More Progress - Body Shop Trip

[CorvallisBMW]

That, boys and girls, is how you do rust repair. Excellent work! :up:

[3ics]

Wow - nice work... How much did the work run you?

[8380 Labs]

i got a fair deal for the work that was completed, not cheap but not super expensive. they did an excellent job and turned it around in a week, i'm totally happy with the whole thing.

[F34R]

Mmmm, I love the color carpet for in interior.

[Mazi!]

Very nice work!

[8380 Labs]

there's a bmw meet at convention center saturday usually. i forget what time but i'll prob see everyone cruisin around anyway.

there should be a fairly large group of e30s, 2-3 of my friends will have theirs with them that weekend. we did a little shoot at the race track after the show last year, if there's a good turnout maybe we could replicate it.

[8380 Labs]

RS Rebuild Update

Since I got the car into a more assembled and complete state, I've finally had some time to focus on getting the wheels done. Over the last few weeks I've sandblasted all the centers down to bare metal in preparation for powder coat. Last Friday, with the help of a few friends, we got all 4 waffles and 2 centers done. I brought them home and was excited to get crackin on them Saturday morning. I tried my best to document things well, but I was only partly successful in that regard.

Before beginning reassembly, I did a bunch of research online, and stumbled onto this tutorial, which was awesome. Anything I don't show here and then some can be seen in the tutorial. I started with a recently polished lip, a freshly powder coated center and waffle and an untouched but clean barrel.







You can see the residue of the old silicone in the close up shots. The first step was to remove all this, so I used some Goo Gone, a razor and some sandpaper. This is the only shot I have of the mounting surfaces all cleaned up and ready to go. This was right before I began applying the new silicone.



I ran two thin beads of silicone around the mating surface on the back of the face, seated it on the barrel, then did the same thing for the front side of the face before affixing the lip. After that I inserted the bolts, applied a small dab of Loc-Tite to each nut and torqued each down in a star pattern. No good pics of this either, I was too busy workin!

I quickly came to realize I used too much silicone. As i torqued the bolts down a fairly large amount was being squeezed out. This was not a big deal on the back, but on the front it got everywhere and was a pain to clean up...about 2 hours worth. I should also mention that once everything was torqued down I ran a thick bead of silicone around the outer edge of the wheel where the mating surfaces meet.



This is post clean-up, pre-polish.



Here it is fully cleaned up and polished, pretty pleased how it turned out. Powder was Eastwood Argent Silver.





All that is left is to put a final polish on the two front lips and powdercoat the 2 remaining centers.

[8380 Labs]

RS Update 2

I spent yesterday's lunch break getting the two front barrels sorted out. These were the same pair i ran last year, which were gold. I wanted everything to be uniform and clean since I had them apart, so I took some time to repaint the inners. I had previously sand-blasted the barrels (the parts you could see with the tires mounted) just to get any road debris and grime off so I had a nice surface to paint on.



I got the old wheel weights off and went over both wheels with some 320 grit prior to giving them a good cleaning. Here's a shot of the paints I used. The Krylon semi-flat was for touching up the bolts and center caps, which isn't pictured here. I stand by this paint as the greatest trim/all-purpose paint of all time. It's been discontinued for a year or more, which is why I have a case tucked away in my basement. Goes on really nicely, great matte shine, it's money.



First came the primer.



Then came the base coat of Duplicolor metallic silver.



Then the clear.



All in all I was happy with the results. My goal was to get everything to match, but since the wheels will be driven on and get dirty from time to time having totally perfect barrels wasn't a high priority. Here's a shot of the refinished front barrel next to an original silver rear, which cleaned up well enough to avoid refinishing.



Last night I hit the two front lips with some rouge on a buffing wheel to get them up to the same shine as the rears. I also got all the old sealant cleaned up on all the remaining wheels to prep for final assembly. Everything is powdercoated now, so my goal is to have everything put together on Sunday. Tires will go on Tuesday.

[tg318is]

wow great work! that interior is amazing

[M-technik-3]

Wow - nice work... How much did the work run you?

i got a fair deal for the work that was completed, not cheap but not super expensive. they did an excellent job and turned it around in a week, i'm totally happy with the whole thing.

Why not just say "I'd rather not say how much I paid" than a run around of an answer?

The work came out good,now the next question would you recommend them to your local chapter guys.

What's next?

[8380 Labs]

thanks for the suggestions, coach. i figured the lack of a dollar amount made it clear i wasn't gonna give a number.

i don't have a chapter, but i would absolutely recommend them.

what's next is getting the wheels finished, tires mounted and putting them back on the car. also gonna throw some paint at the iS rear spoiler i've got here. that's pretty much it until i garage it for the winter.

[M42Technik]

Love the attention to detail! Where did you go? I know you're local, and I'll be needing some work done soon...

[8380 Labs]

i went to performance collision in catonsville, right off exit 14 on 695.

thanks for the kind words. ;)

[constructor]

Nice work going on here.

[sandlock]

i got served :-/