JackBenny's 1991 318is Project

[silence]

Looks great, but be careful with the red marker, it could bleed through on your final coat...

[bejbis]

wow, the door pin sucks.

On a side note, I do know where an original e30 mtech wing is still new in the BMW box about a half hour drive from your house is. :)

Hint: He is at every bmw club meeting. But getting him to sell it will take an act of god. :P

[millsamus]

"Throw it on the Ground" lol

Nice build. Keep it up! Why the window switches on the HVAC panel?

[jackbenny]

hai gais. It's been a while. I haven't had much time to post but I have been "doing work" as the kids say. Was out in Irvine for a couple of weeks for work (cars and coffee was pretty cool) and upon my return, the flu took me out for another week. I did however work on the car since the last post.

So Blunt sent me some door replacement pins. To date, I have only done the passenger door (the one that sheared). Brute force was required to remove the remains of the broken pin and swinging a hammer so close to the car just doesn't bring much comfort with it.



Here you can see where the pin sheared. No wonder the door slipped off.



Installation was pretty straightforward. Lots of paint needs touching up but the door is hung again and closes like it use to. The driver's door is on the to-do list but in the meantime, I concentrated on the rear wing.



My displeasure with this wing I'm sure is well known. However, if I am going to be forced to rework it, I might as well add a few touches to make it slightly custom, at least to my eye. I'm using the insert so that I can have a nice consistent gap with the wing while using the filler.



The results were pretty good. From there, I decided to put a sharp edge on the trailing edge of the wing instead of a radius.

After that, prime/sand/prime/sand....







Still have work to do.







Starting to look better. Still working on sharpening that trailing edge.









The underside of the spoiler was radiused. I fashioned a sanding block with the radius I wanted and used it to get a consistent fillet along the back.



On the whole, the wing was fitting much better. Not at all perfect but at this point, I really just wanted it finished.



The body colored insert was fitted next.





The inserts managed to pull right out when I tightened them down. I foresee some 3M trim tape in the future.

Wet sanding with 400 grit...









Got it pretty flat.











Now it's time to cover this bish in some SEM black.













Took about 3 to 4 coats to get the coverage I was satisfied with. THere are still some flaws and maybe one day, I'll fix them but for now, I called this good. And yes the car did move outside under its own power.

As it was covered in dust, I decided to give it a quick wash before I started sanding on the trunk prior to polishing it.





Note that the ride height has settled a bit. I can no longer fit the jack under the rails in the front. I have to jack the back until I can fit a piece of wood under the frame rails so I have room to fit jack. Insert quip about low being a lifestyle or something else containing illest.



I know I've complained about the paint still not being what I want but there really are some indications of how flat we got the body panels on this car. Yeah boxy shapes!!!



And so begins the tedious procedure of sanding and polishing the repainted trunk lid.



I taped up as much as I could to minimize the damage.



and I started with a test spot that would be covered by the wing.



I've actually knocked down the orange peel quite a bit in this picture but I would later this paint was effin' hard. Lots of sanding and polishing discs gave their lives so that this panel could reflect a sharp image.





At this point I was thoroughly annoyed and decided to get a bit more aggressive with the sanding.







Not perfect but I could live with it. Let's get rid of the scratches...



and rebadge it...





not bad. There is still a ridiculous gap between the wing insert and the trunk lid. I sealed it up with the same stuff I used on the skirts. It needs to be cleaned up but it appears to have worked.



I also wanted to plug the antenna hole. After scrounging around at Lowes, I found this.







Perfect fit. I sealed it from inside the trunk and it works like a champ.

I decided to take the car on a shakedown run to see if there were any problems. ABS still doesn't work. The back tires rub pretty good on hard compression. It still sounds like I have an exhaust leak but I can't find it. The headers are touching the subframe so that may be the noise I hear. I may reconsider using the OBD2 pipes for more clearance. I have an air meter code thrown as well so I'm going to check for vacuum leaks. But 100+ miles and it moves quite nicely.



But time is something I don't seem to have much of and there is still more that I want to do to the car. I am giving serious thought now to selling the e21, the M42 and its goodies (including the ITBs) and just focus on the e30. what say you?

[325ix]

Hmm, it looks awesome but, the e21 would be pretty cool all finished up. I say if you are considering do it, then just go for it.

[MR E30 325is]

Your work ethic and attention to detail is incredible.

Excellent work with the E30. If you are contemplating letting the E21 go, it might be time for it to go. I don't think you will ever be 'done' with the E30, so it is going to take lots of your time in the future. It might be better to slim it down to just one project car in the long run.

[mtlbloodshot]

Do you know if the E30 half shafts are shorter than the Z3M half shafts? I removed my output flanges from my 4.10 and put them into the Z3M diff but they stick out more than the stock Z3M diff flanges. Did you have the same situation?

[dude8383]

But time is something I don't seem to have much of and there is still more that I want to do to the car. I am giving serious thought now to selling the e21, the M42 and its goodies (including the ITBs) and just focus on the e30. what say you?

More details on those ITB's. Willing to sell separately?

