1991 318is Restoration Project...Now with some Air!

[johnwoo]

wow simply amazing. paint came out great.

[Simon S]

HOLY SHIT !!

THE CAR IS ONE COLOR !!

Hella, big, mad, super props man. Wow!
You're really taking this car a long, LONG way from when you first got it.
I'm proud of you.

[Tuee]

So a little update,

Decided to tackle the license plate lights,
After and Before,




Cleaned and installed the door mouldings,


Driver side door handles cleaned,
Before,

During,

After,

Still gotta do something about that key lock.

Front end bolts and nuts,
Before,

Alittle of this,

And during,

It's still in the bath so I'll take pics after.

Did the two trunk light mod, still hanging as I needed a connector,


Painted the bumper mounts,

Don't want to see anymore rust, so it was all greased up,



Went to the dealer today to get some bolts and nuts....

I was like wtf, $215 for some bolts and nuts, so I said fuk it and went to Brofasco.

Bumper Bolts and nuts,


Rebar mounted, I know its all chopped up but will do for now,

Bumper on

Valence on



Bumper gaurds on,





Side markers, had these cool led's lying around,





Will start tackeling the front tommorow.

[kingston]

Ah, man that's looking GREAT!

[Tuee]

Dude - bravo on the shift knob !!

Thanks man, well the cars back in my hands :-D,

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff121/tuee06/?action=view&current=DSC06694.jpg

Had to throw in the lights for this one,

[Simon S]

Dude - bravo on the shift knob !!

[Tuee]

Dropped by the body shop the other day, part of the hood edge was cut out and rewelded, bunch of dents and dings were fixed that I missed. So far I'm happy with what he's doing, car should have its jams and underside painted. I should get the car back sometime later next week.

Off it went,

[Tuee]

nice. did you ever come up with a solution to the valence? just curious if you were able to solve that

Hey, I haven't thought of anything yet. My guess is that they used the outside shape of the original to create the mold, thus making the replica piece slightly larger than the original. I don't think there's any fix, I will see when things come back if I can tighten the screw on the side to see if it pulls it in.

[johnwoo]

nice. did you ever come up with a solution to the valence? just curious if you were able to solve that

[Tuee]

Finally the car is off to paint soon, either tomorrow or the 25th. Trying to get the car done in time for the bimmerfest in august.

Car is stripped and each part will be painted individually off the car.






Everything stashed inside the car,

[blalor]

nicely done!

[Tuee]

Small update,
I've always wanted one of those illuminated shift knobs but didn't want to fork out the $100 or so for one. So the plan was to make one, I think I saw a write up for one as well some where. But here's how i did mine.

Here's the knob in question, I was quite nervous cause this was a brand new knob that I ordered from BimmerBum.


Popped the top off with my fingernails, pretty much a weak adhesive,


Removed the adhesive pad from the cap,


Here's what I used to scratch out the letters/numbers,


DO NOT SCRATCH OUT THE M like I did, the reason is that the led will be directly below the ///M, and it will show up as a hot spot. The paint on the cap is very thin, enough for the light to shine through.


Next was to put a hold through the knob for the wiring, I used a drill for this,



I taped the whole knob off, just to be safe.

Next you need to carve out the space in the knob, ideally you want this to be the width to be the distance from the R to the 5, and the height to be from the top of the R, 1, 3, 5 and to the bottom of 2 and 4.


The tool that I used was a dremel,



Next up the led, I ordered like a 100 for 4 bucks (although the seller only sent 50),
I had some old resisters lying around so I gave it a shot,


Heat shrunk,


Now this step is important if you want to avoid any hot spots,
I used the dremel and just flattened the top of the led,


I forgot to take a pic of the led in the knob, but try to keep the led as far away from the top, so the lower it is in the knob the better at avoiding hot spots.

I also ended up painting a very thin layer over the M,


End result,


I have this out of the car for now, as the cars going to paint. The plan is to wire it to the light associated with the cigarette lighter. Hope this helps someone.

[johnwoo]

thanks helps alot

[Tuee]

Not to much has happened recently, just shopping around for paint so car should be getting paint soon. Some goodies came in recently,

steering wheel was missing the badge,


new e-brake boot,


new knob and boot,

[Tuee]

awesome thread do you have close ups of the sides on the front between the bumper and the valence. i want to see if the valence flairs out and the gap

Hope these help,





The flair is pretty bad, I'm not sure at this point what I'm gonna do. I might just leave it or try to fix it later with some sort of adjusting nut/bolt on the back.