My "new" E30 M3

[tyleRcoey]

Tinted the windshield!? I love your color combo by the way.

[RobertB]

GANDA NYA PARE... pag visit namin ng PI, I'll stop by sa shop. Congrats!

[w201cosworth]

Ang linis brad ng M3 mo. Saan sa makati ang shop mo?

[thealbert]

Disaster zone! Don't ask how cause I honestly don't know what happened but it is what it is. Sigh... Sadly, it's going to be a difficult hunt to look for a suitable replacement as the original leather is no longer available. Ebay hasn't proved to be very successful either. Might just go with a complete reupholster.



Which makes sense since the front seats are showing some signs of wear as well.

[thealbert]

Ang linis brad ng M3 mo. Saan sa makati ang shop mo?

Thanks! We're located on Chino Roces Ave.

[thealbert]

Some updates of the M3.

Took the car to the shop to have it checked out and start working on restoring the car to tip top shape.

First up at the shop was a engine check. We plugged it into our computer and did the usual compression tests, etc. So far we got a good clean bill of health. Though despite the E30's ECU being fairly "primitive" compared to the newer BMWs out there, we were able to at least check to make sure there's nothing catastrophically wrong with the engine and all major components were working under normal parameters. Though we'll be doing some update/upgrade work on the engine soon, but first up is a good check on the car's body.



So next up was a good check up of the car's body. I wanted to make sure there wasn't any rust in the car, something we all know E30s love to do, so we made sure to start off with taking out the carpet. Something I couldn't do when I was doing the visual checks on the car at time of purchase.

Deconstruction of the interior.





In order to get the carpet out, the aircon unit has to be removed. Therefore, the dashboard had to come out too.

One removed dashboard.



I felt really bad when the dashboard was removed. The adhesive on the sides of the dashboard peeled off while the dashboard was being removed. It looks that this dashboard has never been taken out before. At this point, I was having second thoughts on the strip down and whether or not the search for rust was worth it.

But we found some rust near the wiper hole. It's little but as the saying goes, if you see rust on the outside, there's always more on the inside. Plus if there was any rust on the inside, it would be best to catch it early before it starts to get worst.



Interior stripped. Luckily not rust to be found anywhere on the floor of the car. So far so good.





However, upon further inspection, we found some rust on the firewall, all the way up to the A pillar on the driver's side. This is a VERY common area for rust to start on the E30. It's always best to check this area on your E30 every now and then. The car was sitting indoors for a whole day yet the inside of this area is still wet. Rust trap!





I don't feel so bad about pulling apart the dashboard anymore. Much of the rust wouldn't have been seen unless we did the pull down.

We also found some rust on the engine bay as well after removing the windshield washer tank.



I plan to bring the car over to a paint shop to have the rust taken cared of but in the meantime, our immediate solution to stop the rust in its tracks right away is to apply some Rust Bullet.



This stuff is good stuff. I know of boats that use this stuff. I thought this would be a great chance to give it a try. A friend of mine used the same product on his E30 rust spots with great results.

The Rust Bullet comes in a can and needs to be stirred up before applying.





Application is as simple as "painting" it onto the rust areas of the car after giving the area you want to great a good clean to remove any loose rust.





Rust Bullet applied.



Rust Bullet applied on the inner portion of the wiper hole.



Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of the Rust Bullet on the firewall area anymore. Though rest assured, Rust Bullet was applied all over that area.

You'll need to have the Rust Bullet cleaned up and painted over after applying. But if you don't care for looks, this is a one step application that is supposed to treat the current rust and protect it.

That's it for now. More to come soon. Stay tuned. :)

[Thizzelle]

how is the upolstry wearing if it only has 22k miles? guy must have just sat in the car alot without driving it

[thealbert]

how is the upolstry wearing if it only has 22k miles? guy must have just sat in the car alot without driving it

It's actually not too bad.. I'm just very meticulous. :p

[MattAvino]

how is the upolstry wearing if it only has 22k miles? guy must have just sat in the car alot without driving it

Sittin in the sun/cold/humidity/other climate conditions can take its toll on leather.

[e30s50dan]

Looking good.clean M3. Enjoy her

[J.Rizo]

pretttty fuckin awesome. i like how you wanna keep it stock. thats the way to go man. have fun!

[obes]

Wow!

[thealbert]

Updates on the M3. We continue the work on addressing and restoring the body of the car.

Despite the car looking very nice overall from afar, some parts of the paintwork are in perfect shape, but when you get up close and personal to the body, sadly some areas have been burned and faded (mostly on the rear fender sections). It's unfortunate as this was most likely due to aggressive buffing when waxing the car, caused by the constant use of an electric buffer/polisher being applied too aggressively on the body of the car. I have a feeling that the car was taken cared of a little too "enthusiastically" by the previous owners. haha Sadly this "burned" paint damage was too severe and couldn't be repaired properly anymore unless we did a proper respray of the car's body.

That being said, we figured we might as well hit two birds with one stone and have a wash over done on the car. First objective would be to address the burned paint areas and second would be to clean up the applied Rust Bullet as well as take care of other rust spots on the car that we may have missed.

Dropped off the car at Alex Restoration for paint work. They're in our opinion the best paint and body shop in town. Owner Alex Isip's attention to detail, craftsmanship, expertise and service is really top notch.

Arrival at the Alex Restoration.



Despite the fact that the car's full of faded/burned spots, it still looks good from afar! Thanks to a good Sonax wax treatment that was done on the car before being dropped off at Alex's.



The deconstruction at the paint shop has begun!

Removed all the major panels for prep work. The body's also already sanded down and prepped for priming. Overall the body looks very good, no major issues, no signs of any accidents and straight as an arrow. :)









More to come soon! :)

[JCarp90]

Oh. My. God.

[Cronopoulos]

I thought the paint looked fine! YOLO