Lacey, the Lachssilber 325iS - oem+ 5spd. swap daily driver build

[wworm]

looking really good man! Lachs always looks so good when its super fresh. Hoping to get mine resprayed one of these days...

[vtechnik]

looking really good man! Lachs always looks so good when its super fresh. Hoping to get mine resprayed one of these days...

Thank you! Always nice when others give your build their approval. I still need to finish waxing the car, so i'm holding off on the fresh pics, maybe if I get off r3v I'll get to it soon lol

[vtechnik]

Finaaallly forced my lazy self to finish buffing and waxing Lacey. I'm very pleased with the results.

So I left off on using an aggressive pad to level the untreated and abused clear coat. After finishing off with the aggressive pad I felt a little disappointed, sure it was shiny but I was going for nothing short of mirror-like.



After seeing a little orange peel and fine scratches still I decided it was time to sand. I went to town on the clear coat with a 3000 grit sanding disc and some water. I hand sanded the whole car methodically. I made sure not to sand off too much, just enough to smooth out some of the "blur" in the paint. Fortunately the 3000 grit disc I had absorbed some of the pigment from the roof of my last Honda, so it was easy to identify what I had gone over already because there was a pink hue to the sanding marks.

Nothing like a BMW bathing in the blood of a Honda





Camera didn't pick up the pink tone too much





Then after sanding I washed and dried the car for more cutting. I took the Griot's Garage "Finishing Pad" and polished the whole car again, this time with a finer polish. How she looked after buffing and another car wash (the car was still wet and it was raining. The neighbors were giving me strange looks lol):







Then I brought her under cover again for drying off and waxing, I used carnauba wax from mothers. I've found that the key to perfecting the waxing stage is to listen to R.Kelly, the music really brings you closer to the car lolol. In all seriousness this is always the most satisfying part of the buffing process. grabbing a fresh microfiber towel and wiping away the residue to uncover dealership quality paint never gets old. (sorry for photo quality, I'll bring my actual camera tomorrow when I take my real pics):





Used the buffer on all my windows, highly suggest doing this, so much easier to see at night. Especially since every car has overpowered headlights compared to our e30s.





That finishing pad really took a lot of the swirls out of the clear coat that the aggressive pad put in.



This picture really gets to me lol, pretty cool seeing the clarity



Final thoughts: I wouldn't of done it any other way, the results are outstanding. Pics don't do justice to the work I put in and how clear the paint actually is. Running my fingers across the hood feels as smooth as new lot cars, if not smoother. I am very happy with the results.

[TFJR]

Amazing results! I want to see pictures outside in the sun (likely will be June by then LOL). Great work.

[vtechnik]

Thanks man!! Yeah i'm stoked, pics will be up today so stay tuned

[kid8]

Wow, that looks great! Even with the camera you used there! Looking forward to the real pictures too.

[vtechnik]

Wow, that looks great! Even with the camera you used there! Looking forward to the real pictures too.

Thanks!! I'm happy with how it turned out. I really need to paint or touch up the black trim so the paint will really pop. I got home on friday and of course it rained all day. I'll be back in town on monday so I'll try to get a dry moment to get some real pics up.

Update on the enkeis: I found a guy that will redrill them for $20 per wheel which is significantly cheaper than any other shop I've been to or seen online. My only concern is I might get what I pay for, in the bad way. I'm going to have my neighbor down the street weld the holes so overall it shouldn't be more than $300 to get them mounted if I buy used tires, which is pretty cheap. I'll also be doing the mounting and balancing at my old workplace to keep costs down.

[vtechnik]

I did get one pic at school, it was raining a little bit

[vtechnik]

Alright finally time for daylight non rainy pics. My friend came to town in his aztec green pearl ej1 today, luckily it wasn't raining so we spent some time cruising the town and taking pics.

First we replaced my flat tire with a spare basketweave I had sitting around. While doing so I threw an enkei up onto the hub to get an idea of what it would look like.








