Greetings - haven't posted here before. Found the site when looking at web stats for my own site - saw a few hits coming in, so thought I'd sign up.
Anyway - I picked up this January 1983 323i at the turn of the year. Its automatic (for the moment) and has an unbelieveable 49k on the clock.
Am doing as much of the work as is possible myself - including the spraying, which I've never done before. If I do make a mess of it, I'll just pay a pro to re-do it! Heres a bit of my progress so far - hope you enjoy!!
Heres the car as I got it basically (I'd already colour coded the mirrors at this stage) -

As I mentioned, first thing I did was colour code the mirrors -

I used some warm water, with a bit of washing up liquid in it for the wetsanding. I then used 600 grit followed by 1200 grit paper, making sure to keep the paper and mirror very wet!

So here is the progress of the wetsanding about halfway through - the paint is fairly obviously matt. After this I used the porter cable, and went through Poorboys SSR3, followed by Megs 83 and 80.

Given the age of the car, the paint was never likely to be in great nick. Its obviously had a paint job on the bottom half - a bad job at that. The side mouldings are covered in overspray, and there were several runs through out it. The bonnet, boot and roof seem to be original though.
So next task was to see if I could do anything with the bonnet. I'm sure you've all seen similar threads - so you'll know whats to follow!
Here is the bonnet before anything is done. The photo doesn't look too bad - but it was extremely dull, and slightly on the pinker side of red.

I'd found that the Megs 83 previously didn't make enough of an impact on the BMW paint, so on advice I'd purchased Poorboys SSR3. The first pass was done with this, on a spotlessly clean white sonus pad.

Needless to say, it seemed to be having an effect as you can see from the pad in the photo above.
I followed this up with the Megs 83, and then the Megs 80. A coat of Poorboys sealant was applied, and this was then finished off with the nattys paste wax. The finished result was fantastic in the flesh anyway
)

50/50 with the tape on


The car came with pinstripes from new. I sort of like them, although I could live without them. Given the fact that I need a new wing, which has been ordered long with a few other little bits, it meant I was going to be left without pinstripes on the wing. So I decided to remove them all.
The tool I used is called an eraser wheel. You'll pick them up on eBay easily enough.
So here is the erasser wheel attached to the drill:

This will cut through your paint if you're not careful! Car needs to be spotless, and only use the flat edge of the disc. Max revs on the drill is 4000rpm. Take your time and the stripes start to clear:

Make sure to wear a face mask when you're doing this - the wheel sheds a lot of rubber, as you can see from the following pics:
Wheel after:

Car After:

Gave the car a rinse down afterwards - theres a very distinguishable set of lines on both flanks, which was fully expected. What wasn't expected was the see the pin stripes had been masked up for a previous spray job! Not a huge worry though - gives me a bit more of a challenge :D
Will get up a few more updates when I get the chance!
Anyway - I picked up this January 1983 323i at the turn of the year. Its automatic (for the moment) and has an unbelieveable 49k on the clock.
Am doing as much of the work as is possible myself - including the spraying, which I've never done before. If I do make a mess of it, I'll just pay a pro to re-do it! Heres a bit of my progress so far - hope you enjoy!!
Heres the car as I got it basically (I'd already colour coded the mirrors at this stage) -

As I mentioned, first thing I did was colour code the mirrors -

I used some warm water, with a bit of washing up liquid in it for the wetsanding. I then used 600 grit followed by 1200 grit paper, making sure to keep the paper and mirror very wet!

So here is the progress of the wetsanding about halfway through - the paint is fairly obviously matt. After this I used the porter cable, and went through Poorboys SSR3, followed by Megs 83 and 80.

Given the age of the car, the paint was never likely to be in great nick. Its obviously had a paint job on the bottom half - a bad job at that. The side mouldings are covered in overspray, and there were several runs through out it. The bonnet, boot and roof seem to be original though.
So next task was to see if I could do anything with the bonnet. I'm sure you've all seen similar threads - so you'll know whats to follow!
Here is the bonnet before anything is done. The photo doesn't look too bad - but it was extremely dull, and slightly on the pinker side of red.

I'd found that the Megs 83 previously didn't make enough of an impact on the BMW paint, so on advice I'd purchased Poorboys SSR3. The first pass was done with this, on a spotlessly clean white sonus pad.

Needless to say, it seemed to be having an effect as you can see from the pad in the photo above.
I followed this up with the Megs 83, and then the Megs 80. A coat of Poorboys sealant was applied, and this was then finished off with the nattys paste wax. The finished result was fantastic in the flesh anyway


50/50 with the tape on


The car came with pinstripes from new. I sort of like them, although I could live without them. Given the fact that I need a new wing, which has been ordered long with a few other little bits, it meant I was going to be left without pinstripes on the wing. So I decided to remove them all.
The tool I used is called an eraser wheel. You'll pick them up on eBay easily enough.
So here is the erasser wheel attached to the drill:

This will cut through your paint if you're not careful! Car needs to be spotless, and only use the flat edge of the disc. Max revs on the drill is 4000rpm. Take your time and the stripes start to clear:

Make sure to wear a face mask when you're doing this - the wheel sheds a lot of rubber, as you can see from the following pics:
Wheel after:


Gave the car a rinse down afterwards - theres a very distinguishable set of lines on both flanks, which was fully expected. What wasn't expected was the see the pin stripes had been masked up for a previous spray job! Not a huge worry though - gives me a bit more of a challenge :D
Will get up a few more updates when I get the chance!
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