Absorbantnut's '87 325is

[AbsorbantNut]

Haha, thanks man. Now I need to do the front main seal since I seem to be leaking a lot of oil there, find some shorter springs for the rear, do the water pump, CSB, and then bewst it?

[zshopa]

nothing but respect!

[AbsorbantNut]

It's been painted for a few weeks now, but since I no longer have a working computer I can't post any of the pictures :(

[Marcos]

Carry on young man, carry on

[AbsorbantNut]

Decided to make the headliner black, and boy am I happy that I did;)

[AbsorbantNut]

And now I'm trying to take the ellips apart to smoke them

Got one lense off! Using just a hair dryer, in no rush and I'm not so keen on tossing car parts in the oven

[RoadWarrior]

Wooot!

[AbsorbantNut]

Shot of everything






Stored away for the night






Then came the best part so far. The final primer, or just about, I have a few spots I need to touch up. After everything was taped off the work began!


Carlos came over and helped spray the whole car


Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice


Get a load of this, one color, super smooth, thank god I waited:D




Then there was one trouble spot where I need to fix. The paint reacted with something there so Ill lightly block sand it and spot prime it. The it should be ready for the final sand


And now you're caught up on the past two months! Hopefully big news next week:pimp:

[AbsorbantNut]

Next up, more wetsanding!






















Smooth gas cap anybody?


Much better;)




Sand off more bondo and put some more on, the usual routine


Another problem I ran into was that the car would make this weird noise, It was like a grinding at idle, but as soon as you gave it gas it would go away. The tried and true screw driver to ear method left me fruitless in my search for the source of the noise. So after much fussing and quarrling about what could be causing the noise, I tore into the timing belt area, I needed to replace the tensioner anyways. And low and behold the source of the problem is found!

The tensioner was maxed out and the belt had about 2 inches of slack in it...:hitler: ONTO THE PICTURES


The old belt with around 100 miles on it


Old versus new tensioner


New tensioner on


New belt on, thanks again to Carlos for the belt!


Next problem I had was the mount for the CPS was bad, the bolt in it wasn't factory and it stripped the hole. So a tap was found and used in preparation for a new bolt. Below is said new bolt with one of Ben's spacers on it for a near perfect match




And now that that ordeal is done....


Time to spray some more highbuiuld primer!






Time to prep for some final spraying. All stationary glass was removed


While removing the front windshield the thin crack spiderwebbed everywhere! And yes, I am aware it is time for some new shoes






Pops and Carlos taking a look at the rear quarter


This was one of those learning days, I slept three hours in two days thinking that the car would get paintned today, but more prep work was needed to make it come out how I really wanted it to. Patience is a virtue, and hopefully it pays off. My friend Jay, a painter, was going to spray the car for me as a favor and I was so ready to have him spray it, but he convinced me to wait. Thankfully I listened. He spend the day sanding and filling dents with me. This will pay off as you will see later;)





A bunch of sanding




Can't forget about these little guys!

[AbsorbantNut]

I got everybody to help, including my sister!


DD status:p



Took a day off to go to Homestead and watch some friends race


Brought the car to John's shop one night and got to use this guy


257,XXX miles and no leaks!


Clearance between strut and wheel


Rear suspension set up


I'd say its just about time for a new muffler!


CSB bracket still holding up


Time for a new diff seal


And one day after my hood flew off(because the bolts weren't quite tight enough) and crumpled up I got a replacement!


Test fit of my weaves in Jay's tires...maybe with some anti-stretch it could work:p


O2 sensor delete plug


Replacement gas tank from Carlos(silence) to help fix my fuel cut issues. I couldn't figure it out for quite some time. I would drive and then randomly the car would stall out/cut fuel. I kept swapping parts to see if I could figure out what it was and nothing was working. Then I pulled the in-tank pump and shined a light in there. Man oh man was it bad!! It looked like the Titanic or something, crazy rusty. My fuel filter also secreted a nice orange/brown sludge when it was drained:p It kept the fuel going to the rain extremely clean though, so I guess it did its job!

[AbsorbantNut]

Next I began driving it and the fan clutch went bad. Sadly, I had to harvest one from the vert:(






Then back to the rear end! Time to fix some of those sketchy welds and practice some more welding!


So cut the bad out...





And stitch the new in




Then fill with seam sealer!














Then comes filler




Shaping












Then came my master plan for the rear quarter as shown below




Laying on the bondo






covered in self etching primer to seal it up for a few days while I drive it to school


Then one day when I was driving I heard a scraping noise coming from the front when I wasn't braking. After all I've been through with the car I knew exactly what it was:p



The bottom caliper bolt had backed out and was causing the rotor to scrape on the wheen when I wasn't braking!

Then Jay and I did a valve adjustment one night at the shop


My slave cylinder decided to die one morning before school, so I wasn't able to go into gear. That had to be changed






Then the wetsanding and dry sanding began!

[AbsorbantNut]

Then Jay helped me get them in the coilovers




Here's the final assembly, without the strut mounts though


Cleaned and regreased the old strut mounts


The old versus the new


Here's the first side on. After struggling with the tirods for quite some time the old strut assemblies finally came off!


Began to work on the rear


Some pictures of the stock springs versus the new ones




By this point all the coilovers were on


Heres a shot of the old springs with the prybar. No spring compressor needed to get these guys out!








Then I took some "test shots"


Then I dropped it to the ground








Then after donating my old MC, I was given a brand new one!


Was missing this one little piece that kept me from installing it, but it came in not too long after:o


Then the nights came where I was staying up late and doing lots of sanding:p




Spraying some primer

[AbsorbantNut]

So, it's been a while since I've updated this thread. I kind of regret it because now I'm going to have to sum up the past two months in a few minutes.
Basically the build has been moving along and gaining speed! The coilovers were bought and assembled, a few of the more proiblematic issues have been sorted out, body work has been finalized, and the whole car was finally painted one color. PRIMER GREY. The last step to completing the bodywork on the car is shooting it with the delphin paint which is sitting in my room. I am beyond excited and have loved every...well almost every minute of work that has gone into this car. Hopefully all my hard work pays off:-D

Let's go back and start from the beginning. Somewhere around december 16th. I began by adding some more bondo to the mess that was my rear quarter.


And somewhere along the line I pulled out all my old r12 ac junk and replaced it with a friend's r134a stuff. He didn't need it since he was going s52

Then the coilovers came in and I got to work! John, forcedfirebird on here, let me borrow a set of front struts so I could build the coilovers and then directly install them without having to go back and forth between my house and the shop to build them. That helped out a lot.

By the time I arrived to the shop he had kindly removed the struts and springs.


So chop chop chop and off comes the stock spring perch


The sleeves wouldn't fit flush with the top of the strut assembly, so time to go lower


So I grinded off the lip and prepared it so john could weld



Stripped of paint, thank you mr blurry cam for always distorting my photos


Some new lips were made and fitted


And then they were welded on!


Recieved an awesome christmas gift from Carlos!


New front struts!

[AbsorbantNut]

Added some of that cool kid stuff

[WUGcatsvt]

This thread has been an interesting read. Love to watch the progress. I will be taking on a lot of what you are doing for the first time soon. I have to clean up some rust in the rear and painting in my garage. This thread has been informative in a do it in your driveway project.