[silence]

Do you know if the E30 half shafts are shorter than the Z3M half shafts? I removed my output flanges from my 4.10 and put them into the Z3M diff but they stick out more than the stock Z3M diff flanges. Did you have the same situation?

I believe you need to use the output flanges from a Medium case diff.

[mtlbloodshot]

I believe you need to use the output flanges from a Medium case diff.

Well I too have a 318is 91 and those came with a small case 4.10 if I'm not mistaken and in this thread, he states that he simply swapped the flanges

[stonea]

WOW, I just read this whole thing. All I can say is WOW!!!

[BenM]

Your attention to detail is amazing man. Keep up the good work, car looks fantastic as always!

[mtlbloodshot]

Anyone know what engine harness he used?

[Massimo]

Updates?

[jackbenny]

Updates?

Per Massimo's request...

Hi R3V, it's been awhile.

2013 thus far has turned into quite a shitty year. It began with getting a phone call that my father-in-law had been struck by a vehicle while training for a cycle race. DFW folks may remember the news reporting it back in late January up by Denton (Corinth actually). It was late when we got the news and drove halfway through the night before stopping, grabbing a few hours and then driving on. During the trip, he was declared clinically brain dead but was kept alive on machines until our arrival. I was in the room when they unplugged the machines. I do not wish that experience on my worst enemy (who will be revealed later in this story). Needless to say, my wife lost her father and I lost a great friend.

Shortly after, we returned to Alabama where I had a job interview for a management position on the senior leadership team. I had missed the interview due to the stuff going on in Texas but they reserved the spot for me upon my return. In the end, it was down to me and another person and I didn't get it. While disappointed, i was kinda glad I didn't get it. It enables me to continue building my team (from scratch) into the well oiled machine it is today.

Unfortunately, my fil was engaged to be married and his fiance decided to sue my wife, who was named executor of the estate on the grounds of texas common law marriage. The details are not important but my wife was crushed and prevented her from grieving. The case was settled in early July but it's been a rough 6 months emotionally and financially.

As a result, progress has been limited. You'll remember that I drove the car to work and had a CEL so the car was placed on jack stands for diagnosis. Sadly, it's still on jack stands but some improvements have been made.

I decided to clean up the engine bay a bit and the first place to start was the ballasts for the HIDs. I didn't receive any brackets when I purchased them and I wanted to put them out of the way but protected. The best place I thought was to place them between the inner and outer fenders. Laziness on my part (as well as fear of damaging more paint) forced to come up with some creative ideas for mounting the ballasts.

In aerospace, we use a lot of glue. THere is a fastener called a Clik-bond that can be glued to a surface instead of riveted. They make a stud which I thought would be perfect for the situation.



I got mine at Aircraft Spruce. As you can see, it comes with a fixture. The plastic fixture has double stick tape that holds it in place. You press down on the stud and it holds it the exact position it needs to be in while the glue dries. So long as the surface is prepped correctly, it's stout as hell.



I used the brackets themselves to position the studs on the inner fender.



First one mounted. The bracket has some small rubber grommets for isolation.



and the second. The staggering was necessary to clear the splash guard of the inner fender.





I'm hoping that the ballasts will be relatively protected in this position.

Because of the limited time (and funds) I jumped around from project to project. I decided to finish the alcantara wrapping of the interior starting with the B-pillar trim on the door as well as the mirror corners.





They came out pretty decent.





The big job was the forward panel at the ceiling. I'll spare you the first iteration but it went poorly. I pulled everything off and started over. The material can stretch with some heat but this is not a job I want to do ever again.







The sunroof panel required the same treatment but thankfully, kevin chinn used some more flexible vinyl to help me wrap it around the support braces.







Binder clips are your friends...





and installed. The whole thing is not perfect but I am learning new techniques for future projects.



It should come as no surprise that all the adjusters on my headlights were rusted solid. I needed to aim the headlights as they are shooting light every which way so I called Blunt and asked for new adjusters. I first disassembled and LABELED each assembly.





nasty





New parts...



Remember to label so things make sense when you work on it 3 months later...







and reinstalled...







and cleaned up a bit...



While messing with the ballasts and the lights, I loosened the bumper which eventually fell off and tore the connectors of the driver's side turn signal. Annoyed, I decided to fix it with new parts and replace all of my crumbling plugs.





With the bumper back on and a quick check to make sure the lights worked, I moved on to the interior. Since I am not running a center console I needed to come up with an idea to marry the dash to the transmission hump.







The idea will be to make this a modular gauge mount for future expansion.

Finally decided to clearance the front subframe so I can remove the engine mount spacers and have some breathing room under the headers. In order to do that, I needed a new toy.





Hasn't been used in anger yet but I got subframe reinforcements and plan to make it look pretty again.

Most of my time has been working on finishing the interior. The remainder of the heat protection/sound deadening has been installed.



And since I need carpet, I started laying out some patterns. Here you can see it with the in work rear seat delete.



So progress has been made in my absence. The carpet situation has me a tad overwhelmed but I've done everything else, gotta try it too. I'm hoping to have the car back on the road this fall...with air conditioning. That will be detailed in another update.

Thanks