88-91 Rear on my 87 325iS LOOK!

[ping65810]

I'll take some pics of it in progress tomorrow. I filled and sanded with Mar-glass, but its far from finished. It is coming along pretty good, and the most time consuming part is just smoothing out where the panels meet.

To all the haters, what do you think the big bad body shop guy would do to replace the rear section?? Thats right, weld in a new section. I worked on my engine mounts for the m30 today, I needed to take a little break from the rear section.

[Sean]

I'll take some pics of it in progress tomorrow. I filled and sanded with Mar-glass, but its far from finished. It is coming along pretty good, and the most time consuming part is just smoothing out where the panels meet.

To all the haters, what do you think the big bad body shop guy would do to replace the rear section?? Thats right, weld in a new section. I worked on my engine mounts for the m30 today, I needed to take a little break from the rear section.

Totally understand.

But...that slant...is bad. I wanna see how it's comin along! :D

[mattdk318i]

Im not a "hater" i genuinely want to see how it came out. I have to do this exact surgery soon

[ping65810]

Im not a "hater" i genuinely want to see how it came out. I have to do this exact surgery soon

That sucks, but with a litte work antything is possible. I pretty much got the jams and latch lined up near perfect, since I can fill and do anything to the body, but in the jams is a little trickier. One thing tho, with the passenger jam perfectly lined up, the drivers side jam did not meet up perfect, acutally about 1/4 inch away! So I ended up welding a bead to make the jam right, then used fiberglass filler to square it out. I found it odd that thyey didnt line up perfect, but I am guessing that when the factory chaged the wheel wells and bumpers, they must have changed the dimensions of the width ever so slightly. Not a big problem, but one that I def took not of. I promise new pics tomorrow. The trunk was partially open in the pics, too, so it made the slant look much worse, and I would like to shim the trunk hinges, to align everything a little better. But, the trunk lid has always been a little off, nothing bad, just not typical BMW.

[ping65810]

Here are a few pics, again, not completly done yet. I still need to work on the contour of the line on the passenger side, sinc eits def still off. This was just 1st sanding with fiberglass filler.

[Mike325]

Looks a lot better now. How far are you from Framingham?

[ping65810]

I am about 30-40 mins North of Boston

[Garageaholic]

I am very impressed... I have an M30 in my car too. We should have a meet one weekend in the NE somewhere

[MikeE30325i]

great job. looking great.

[ping65810]

Its getting there, I have had to work on the Jeep a little bit lately, mostly getting the hardtop repainted for winter, so I haven't done any work on the rear end for a while.
It really isn't too awfully hard to do, mostly just doing the best you can welding, and then fiberglass and filling the rest to make the contours perfect. Also, the newer rear end is slightly wider than the early one, by maybe 1/8 inch or so, and I corrected that by putting a weld bead in the jam, and than smoothing it with fiberglass filler to bring the jams even.
I'll be working on it again soon, but first I gotta work on getting the m30 in, but its almost there, too.