My indecisive self is finally convinced I want to stick to my original plan. I like the enkei's but they're not for me. The poke on them is too much for the oem/oem+ build that I'm going for. basketweaves and euroweaves will be the only wheel this car will see until I go to the track from here on out. I actually got an offer on them today too so I believe I'm going to sell them tomorrow. Also now that I'm getting a little extra cash coming in for these wheels, 5spd. swap is on the immediate horizon now ;D

I did however find another basketweave center cap while searching my inventory for another wheel, so today wasn't a complete loss on the wheel front :p

Then once that was done we went to take some pics, stars aligned because he showed up at sunset, I had my camera with me and it wasn't raining!
BEWARE: incoming civic photos











Nice to have pics in of the car buffed without it being wet. Definitely a beaut. The civic's cool too if your into that kind of thing lol

We rounded off the night by going to get tacos (because e30) at tacobell (because civic)



And a little something for r3v...


After tacos, we went to the local Chinese bar.. definitely some characters in there.

Then we got back to my place, finished up a few things on my civic and did a little more work on Lacey. We got the radio knob to work perfectly after spraying electrical cleaner in the knob slot with a little mechanism I built. After that I rolled the knob back and fourth a few dozen times, and now there's no more static :p





That's it for now, hopefully my next update will be diving into my 5spd. swap details.

[kid8]

Nice work on the paint correction, it looks awesome! Good luck on the 5spd swap, that's coming up soon for me too!

[vtechnik]

Nice work on the paint correction, it looks awesome! Good luck on the 5spd swap, that's coming up soon for me too!

Thanks! unfortunately my refund wasn't as big as I was hoping for, but I'm selling one of my cars tonight so it should be happening pretty soon. You're project is coming along quite nicely as well.

[vtechnik]

Time for 5 spd. swap!

Alright, finally something worth updating about. I am pleased to say this is the first official post of 5spd swapping the daily, but first let me talk about how the day went.

I started off my morning by going down to the local dealership and applying for a weekend job. Wish me luck! Then I went and took a peek at the BMW collection they have while I was there, which is always a treat.







Then after that my friend and I stopped at the record store where I got some new cassettes for the daily, because hipster I guess? Yes, baby got back was definitely worth the $5.



Now for the interesting part, I'll spare you all the details but I bought another e30 today. Ive been going back and fourth with the douchebag owner for the past three days. Basically he comitted to one price then when it comes time to pay he tells me its going to be $70 more than what we agreed upon. Not a big amount but the guy's opening a dealership and shouldn't be doing that type of dishonest work. There now that I got that out here's the pics:



The tires are new-ish but some need leak repairs. After I get them fixed I'll be putting them on the basketweaves.




Free dash mat I'll be cleaning up tomorrow for Lacey!




If you squint closely you can read zender on the spoiler :)


Its an 87 eta that has seen much better days. The story goes that the guy who owned it before the dealer, was trying to teach his girlfriend how to drive stick and she ran into a pole lol. Sorry if you're on this forum.

So after dealing with the business' crap for a couple days I finally forked over the money tonight. I bought the whole car for $450, he originally said $380. Obviously I can't complain about the price but it's frustrating as hell when people go back on their word. I figure if I part out most of it I can get nearly all my money back, therefore I pretty much got a nearly free 5 spd swap today If anyone wants any parts I'll be making a northwest part out thread on it, don't really want to ship parts quite yet. As of now everything on the car is for sale besides every bit of the 5spd swap duh, the dash mat lol, and the tires. I'll post a link here of the FS thread once I'm done posting this update.

FOR SALE THREAD: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=420137

[vtechnik]

Continuation...

I wrote that update while waiting for the tow truck. Here's a couple pics after the tow truck arrived.











Fresh Meat :devil:




Tomorrow I'll be tearing into it hopefully

FOR SALE THREAD: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=420137

[AWDBOB]

Nice buy! You're going to quickly surpass your $450 investment with ease.

[vtechnik]

Thanks BOB! Not a bad way to do a manual swap I'd say