Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

Lately I've been assembling the suspension.
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Although I've had quite a few minor setbacks hindering the progress. I forgot to install the dust shields behind the front hubs, the half shaft bolts were wrong size as well as the hub nuts, the bolt holes in the cv joint rubber boots had to be drilled to correct size and while doing that I of course managed to mangle my thumb, quite a few screws and whatnot were lost or missing and one of the trailing arms was bent open about five millimeters.



I'm guessing someone has bent it when removing the trailing arm bushings. Not me, though because I used a puller that applies the force to the housing of the same bushing. Anyway it was fixed with hydraulic press and some touch up painting. Regardless of the hindrances, I was able to slowly progress with the assembly:





Once I get the drive shaft bolt washers and the hub nuts, I'll drop the body on wheels. And it's about the time because the rest of the parts are well on their way to be painted.

[Skarpa]

I bet you still have "katsastus" in Finland, so all the cars need to be in good working order. We don't have to have our cars inspected any more in Canada (at least not on the West coast)

Yeah, that's true. Usually cars end up parted out or crushed when thwy no longer pass the yearly inspection with reasonable amount of work which is good because lord knows what kind of deathtraps Finnish people would drive without it. Although the inspection is also a pretty big limiting factor when modifying cars because there are fairly strict regulations concerning engine swaps and whatnot. So no LS-powered E30s in Finland. At least not without trickery.

[finnmole]

I bet you still have "katsastus" in Finland, so all the cars need to be in good working order. We don't have to have our cars inspected any more in Canada (at least not on the West coast)

[Skarpa]

Glad you like the 3M glue, thanks for the pointers as well. I'm getting ready to start prepping my MTech kit and it's nice to see that this worked well in case I need it.

I'm glad if I can be of help. Hope your project turns out well!

WOW, it's going to look awesome...I'm so impressed by your fabricating skills, and the armo on the valve cover is very cool. I bet you will have the nicest E30 in Finland when your done, I only saw one when I visited this summer.

Thanks! I don't know about THE nicest one. There are some damn fine E30s in Finland but I am aiming to be among them. Nowadays you don't see that many E30s in traffic anymore but when you do, they are usually pretty nice and well kept. I quess most of the POSs are already either parted, crushed or project cars.

[finnmole]

WOW, it's going to look awesome...I'm so impressed by your fabricating skills, and the armo on the valve cover is very cool. I bet you will have the nicest E30 in Finland when your done, I only saw one when I visited this summer.

[Albie325]

Glad you like the 3M glue, thanks for the pointers as well. I'm getting ready to start prepping my MTech kit and it's nice to see that this worked well in case I need it.

[Skarpa]

Very informative, thank you very much for sharing! Coming along nicely, hopefully for the next season this beast will be on the road!

Thanks! I'm pretty invested in putting Armo on the road for next summer. It should also be doable even with my limited hobby time/week. Some people put a car together in a week so I should be able to do it in five months.

[gnmzl]

Very informative, thank you very much for sharing! Coming along nicely, hopefully for the next season this beast will be on the road!

[Skarpa]

Next I tackled the issues with the bodykit. The right side skirt and the front spoiler required attention. The corner of the side skirt had broken off at the fixing point.


M-tech parts are made of polyurethane and they are not weldable so I had to go with gluing. After some googling I found the 3M 55045 bumper repair glue. It's a two-component very fast curing polyurethane glue that's made for repairing plastic car parts. You can shape missing pieces entirely out of glue and after curing it behaves as plastic so it's flexible and you can sand and drill it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtroDoX8fc

The glue requires a 3M-specific glue gun but luckily we already have it at work due to some other plastic gluing projects. On the video they also use a special plastic film to aid shaping the glue but that was so outrageously expensve that I decided to try baking paper instead and it worked just fine. Main point is that glue should not stick to the material. The glue is pretty expensive. Around 50 bucks for 50 ml of glue + 15 bucks for the primer (at least in Finland). Of course you also need a suitable de-greaser. I used the 3M one since we already have it at work but any suitable solvent that doesn't soften the plastic should be fine.



First I sanded off any paint on the area, tapered the edges and drilled a couple of holes to aid adhesion. Then I put a piece of baking paper under the part and squirted (is that the correct word? - Probably not) some glue on it. Then I folded the baking paper on the glue, got it well spread on the part and formed it flat. After curing I sanded the glue to right thickness and shaped it as the missing corner.











