Project finished - 'MY22' 318is - bare metal, nut and bolt restoration

[burkey001]

Love the gloss black shadowline, I was wanting to do that with the orange wide body car but ended up sticking with satin. Glad to see someone else bit it off and it turned out great!

🙏

[Jordan]

Love the gloss black shadowline, I was wanting to do that with the orange wide body car but ended up sticking with satin. Glad to see someone else bit it off and it turned out great!

[burkey001]

The trim looks awesome. While I only think it works on a car like yours with the paint quality/build quality I'm glad you took the risk on it. Definitely will be one of the most unique looking E30's while still being very OEM looking.

thanks dude, one day i hope it's finished and I can drive it:)

strongly investigating a hyper9 conversion

[Pootis]

The trim looks awesome. While I only think it works on a car like yours with the paint quality/build quality I'm glad you took the risk on it. Definitely will be one of the most unique looking E30's while still being very OEM looking.

[burkey001]

Something to post for a change. Absolutely zero progress the past 4 weeks. My state has been in ‘stage 4’ Covid lock down which basically means u cant go more than 5km from your house for anything, and within those 5km you’re only allowed outside for 1 hour a day for exercise or to buy food.

Since I don’t keep cars at home, I have not seen them in almost a month. Last night had crazy heavy downpour and I was legitimately concerned my workshop had flooded, so I went to have a look (it was flooded, but only a small amount) and spend an hour tinkering

Which was much appreciated, cos I have been slightly going a little stir crazy. And, the plating company who was doing my trim and a bunch of other stuff finally finished and delivered their job. So, I wanted to go take a look at that, see how it looks.

Before lockdown I took some wiring tools home and I have been slowly working on replacing more of the chassis wiring. Finished up the fueltank/diff/brake sensor sub loom earlier in the week, so I wanted to go put that in too.

Original loom. Two things that surprise me. 1) the quality of the rubber grommets. They clean up like new, always. 2) the extent of oxidisation in the 30+ year old wiring. I can cut 30cm down from a plug and still see oxidisation and green gunk in with conductors. So that must be fixed


So, like the engine bay lets replace all that well used gear with some fresh goodness. M22759/32 cable, new pins, new plugs, good DR-25 shrink and a little care and attention.
Inside the loom





And finished




Though I am leaving all the sensor ends long so I can trim it to just the right length once I fit to car.




to be terminated

So, onto the plating.

I have been getting a lot of stuff powder coated, but things like bolts etc obviously no good, so I got some done in matte black chrome, as kind of a test. Not too bad. I think the black studs will look pretty good.




I wanted black camber bolts… what can I say :)

Good closeup of the trailing arms too. I had them stripped but I wanted to retain good rust inhibition, so I had them, EDP coated, and then satin powder on top. You can see the difference in finish here



Also got the fuel tank balance pipe plated in matte black, so the fuel tank is finally complete



Was also able to give the subframe plates a whirl too






The main game however is the gloss black chrome window trim.
I am pretty pleased how well it turned out. I was after the modern shadowline look - gloss - given this is a “MY19” build… and I like it



















So, I reckon that looks pretty good.
I have tried many finishes on this trim, from 1k and 2k paint at various levels of sheen and powder. For me, this is the best.

I like (to believe) that chrome will be more durable than paint or powder. When I was fiddling with satin 2k, just handling it changed the gloss level… and you cant polish it… so that was a no go.
This car will be a driver, so need some practical durability.


And that’s probably it until lockdown ends or my workshop floods again!

[econti]

Come up well, not my choice of combo but it's certainly interesting, great workmanship that's for sure. Who did them?

[burkey001]

Wow, just read this front to back - ultra impressive!

I really like your ideas for the interior - giving me some inspiration for re-doing the blue leather in mine.

For the bumper seals - is that an M3 part that fits non-M's? Guessing it was done for aero? Haven't seen those before.

Jordan, great tip on the washer fluid cap - that's been bothering me for some time.

Hi,

Got a few more interior pics for you now. The bumper seals and hood seals are from the Sport Evo M3. I haven't installed any of that yet because I am waiting on a final clear coat flatten in a few spots, a full detail and then extensive PPF application. I know PPF is going to kill a little gloss but I intent this car to be a driver and I don't want stone chips. Or, I'd like to minimise stone chips.

I’ve got some seats back!

Happy days

Pretty pleased with how they turned out, they are pretty close to what I was hoping.

The Spinneybeck Copenhagen leather feels superb. It is a full aniline, veg tanned natural grained leather and it feels very supple and quite special. So far beyond BMW Dakota leather its almost comical. Colour code is CO2211. The Warwick fabric (Rupert London Clay) feels very comfy to sit on.
Originally wanted full fabric seats, but the Rupert print is end of run and I could only get enough for inserts… so that’s how that rolls.

Rear seats to start in a few weeks, door trims after that. Then custom carpet. Then install it all… in the ‘future’
Slow process but this stuff tends to take a long time, so we can handle that.


i need to make some little spacer / trim pieces to take up the gap between the bolster adjusters and the outside of the bolsters. Just a tidiness thing






Recalling a previous post these are Recaro Experts with E30 head rests customised in, because the Recaro head rest is really quite bulky and inelegant.

