Carpets in, next up was the rear parcel shelf. Below you can
see the original parcel shelf complete with the holes cut out
for the speakers the previous owner fitted.......



And if you cast your mind back a bit you might remember
when the bodywork was been finished off I made up some
speaker enclosures and welded them into the rear bulkhead........



now, a smart person probably would have measured the hole's in the parcel
shelf and welded them enclosures in to match up, so the parcel shelf
would be a straight forward refit. However, it would appear I'm not the
brightest star in the sky, as when I went to offer the parcel shelf back
into place the holes were a mile off......



So, the solution. Remove the sound proofing from under
the parcel shelf........



butcher a big hole out of the centre of it and replace with a thin piece of
aluminium...........



check measurements 15 times before cutting holes in the aluminium.......



drill and screw alum down to parcel shelf to hold it tight in place till
the adhesive underneath dry's..........



fit in place to check everything lines up..........







While it all fitted up nice and snug now there was still the small problem
of bare aluminium not being at the cutting edge of custom car interior design.
So, a little material..........



chop, chop......



glue explosion.........



sticky fingers, lost scissors.......



Bingo.......





the M3 having the extended rear windscreen section also has another
little add on section of parcel shelf to fill up the gap so this got covered too......



All done, time to bang it back in and fit the speakers and rear seatbelts,
and this is how it came out...........







more tomorrow.

Till then...............

[Digital K]

fuck off that looks great!

[xworks]

They're not needed right this minute but the bits and pieces that make up the
electric mirror's were at the bottom of the crate I was working out of, so
they went together next..........



wiring fits through rubber mirror seal..........



and then through the base of the mirror............



before the individual wires plug into the motor, the connections on the
motor are marked for the colour of wires that pop into each hole.........



motor gets screwed to the 4 threaded holes on the mirror base...........





and then the little loose run of cable seen below..........



gets secured and hidden by this little plastic cover.............





last thing to do is pop the mirror glass on. As you can see below, on the
rear of the glass theres a circular plastic disc with 4 little cut outs in it (blue arrows).
The disc also has a few notches cut into the bottom of it (red arrow), the disc
can rotate left or right..........



So you line up the 4 holes on the disc with the 4 lugs on the motor
shown below........



and then pop a small flat screw driver in through the hole on the bottom
of the mirror to rotate the disc and lock the mirror glass against the motor........



wish all the reassembly was that handy............



For the next bit of work to commence the car needed to be off the
axle stands and back down on the ground, and for that to happen
some wheels would be required. So I picked up a staggered set of these
kindly provided by probably the M3's most reliable refurbished wheels
supplier, Markus over on S14.net...........







Style 5's in 8x17 and 9x17............

[CorvallisBMW]

Oh fuck yes...

those wheels are perfect

[xworks]

With the car now back on the ground it was time to super glue the side
skirts back on. I don't know who back in the day designed these skirts
for the M3, but who ever it was certainly took their job seriously.
I've seen small bloody aircraft wings that didn't use this many fittings
to secure them. First up was these little green grommets below
p/n 51711932996. Seven of these are needed both sides, giving a total
of 14. As you can see below I bought 18 because, obviously, I can't count..........



and 4 of these little black washers p/n 51711922599.



One black one at either end and seven green ones in the holes in between......





Then there's the little white dudes that are going to pop into the green grommets.
P/n 51711936517, 7 of these for each side............



these pop onto the top inside lip of the skirts, shown below.........







and then theres 4 of these that also go on the skirts, one at each end.
(I'm starting to think one of the previous owners of this car must have
been a f*ckin mermaid who lived at the bottom of the sea).............



anywho p/n 51711933719..........



these slide into the little slots each end of the skirt..........





and when the skirts are offered up to the car the white clips click into
the green grommets and the steel clips are secured at either ends by 4
little plastic nuts.......



nuts are filled with a little grease in the naive thought that this might prevent
them being such a b*stard to remove in the future..........





each skirt gets 3 little push pegs to secure it as well
(obviously to bring them up to full hurricane proof specification)



two at the rear of each skirt..........



and 1 above the rear jacking point.............



and finally 5 of these little plastic clamps (51711933125) are fitted to
the bottom lip of each skirt to secure it........



bit of grease on the face of these should stop them trapping
dirt and then dampness up against the bodywork which will
eventually lead to rust.........



I bought some stainless screws for attaching these instead of the factory
screws as I had immense hardship removing the rusted old ones.......



Screws screw in from the front of the skirt into the plastic clamp,
clamping the bottom of the skirt to the bottom sill.



and the end result? a pair of skirts which are well enough secured to
survive a direct nuclear strike..............



Should have the final episode of this update up tomorrow, the
glass fitting, and some pictures of the rear end which almost
looks like a complete car again, if you squint through one eye,
and catch it at the right angle, a little, kinda.

Till then...............