The glue is confidence-inspiring. You can grab the new corner and bend it very forcefully this way and that and it feels as it's become one with the plastic. Next I tackled the front valance. It has been repaired before and one of the repaired areas between the foglight and the brake cooling duct had cracked open again. I sanded off any previous glue and filler.


Most likely the cracking had been because the plastic was not int he correct shape. It had deformed quite a bit and the recess had just been filled with a thick layer of filler. I took a hot air gun, heated up the plastic and tried to form it back in correct shape the best I could.


My original intention was to repair just this one spot but after having a close look at the repairs I decided to sand them all out and redo everything. Actually there were quite a few repairs on the valance.





I used fiberglass net to reinforce the cracks I repaired.














There was so much to repair that I had to buy another tube of glue. I learned a lot in the process and I'm sure there's still a lot to learn but I'm pretty happy with the repairs. At least they feel a lot more solid than the previous ones. Still I can't shake the feeling that this valance is nearing the end of it's life. There are so many repairs on it. I'll need to take care and not bump it into anything to keep it in one piece.

Here's a couple of notes on the use of the glue in case someone else is facing the same task:
- The glue hardens very fast so you need quite a few mixing spouts or alternatively you need to prepare everything really well to move quickly from one area to another before the glue hardens in the spout. You should always extrude the half-hardened glue onto a piece of cardboard and continue using the glue once fresh glue flows freely again.
- The glue develops quite a bit of heat when curing and it may feel like the glued area has no structural integrity when the plastic and the glue soften because of the heat but it will solidify when cooling down.
- When spreading the glue on a flat surface, bubbles form easily. You might want to try just squirting a large bead of glue on the middle of the area to be repaired and then spreading it out with baking paper or alternatively try to squirt as even thin layer as possible. Squirting a bit here and there leaves bubbles even if it's easy to spread and flatten the glue under baking paper.
- The glue doesn't stick as well to already cured glue as it does to plastic. So you should try to get the area filled at once. Adding a thing layer of fresh glue on top of old glue seams to work especially bad.

[Skarpa]

Undercoating looks fantastic, love the attention to detail with painting the lower spare tire well black. Making some great progress on the body!


Cheers!

Dude, undercoat looks very legit. I feel you on "hitting a big milestone". It is a big milestone for sure!
Can't wait to see it complete....

Thanks!

[Skarpa]

It sure is rewarding!




A couple of weeks ago I took the first batch of separate parts to the painter. I'll the take the rest once I get the fenders and such test fitted to make sure I don't need start massaging them once they are painted. I'll also need to repair a few cracks in the bodykit.

[mjweimer]

Undercoating looks fantastic, love the attention to detail with painting the lower spare tire well black. Making some great progress on the body!


Cheers!

[gnmzl]

Dude, undercoat looks very legit. I feel you on "hitting a big milestone". It is a big milestone for sure!
Can't wait to see it complete....

[Skarpa]

I had that "flagged as spam, pending for approval" message before. Luckily I saved the post before I submitted it. So I just edit/deleted my post and pasted the saved post as a new post and it worked. Try that next time. The updated R3v seems very temperamental.

Yeah, I tried that but copy pasting a long post seems to immediately result in "flagged as spam" post. My problem is that English is not my native language. I never seem to get it right on the first try. Then, when I realize how to better say what I wanted and come back to edit the post, it's flagged as spam.

[Skarpa]

I've been working on the body and the bodykit as well as the engine.

I marked the positions and drilled the holes for the side skirts:




I also mounted the M-tech 1 rear wing on the boot lid. The boot lid I bought has a funny trim cover. It's the first time I've seen one like this on an E30. It's just shame it's so warped. Might be repairable by adding a few extra fixings, though.






The wing is in pretty good condition except for the surface. The material of wing is firm but slightly soft rubbery foam stuff. When new, it had a smooth, surface. On the underside it still does but but the top side is baked by the sun and the surface is burnt into matte, slightly rough texture with a bit too light a color. I'd like to restore the surface with some suitable coating if only I was sure what works. Other option would be to apply some rubber conditioner on it which would probably restore the color but not the smooth finish.





The body received 3M 08800 undercoating (11 bags) and a top coat of 2-component polyurethane paint tinted in zinnoberrot

This felt like a big milestone. The underside looks brand new! I couldn't help but to shout in excitement!

However, I don't want the red spare wheel well stick out from under the rear valance so I gave it a coat of black paint.