Had some map pockets added so I can carry my paper-based GPS ;)






It’s not a subtle colour combo, but I am pretty chuffed how it looks together.
Am now considering blue carpet rather than black…





Its nice to see some progress made after a hiatus.


I realised that I installed the fuel tank without installing the fuel tank / brake pad sensor sub harness. I have that on my desk, and as we’re about to hit Stage 4 COVID lock down I will remake this sub harness in Spec 44 wiring and such like I’ve done the rest of the car so far.

[Gus]

Wow, just read this front to back - ultra impressive!

I really like your ideas for the interior - giving me some inspiration for re-doing the blue leather in mine.

For the bumper seals - is that an M3 part that fits non-M's? Guessing it was done for aero? Haven't seen those before.

Jordan, great tip on the washer fluid cap - that's been bothering me for some time.

[Tzantushka]

Thanks, i think i will keep as is. Really like your restoration too. Good to see you're in Vic too. BMWCCV or BMWDCM?

Good - I think all the under body purists can relax now

I'm with BMWCCV - occasionally attend a few C&C and members nights - but not hardcore active.

[burkey001]

My vote would also to leave as it is for a few reasons:

- pay homage to the roots of the vehicle
- it is how it would have been if it came from the factory
- as mjweimer said - nice color contrast
- in our Australian climate we don't really need heaps of under body corrosion protection

I know few people would look under a car that far - but we're honored that you've shown us!

Thanks, i think i will keep as is. Really like your restoration too. Good to see you're in Vic too. BMWCCV or BMWDCM?

Finally put a connector on the last plug in the engine bay harness too. So nice to see it finished




also finally received my indicators, one of which is NLA now and took AGES to arrive... terminated them and plugged em in,,,, all front end wiring is now brand new and tucked in... HOPE IT WORKS!





Am holding off putting the black trim in because I need to have the clear coat on the bumpers flattened and buffed. It only has very slight orange peel, but given the whole car has been blocked it really sticks out.

[Tzantushka]

My vote would also to leave as it is for a few reasons:

- pay homage to the roots of the vehicle
- it is how it would have been if it came from the factory
- as mjweimer said - nice color contrast
- in our Australian climate we don't really need heaps of under body corrosion protection

I know few people would look under a car that far - but we're honored that you've shown us!

[mjweimer]

Really nice work on the brake lines - it can be very frustrating but fun at the same time. I ended up using NiCopp lines after fighting with removing the coating at the ends...never thought about burning it off...that is a great tip and has been filed for future work.


I honestly think the factory finish on the underside looks really nice. It creates a contrast to all the dark colored bits and pieces that will be bolted on to the chassis...this will highlight all the clean new parts you are installing. I would only think about tinting/painting the wheel wells so the gap disappears when the car is on the ground. Just my $.02 from the peanut gallery.

Looking forward to next update.



MJ

[burkey001]

Hello again

I have spent the day bending more brake line. Not something I do every day and I have to say the first one felt very difficult and awkward and the last one just was like bendy bendy bendy bend and done. Like everything practice helps…
I bought genuine lines, and a bunch that were slightly longer than what I needed, as I thought this might give me the flexibility to run them slightly differently if I needed.

New lines are coated in a thick plastic that I found was easiest to burn off. Have to remove it because you don’t want a plastic coated DIN bubble. Factory ends were plain, so will these.





I don’t know whether I’m going to stay with rubber lines, but I had them and I want to test fit it all up.

I found that aligning the outlet to the hole in the body was made easier by inserting a 1/8^th punch into the end and using that to tweak the line to be parallel to the body mount. Worked out well

Some got very small and fiddly, like this LHF brake





Since I am running a E32 25mm master cylinder I needed to make up a tee to join the two front lines. I wanted to do this slightly underneath the MC to keep it tidy




And brining the RHF brake line into the puzzle, with different routing to the original. Original runs left hand side of the booster, I have run it right hand side.

I’m probably going to find out WHY it’s routed on the LHS soon enough, but for the moment it works OK

That side tucked in




And the other side before I took the label off the line to tidy it up




Also put my fuel tank in which I’m pretty pleased about. Seems like some progress finally






You’re maybe noticing the underneath of the car is actually the original finish, witness the slight discoloration where the seat base / rear footwell is. WHY didn’t I redo it?
Well, TBH it was in really, really good shape. It came up so good with just a pressure wash I thought it might be nice to keep ‘a link to the past’ as it were.

Debating it in my mind… may end up pulling everything off and hitting it with some tinted raptor, but I kinda like that its original, because it’s the only thing. Then again, maybe it looks like I couldn’t be bothered ‘doing it properly’ to some.. so I’ll take feedback on that.


Happy new week. Sun keeps coming up despite all the maddening shit going on in the world :)

[Staszek]

New OEM brake lines comes black?

Yep, when I bought new ones they were.

[econti]

New OEM brake lines comes black?