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

[burkey001]

I was questioning myself WHY take it back to bare metal. This shell, although the paint was dull it was solid and had obviously never been repaired... initially i thought to just prep it and paint over...

lucky I am not a spray painter.. and the body shop that did paint it said along the lines "you'll be amazed what's underneath"

Fortunately, no hidden surprises came in the form of previous damage but, as said above, there were a couple of tiny rust 'spiders' that must have come from stone chips, well hidden under the paint

example


now, this is only about 4mm in size, but it would have spread had the paint not been completely stripped so that stuff like this can be sorted :)

[rturbo 930]

Wow! This should be impressive when finished.

[parkerbink]

Nice work!

[ATL_E30]

WOW!! This isn't going to be good... this is going to be spectacular!

Sub a dub dubbed

[econti]

So YOU'RE the one who got the last dash!

Thanks again for posting it up here

[econti]

So YOU'RE the one who got the last dash!

Thanks again for posting it up here

[burkey001]

I had the unfortunate experience of writing off my old 318is. I was very attached to the old car, and set about building a new one.

I tend to get carried away so decided I should try & make an "MY19" E30 318is... You know... like you walk into dealer and say "one of those please". 318is with some modernisation and such.

Old car (RIP)




Sadly, this pal met its maker. So onwards with a replacement. Found a non-runner and began stripping it down to bare shell and putting it onto a dolley. Shell was in amazing condition except for some rust in the battery box, a little rust under the windscreen and a ding on the LHR quarter. Besides that, never been apart. Owner by a crazy old cat lady (interior was disgusting….. solid felt of cat/dog hair under the front seats). None of this phased me because the battery tray and windscreen cowl sheet metal was still available to buy new, so that was ordered.

It was in super good condition, even the pinch welds near the jacks were mint







The plan here was to chemical strip the engine shell (except the underbody, because all the underbody was in amazing condition and cleaned up so well… I didn’t see the need to change it)
I didn’t want to sandblast because that would have removed all the factory e-coat or whatever you’d like to call it and I don’t want this thing to rust.

Now, the idea here is “OEM+”. So, for example, when the engine bay was cleaned up, all of the seam sealer was removed and re-applied in a much, much neater fashion but none of the holes where covered up and none of the spot welds filled & smoothed. I like seeing the spot welds and factory joins, albeit in a much smoother manner, because it shows that the sheet metal is original and there is ‘nothing to hide’.

I spent a good 3 weeks with a wire brush on an angle grinder removing all seam sealer in engine bay and all the stone guard along the front valence, sides and rear of the car. This was a substantially time consuming task because when I was strip it, I don’t mean *most* of it, I mean all of it… from every nook and cranny. Also took a long time because one needs a light touch to remove the material without touching the metal beneath too much.

And, the boot was completely stripped as well. This took an age….





And on to the stripping of the body… some progress pics







Overall, I was pretty amazed at the condition of the sheet metal, given it’s 30 years old. There were maybe 2-3 small rust spots where a stone chip had propagated, this were all converted and treated before moving on








The battery tray is cut out

Rear ding is fixed

New cowl is fitted

New battery box installed


Engine bay well under way..


And now onto the interior… this was a thankless task… no fun at all… didn’t take many pics, very long days ��


Now, we’re getting somewhere…. Chassis in epoxy primer and seam sealer going on




New parts start to arrive… last RHS OEM dashboard left in world

Panel spray outs


Quick trip to BMW to suss out current trim options…


Closing out the opening post… and we’re in primer