The complete repair, rebuild, repaint, and v8 swap of my early model sedan

[MR 325]

Best before/after ever!

[LoneWolf]

This is my favorite build thread. Full of good info.

[JGood]

Thanks everyone!

So after reading some rather frightening stories of insurance companies not covering vehicles that had tinted or covered tail lights, I quickly found some stock tail lights to replace my smoked lights. I did paint the corners red so it wouldn't look too terrible. Then wet sanded and polished the whole light (600, 1000, 2000, rubbing compound, polish). Came out pretty good considering I only spent 15-20 minutes on each one. You could make these things look like glass if you spent some time on them.







I still think the smoked lights looked better. Here's a comparison.




And here's a comparison of brake light output. Now I see why this is a problem and insurance companies have an issue with it!





Both stock lights installed:

[Zacm829]

After starting my M62 swap, having 3 hours of free time at work and looking at your beatuiful car I had to re-read the entire thread. Bravo sir!

Hoping my car will be a similar finished product next year! I'm sure you will get a few PMs probing for some advice!

[240zs30]

Everytime I think Turbo my M20 I look at this thread. Such a nice result. OEM bump in power the way that it would have come from factory.


All swaps and power adders have their hiccups but reading your thread really gives insight on things that come up. Now that you have had it for some time...would you do the M60 again?I like the "everything is off the shelf mentality" its one of my favorite builds by far. Keep up the awesome work!

[UNHCLL]

You should consider adding an OE CHMBL to the rear deck in light of how much work and money you have in this car.
It's amazing how much that makes a difference to drivers following you!

Looks great with the new lights.

-Chris

[Farbin Kaiber]

I would even go the extra step and modify an m3 version so it is up higher. With as low as an e30 is compared to the glut of SUV's on the road, being that much higher up would assist even more I'd assume.

[MJCRO]

Looks my sedan in the rear now, haha. I actually wanna go back to stock tails with yellow turn signals eventually.

[JGood]

Everytime I think Turbo my M20 I look at this thread. Such a nice result. OEM bump in power the way that it would have come from factory.


All swaps and power adders have their hiccups but reading your thread really gives insight on things that come up. Now that you have had it for some time...would you do the M60 again?I like the "everything is off the shelf mentality" its one of my favorite builds by far. Keep up the awesome work!

Thanks! I'd absolutely do the m60 again. I like it because with the m60, it drives like a stock car... an e34 540i basically. There's no tuning or hiccups to deal with (once I got everything sorted). With a turbo car, I think you'll always be tinkering. And that's not a bad thing, I love projects. But I wanted this car to be the car I got in an did my 80 mile/day commute without a second thought. And I'm finally there. So it depends on what you want. The sound and rush of power of a turbo is something the v8 won't give you. But the massive torque that comes on almost faster than you can push the pedal down is something a turbo m20 won't give you! One thing is for sure with the m60 though... when you 'get used to' the power, and want more, it gets very expensive, very quick. There are no cheap power adders. And there isn't a ton of room to easily slap a forced induction setup on.

You should consider adding an OE CHMBL to the rear deck in light of how much work and money you have in this car.
It's amazing how much that makes a difference to drivers following you!

Looks great with the new lights.

-Chris

I would even go the extra step and modify an m3 version so it is up higher. With as low as an e30 is compared to the glut of SUV's on the road, being that much higher up would assist even more I'd assume.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I may look into that. I wonder if I can come up with a discrete way to mount some sort of LED strip, like pickup trucks use. Obviously would only need to be 6" long or so, not the whole way across.

[JGood]

Someone beat me to it. I think this could look decent if I can hide it enough.

[BMWManiac]

What side skirt and rear valence is that? Car looks amazing with that V8 in there!

[JGood]

What side skirt and rear valence is that? Car looks amazing with that V8 in there!

Thanks! Taurus skirts, BMP apron.

[JGood]

The BMP fiberglass rear bumper on my car is probably almost 20 years old. It was still in great shape when we repainted the car, but a few months after that, the passenger side corner started to buckle upwards, as if the front edge of the sides were being pulled in too far. It kept getting worse, so I decided to fix it. This is my first venture in fiberglass repair, and I need some help.

Here is what I have done so far. I sanded the whole area and laid down 8 layers of fiberglass mat on the inside of the bumper.


















So that's where I'm at. There is a low spot on the outside of the bumper obviously. The gel coat is very thick, probably almost 1/16". Plus I grinded some of the fiberglass away below the gel coat. So I'm probably 1/8" low at some spots. I figure the best thing to do is spread tiger hair across this whole area, sand smooth, then do a layer of filler to smooth, then glaze to finish.

My question is, can I lay the tiger hair and/or filler over the existing gel coat where it's feathered out? I can sand back the paint and primer so I wouldn't have to fiberglass over that, but I need fiberglass over at least part of the gel coat where it's feathered, because of how thick it is. Would it be best to do more of a feather on the gel coat, or less?

[JGood]

Well, I went ahead with that plan. Tiger hair then filler. Worked out well, after blocking it down, I can't feel or see any imperfections. It's better then it was, at the very least. This was my first fiberglass job, and the first body work job that I did myself from start to finish. I actually enjoyed it, although this particular repair is about as easy as it gets... a small flat surface.

[Good & Tight]

Wow just wow..!!! Spent a few hours going through your build thread. Amazing and inspiring.
Well done..!