Ryan's Hennarot 318is (s54, slicktop conversion, MT2)

[rjmcdermott81]

Prepping the car for 2k high build surfacer to block. Because my epoxy primer had cured already I had to scuff the entire car with 220 grit first, then lay down a coat of epoxy primer then 3 coats of surfacer. I used this opportunity to spot putty tiny imperfections.



here it is painted


Roof is starting to really come together:

[rjmcdermott81]

More roof work. There was a sizable dent near the windshield I couldn't get to so I had to fill.

[rjmcdermott81]

I think I easily spent 100 hours on the roof, between removing the sunroof, welding in new panels, bonding in the sunroof and then leveling it all out. I'm sure a shop would have been faster but at a $35/hr labor rate in a body shop....I don't even want to think what would have been discussed if I had taken my car somewhere to be painted.

Getting serious now, I pulled out the front/rear windshields. Much easier than I expected it to be.

[rjmcdermott81]

Filler, spread extremely thin. Lots of sanding




I had to leave town and wanted to protect all that hard work so I epoxied the roof.

[rjmcdermott81]

mt2 arrives.


My friend also suckered me into buying his 911 that I painted the spoiler for... I needed something fun to drive while waiting on this dang e30

[rjmcdermott81]

Now, first step was to build up the valley where the roof/sunroof met. I didn't want to fill it with pure filler because I was concerned it wouldn't have the structural integrity required. I filled it first with "kitty-hair" or fiber glass filled polyester resin. Great stuff to work with.

[rjmcdermott81]

Next I attacked the rust. The only way to do it right was to cut it out and weld in new steel. I have a MIG welder but I didn't have any idea how to use it. I learned big time on this project.

Cutting the bad stuff out


New panels welded in. I had to do this on both sides.



Welds ground down and cleaned up:

[rjmcdermott81]

At this point I figured it would be just as much work to put the sunroof back together as to convert it to a slicktop. Naive. I think it would have been way way less work to just clean up all the rust and put it back together. But what the heck...I dove in.

I started by panel bonding strips of steel to the edges of the sunroof to make it fit snug. I used 3M 2-part panel bonding adhesive that they use in new cars to join all sorts of panels. Between this, and the snug fit I feel pretty good about it's longevity.


After tons and tons of grinding. I mean probably 10 hrs of grinding... I got it close enough to wedge it in.



Bonded in with panel bonder


I filled this gap with steel wire and panel bond

[rjmcdermott81]

Last piece was the roof. This is when I took the headliner out and discovered just how bad the roof was. Nothing too bad, but rust all over between the sunroof cassette and the roof.





Eventually I decided the only way to fix the rust 100% was to pull the sunroof cassette out. This was a huge PITA. Drilling out all the spot welds, cutting through all the glue.

[rjmcdermott81]

I scored some stitched seat covers from the forum for the front/back

[rjmcdermott81]

Painting the front valance.




Here you can see the oil cooler mounting

[rjmcdermott81]

On to the front of the car. My fender from ebay...when I started to block it I realized it had been painted before and the body work wasn't stellar. In places I had grind out all their body work and build it back up but it was worth it to get it straight.

[rjmcdermott81]

I'm working from easiest to hardest here so I can learn as I go. I was able to hammer and dolly the back panel out pretty good. Just needed some filler to straighten it all out.

[rjmcdermott81]

Doing a panel at a time, doing the body work and then sealing with PPG epoxy primer. I started with the trunk lid and the inside of the trunk. Just a bit of surface rust here and there in the trunk where the paint scratched.

[rjmcdermott81]

Starting to investigate the rust bubbles a bit here. At this point I'm still thinking it's probably no big deal