RIP Calypso Story.

[Steven]

Love calypsorot! One of my favorite e30 colors.
Great work so far, looking forward to seeing that bay finished.

Thanks! I want to get into bondo by this weekend, so you should see some pretty good updates coming up.

[arch4ngel]

Looking forward to it.
I've done just about every mechanical job on these cars but bodywork scares me.

[Steven]

Update--12/24/2013

So this will be an update on the last couple of days. Reason being two days a ago I left my camera with my friend so I couldn't update. There's a little bit of a gap where I had no camera to take pics but its nbd. Didn't miss much.

So lets start! I'll let the pics do most of the talking.

Where I started off:









This is where I finished for that night:


Started the next day:




Hard af to reach in there with the welder.


How I plugged holes:



Plugged:


Let's start grinding:


Neighbor giving me a hand. He's been great this whole time. Couldn't have done any of this without him!



EEk the table:


Getting there:





Done for the night:


Just waiting for filler to arrive then I can start smoothing everything out! then I'll do a dry fit and make sure everything fits before final painting.

[Steven]

Follow me on insta to get updates before the thread! @steven_worrall

[MR 325]

That's looking good!

[Steven]

Can anyone guess what's coming in the mail? (From Levent and it's about 15 lbs)

[jaywood]

Just curious why you welded in those extra panels in the bay?

[Steven]

Just curious why you welded in those extra panels in the bay?

which ones specifically?

[Steven]

Update--12/29/2013

So lately I've been working on the car a lot, and haven't gotten around to some much needed updating... So here we go. Lots of pictures so I'll let them do the talking for the most part.
A day before this I had ground down and welded a bit more to prep for filler and such.
I started by grinding everything down with a "flap" disc. 40 grit.



Popped this out for later


Sanding done.



Lets blow it all down with this!


And use thinner and lint free clothes to wipe it all down!



First layer. This stuff was hard to get used to at first and there was definitely a learning curve compared to regular bondo bran filler.



Sanded



Second coat


Done for the night.


Big stuff taken down..


filled behind fuse box


Coat on drivers side



Sanded



Bad picture


Blocked both sides





Added filler to touch things up



Messy.


That's where I'm currently at. I ran out of filler so I'm on the hunt for some right now and hopefully can work on it more tomorrow. The plan after that is to get it all done, primer it, then dry fit the engine in the bay before it's painted. That way once it's painted there's no fussing around, and I'm less likely to fuck up the new paint.

[bradnic]

That flap disc rocks. boat load of work here. I can see where you're going with the bay now - really gonna look nice.

I am curious about a couple of things though

- should you use/leave less filler as opposed to coating the entire surface with it?

- what's your motivation for the ABS delete?
wasn't working? aesthetics? you don't need that area for a Castro CAI or something do you? i know you don't need to relocate the brake booster there for an S5X swap... intentionally disabling a functioning ABS seems kinda strange to me.

[gorilla]

Like your build man. I have one I have been doing for about 5 years and still not finished.

[Steven]

That flap disc rocks. boat load of work here. I can see where you're going with the bay now - really gonna look nice.

I am curious about a couple of things though

- should you use/leave less filler as opposed to coating the entire surface with it?

- what's your motivation for the ABS delete?
wasn't working? aesthetics? you don't need that area for a Castro CAI or something do you? i know you don't need to relocate the brake booster there for an S5X swap... intentionally disabling a functioning ABS seems kinda strange to me.

On the filler. Honestly, there's not really another way to do this and get good results. There are too many high and low spots that it would be impossible to use just small areas with filler. As it is right now, none of the filler is that thick, so I think it'll be fine.

ABS. Cosmetics. It worked fine, but you cant have a bulky thing like that just hanging out in a shaved bay, and relocating it would be a pain, so I just decided to delete it entirely. At the end of the day, I think I'm going for more of a show car look, and no ABS wont be a big deal.

[bradnic]

gotcha and understand. just fyi relocating the ABS pump does require making new brake lines and modifying the harness, but it's not really that bad, and certainly not very expensive. guys like FrankM E30 move them to the battery tray area when they do M60/62 swaps and want to keep ABS.

[BMWManiac]

Disregard question about paint....saw it in on another page!

How do you go about shaving/tucking all the wires? I really like look, just don't quite grasp how you hide them all? And you fill all the holes to give it a cleaner look?

[Steven]

Disregard question about paint....saw it in on another page!

How do you go about shaving/tucking all the wires? I really like look, just don't quite grasp how you hide them all? And you fill all the holes to give it a cleaner look?

As for tucking the wires... There is a hole on the fender side of the fuse box. The front harness goes through there. An m3 cover will cover the engine wires and that's about it. And yes hence the term 'shaved bay'