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

[econti]

Boot insulation fitment is joocy

[burkey001]

Also began the process of hanging the bumper bars.

I thought it might be easiest to mount the reinforcement first, and then push the cover on top so it’s less weight to manhandle about as you line up the mounts… I think it worked OK.



Love new bits


I did replace those non-shiny bolts with something shiner


This is how I have it sitting right now.
I have some regular M3 and Evo bumper seals in the air right now, so will wait and see how we can make those fit before I worry too much more about the gap. Pretty even right now though, so probably OK


Bungs and gaskets on the inside


Get them all aligned


And a little tappy tap tap and we’re good
Yes, that’s a boot seal working as an engine bay seal. I want to see how that pans out



Onto the rear bar, same same pretty much


Sitting not too bad



There is one tiny high spot on the LHR under the tail light. The plastic cover is sitting a little high. I don’t have it clipped down yet, and I could always dob a little Sikaflex there to stick it to the reinforcement to take care of it



Here’s something else. To get this piece of trim to sit perfect against the body, I had to undo the glue and push this little clip along a few mm… I hope these small things will all add up


Onto the boot lid and I made some paper templates to apply some sound deadening, hopefully neatly and in an OEM looking way.
Base layer

Top layer trial


Starting to look like a car??

[burkey001]

Nothing terribly earth shattering happening

Test fitting some new ZKW fogs into the valance.

To get them to sit flush I will need to make some 3-4mm spacers installed on the top 2 bolts of the foglight mount. Just doesn’t quite sit as well as I want




Need to get a feel for the face, so stuck in some trim to see.
Debating black or silver headlights. I think silver (no crosses in high beam) but black trim rings is how we’ll roll.


There was some other stuff to tie off on the doors… The little clips that hold the shadowline trim on. The originals looked OK but proved to be very brittle in use. So new clips and harmony is restored



Got some door pulls and they don’t come with the little plastic bungs for the tie rod… kind of slack of BMW… lucky have spares

Where’s the bung?!?

These little things

And done & dusted



Speaking of bungs… the little hole in the door needs one
This one




I was waiting on some galvanised hardware before I could finish up the other door… got that underway and tucked in.


And now we have two closing doors



Trims on, keys workin, lookin good

[Jokester]

I have a brand new, OEM driver side headlight cover if you are in need of one.

[Melon]

Aw dang, I have some of the headlight clips that are Zinc, they look amazing.

I've been digging into tidbits over the past few months, if you have a question, feel free to ask. If I can save someone from buying something unnecessary I'd be glad to do it.

Thanks for posting the pics of the door trim, that's going to be super helpful when I put mine back together.

[Rob]

Holy cow, what an incredible build!

[burkey001]

Let’s do some trim
Half the trim has gone NLA, so whilst some is new, some of the left hand side I had to cast the search net far and wide… here is a NOS part from 1988


Hard to fathom why some stuff is still made – when it’s the same thing – i.e. door trim… right side no worries. Date stamp 2017…. Right side.,.. sorry




Love new clips
















Took a while to track down the part number for the headlight speed clips. Realoem is not obvious



Back onto the doors for tick… new weather stripping for the top of the door



Complete with lil clips



Back to the front guards… indicators in and the insides given a good shot of 3M cavity wax. I know this stuff is messy, but the factory does a similar thing so I need to do something similar.




Test fitting a few things.. some of this stuff gets a little trim here and there so it doesn’t sit hard against surfaces.



Test fitting some mud flaps… needed a little trimming where they meet the bumper





Back to the doors… time to fit some more new seals and some clips so the shadowline can go back on

This factory b pillar has some blu-tak like shmutz holding it on (across 3 cars I checked), interesting. Also had some felt and some foamy stuff… so lets try & recreate it..



Door locks (not brand new, replaced 1 year ago in old car)



New keys… molte bene!


Latch in… missing the little rubber bung in this pic.. later added



Starting to look like something


New clips going on



Old V new

Fitted

New shadowline …




and that will do for now :)

[JGood]

Incredible build! Please keep the pics coming, we love this stuff.

[getouth]

I'm impressed .......

[alistairolsen]

Superb work, keep it up!

[burkey001]

mounting the door latches...


inc the little rubber gaskets to keep it all water tight



ahhhh :)

going orange indicator lamps front and rear. thanks once again to BMW for making OEM stuff 30+ years after E30 started manufacture



even small stuff like this boot trim... i've never seen that wasnt shiny and kinda busted..

[burkey001]

Onto the fuel filler and overflow bottle. I like this kind of minutiae work… no-one will ever see this, but I know it’s done and it’s new and it’s good for another 30 years..
OE clips & hose and all the good stuff


Using the old one for reference






Original had two loops of cloth tape holding this together, as it is again




Lining up the cap and such




This little thing is EXPENSIVE


Cap on and done


It’s funny that when you block sand a car and polish it.. ABSOLUTELY everything that hasn’t been block sanded looks like orange peel from hell…. Take the fuel cap for example… not yet sanded… yet if it was photographed in isolation most would think ‘hmm nice and shiny’
Block sanding is a slippery slope because everything needs to be perfect or it stands out..

all buttoned up

[burkey001]

boot is mounted...
Couple of minor tweaks done. The OE gobs of sealant between the skins was cleaned out and a single, continuous bead was applied.. Just makes it look a little neater.

As the hanging panels were painted off the car it leaves the question of hardware... Normally would be body coloured. however, to individually paint bolt heads with 3x white and 5x orange coats + clear... the socket would struggle to get on, plus it would damage the finish instantly...

solution
ARP 12pt stainless hardware and stringer washers




now, i know the inside of the boot lid has a bit of orange peel on it.. ahhh c'est la vie

[2mAn]

Whats taking you so long to finish this car... you work slow

[burkey001]

Let’s pay some attention to the doors now…

New plugs in the bottom


I want to cover as much as possible inside the door, yet still allow for easy management of the various things that plug into the door, such as trim, clips, wiring looms etc. one way to accommodate this is to use a gasket punch to make allowance for such holes.
In the middle is just some polish residue, cleaned that after the pic. Trust me

As with other bits of the car, have paid attention not to cover drain & drip channels


I saw that some of the original glue securing the door skin to door reinforcement was losing some of its will to live… So addressed that with some Sikaflex. This was about as neat as I could make Sika… bloody stuff is so goddamn messy to use…. Anyway re-attached for another 30 years.
You can also see here how I’ve laid the matt in overlaying sheets and leaving drainage gaps, so no water will pool

Masking the gap prior to Sika application


Other side applied…


Have tracked down new rubbers for every part of the door, which is just great.

Test fitting the window channel

New door brake, gasket and hardware applied


First layer of the 12mm dual weight foam inside the door. Ended up doing 2x layers of this


There is a surprising amount of room in the door for deadening material, even with all the window mechanism gubbins.

Keeping manual windows for this car, because I like it simple

Window mechs in, new hardware, sound deadening in place


Time to start on the door harnesses. I am reusing the standard harness, albeit cleaning it up and re-tubing it. Time to push that stuff home



Wouldn’t be a proper job if we weren’t using T&B (Thomas & Betts) cable ties…



Time for me to upload some more photos..