[xworks]

And eventually we arrive at the final episode of this update. Glass.
The original front windscreen at 20 odd years old, looked like it had been
shot at close range with a blunderbus elephant gun. Every square inch was
covered in little chips. So it's being replaced with a new one. The windscreen
is aftermarket and is made by a crowd called Pilkington. Which means its a lot
cheaper than from Bmw and also as good a quality. There seems to be a few choices
of tint levels and I went with the green with dark green sun strip at the top as
this was identical to what was removed...........







No pictures of during the task i'm afraid, but the one little thing to
be careful of though is that the little drain holes at the bottom of the
windscreen surround don't get blocked up with the sealant/adhesive gue.

With the front one in, it was on to the rear screen which is slightly more involved.
Theres two trim strips that fit around the rear screen and I was sure that these
could be fitted after the screen was in, however, as usual I was wrong........



on the back side of the trim strips theres a load of little slots........



and this is the reason why. 18 of these little plastic clips below are fitted
to the outside edge of the screen (p/n 51318177850 sold in pack of 20).
They've a little sticky pad on them to bond to the screen.......





The only catch is they've to be stuck in exactly the right place to match
up with the slots in the trim peices. I was a bit lucky in this regard, as
this is the original windscreen that was cut out intact and is good to go
back in again. The old clips broke to pieces upon removal but there was
still marks on the screen where they were fitted, so the new ones just had to
go back on to the same place............





With the clips on, the 2 trim pieces could be snapped down onto them
and with a fat bead of adhesive on the rear of the screen it was thrown into
place.........



nearly forgot, theres two other little plastic pegs that sit at the bottom
between the glass and the bodywork. They're hexagonal in shape and you
can twist them with a flat screwdriver while the adhesive is still wet to
3 different heights to help set the windscreen trim gaps right with the
surrounding bodywork.........





Screens in, it was on to the rear side glass........



glass sits into its rubber..........





and then the shadow trim needs to be fitted to the outside of the rubber.......



on the inside of the trim theres a raised edge..........



and this edge needs to sit into this groove in the rubber...............



to lessen the chances of a hammer being taken to the glass during this job
out of rage, we use some lubricant, in the form of some washing up liquid
watered down a little bit.........



Once your not stingey with the washing up liquid its usually fairly simple
to massage the rubber enough to get the trim to slot down into its groove.......



last bit to go on is this little strip of rubber which slides up on the front
edge of the trim.............

[xworks]

to look like so.........



and then on to the small matter of battering the window into place.
Both "B" and "C" pillar trims need to be in place inside first..........



and then the rubber needs to be lubed up (no matter what way you
type that it still ends up sounding like a ropey porn film).............







and then we need a length of electrical able, nice and skinny, a single
strand of speaker cable usually does the job..........



wrap the cable around the rubber so that it sits into the groove that was
just soaped up.........



and then finally plaster the metal edge in the window frame that the rubber
sits over with plenty of soap as well............



The next bit is a two man job, it can help if your assistant is smaller than
you and has a peaceful nature, that way you can bollock him if the job
starts to go wrong without fear of having your nose broken.
The window is held tightly up against the frame making sure that the 2
threaded bolts (arrowed below) have entered their holes on the "B" pillar........



and if your assistant has held the window in just tight enough so that the
rubber is a little squashed against the frame, when you start to pull the speaker
cable through from inside the car, it'll pop the rubber lip over the frame rail in
the process.............



and voilla, the windows fitted. Screw up the 2 nuts on to the frame bolts
that went into the holes on the "B" pillar and thats it. Make sure to thank
your assistant before blaming him for any scratches on the outside bodywork
that you made months ago..............



With the window in, the external "C" pillar trim can now go on........



First up you gotta attach the shadow trim piece to the painted piece
with the aid of these 5 little thingamajigs..........



they just pop into the 5 little holes on the painted piece...........



and then the centre peg is bashed down to spread the underneath piece
so that they don't fall off again while your doing 100 on the motorway.......



with these in place the shadow trim piece just snaps down onto them.
Then you need 6 of these little dudes (3 for each side of the car)
p/n 51131870459.........



which fit into the "C" pillar (red arrows) and another little pair of grommets
(one for each side) to go in at the blue arrow..........




On the back of the trim piece there's 4 little dowels which pop in to
the grommets above, to hold the trim on to the car. The dowels are
fragile and the grommets are tight so you've gotta be real gentle fitting
them.............





With all the rear glass in, the rear bootlid could go back on and the rear
bumper. Which leaves the car currently looking like this...............











And thats about all for now. She's starting to come back together
now, and the pace is getting a little quicker as the finishing post is
in sight (lets face it, it couldn't go any slower). The interior is due back from
retrim in the next week or so and then the doors can be rebuilt and refitted.
So it shouldn't be as long till the next update.
Maybe.

Till then...............

[Beach Bum]

Oh... My... God... This is my dream.