JackBenny's 1991 318is Project

[TrentW]

Great job. Glad to hear the stone shell encasing your heart is finally crumbling. ;)

[jackbenny]

So contrary to popular belief I am still quite alive. And I really can't blame the little guy for my lack of progress either. I've been on business travel for 3 weeks of August and it kinda made it difficult to work on the car. The most recent trip was in Irvine and while I was hoping to make it to cars and coffee, my supplier didn't have his act together so we came home early. Saw a few e30s out there though and we hit the K1 Karting Center for a little racing. Right now I'm visiting my wife's family in Tampa. Yes that flight did suck for those of you wondering not just because the SNA to Houston didn't have any entertainment but the Houston to Tampa had to fly over that ridiculous tropical storm as well. Luckily, I had my camera with me and it happened to have some pictures of progress.

Those who have been following along know that I haven't been very satisfied with how things have been going regarding the polishing of the paint. Am I being anal? Yeah, probably but a lot of time was spent making my boxy bavarian iron straight that I wanted it to look awesome. The pictures I've posted look pretty good, but when you get close, you can see fine sanding scratches. A while back I posted what I would have done differently and it kept nagging at me. It was always going to bother me if I didn't try and correct it so I took the financial hit and got the right stuff. It breaks down as follows:

PorterCable 7424 sanded/polisher
This is the tool most people use. It's been around for a long time, has variable speed and good support. I still haven't figured out why I didn't start with this in the beginning.

Mequires Unigrit Sanding/Polishing Pads - 1500 grit and 3000 grit
Hand sanding sucks. it was frustrating for me and left tons of scratches that I could never polish out. These polishing pads come in 3 inch and 6 inch diameters and are used with a technique called damp sanding. It's a lot like wet sanding but with less water...duh. Your really just mist the surface and the pad and start sanding.

I stuck with my existing mequires system mainly because I had invested a good deal into it but the procedure would change up a bit.

First things first, a little reassembly.



Sunroof back on the car though it needs a little adjustment. The interior of the car is finally sealed again and should cut down on the dust and crap in the air. Still quite a bit to clean on the inside though.





The pictures don't really show it but when we repaired the trunk lid, the clear didn't blend with the existing clear. With the trunk lid sanded, you really can't tell but with it polished, there is this wavy line that is very pronounced.



I have decided to repaint the lid (and passenger front fender) and respray the clear. Let's do this right, you know. Since it was going to be redone, it would be a good place to try out the new technique.









The Porter Cable sanded the lid with both the 1500 and 3000 grit. After it was all cleaned, the polishing began. The same materials were used as before. Mequires 101 and 201 heavy and fine cut polishes with the same rotary polisher. The heavy cut used a wool pad and a slightly higher speed than I was working with (1500 rpm) and I used a yellow pad with the 201 at around 1200 - 1500 rpm.

I couldn't see the scratches anymore so I was ready to try something...larger.

Here I have the PorterCable set up with a 6 inch disc, a foam pad and the 1500 grit finish pad.



The sanding was straightforward. I wasn't trying to take off that much material but I did want the paint to be flatter. The e30 panels are so flat that distortion is very pronounced if the paint surface isn't flat and you are looking at the reflections.





My use of the 1500 grit was short and limited. It is EXTREMELY important to clean these pads when you are finished with them. They are very expensive. A 1500 grit should last the entire car and you might need 2 3000 grit to finish it out.

Here, the only difference is the switch to the 3000 grit pad.





Here, I started to use the 101 and wool pad with the rotary polisher. I read that I needed to work with a higher speed. After the front fender incident, I was gun shy but my comfort level was getting better now.







The scratches were almost entirely gone and the stone shell encasing my heart finally started to crumble. I had to catch a plane early the next morning so I wanted to see what the 201 and yellow pad would do.









I was pleased at this point.

There is still some polishing and sealing and what not but it now appears i've got the right combination of steps. I know the progress is slow but with fall approaching and my travel for the year ramping down, I should get more time in the garage. The gap between this post and my last post is just deplorable.

I'll start finishing the car again this coming weekend. Til then...

[Mtriple]

I'm beginning to think this project is going to take longer than SuperDuper's! Lets hope that's not the case. ;)

Haha, I wouldnt worry about that. Your car has a motor in it and runs! :)

[Mr. Tasty]

buffing can be a pita...dont you just love where the compound goes...

It all depends on the product. I have been using the Pinnacle's brother products (can't remember the name). Doesn't cake up or anything.

[Mr. Tasty]

just read all 46 pages. Crazy stuff Man. Good job

[theryp]

congrats on your child's first birthday! :-D

[jackbenny]

How goes the struggle? I just re-read the last few pages because I'm at the point where I'm ready to get my fresh zinno paint wet-sanded/buffed and wanted to come back and get some pointers. Like you, I have other responsibilities (I'm also restoring a 1918 Chicago bungalow) and therefore up until a few days ago, it's been 7 months since I've even started my car, but really, doing a total respray on an E30 ends up being a LOT more work than initially realized--at least if you're into the details. Once you get the car painted, you want everything else to look as good as the fresh, shiny paint.

I've decided that I'm gonna have a body shop get the finish looking smooth and took the car to a local shop that does some custom hot rod work as well as the obligatory insurance jobs. Unlike yourself, I just can't bring myself to bring even 2000 grit paper in contact with the the new paint. Anyway, the owner told me that wet-sanding is practically old school, as it removes too much clearcoat in the process. They do a dry sanding with a DA sander, as it supposedly gives a glossier finish. Do you have an opinion on this method?

Hindsight is always 20/20 but recent developments have brought it closer to 20/15 or 20/10. If I were to do the paint job over again, I think I would have someone else do it. Mistakes and frustration aside, the quality would still be there without the duress.

If I were to do it myself again, I would change my tools. I would employ a DA sander with 3M or Mequires pads and "damp sand" Not really wet but not completely dry. This would be so much faster and eliminate some of the problems experienced with hand sanding. The biggest problem I have with the hand sanding is that it doesn't take much to put scratches in the clear and ruin your previous work. I have several of these scratches on the car though you'd be hard pressed to find them. Eventually I will address them.

I would also opt out of the large rotary buffer and go for a smaller one with a 3 to 4 inch pad. Yea it will take longer to do the bigger panels but the control is so much easier, especially in complex areas like the fenders or pillars. I also think that the 3m products I used performed slightly better than the mequires. That's not to say the mequires was bad, it just required a bit more effort for similar effects.

These are just my opinions though, I'm sure improvements to my technique might change my insight.

The car is mostly polished now. I have the trunk lid and the pillars left to sand and polish. I messed up the front passenger fender again so I will just pull it off and respray it. I have the sunroof back on the car so hopefully it will cut down on the dust. I intend on finishing the remainder of the car this weekend but the kid is having his 1st birthday party so I will have to be efficient in the use of my time.

I'm beginning to think this project is going to take longer than SuperDuper's! Lets hope that's not the case. ;)

[TrentW]

How goes the struggle? I just re-read the last few pages because I'm at the point where I'm ready to get my fresh zinno paint wet-sanded/buffed and wanted to come back and get some pointers. Like you, I have other responsibilities (I'm also restoring a 1918 Chicago bungalow) and therefore up until a few days ago, it's been 7 months since I've even started my car, but really, doing a total respray on an E30 ends up being a LOT more work than initially realized--at least if you're into the details. Once you get the car painted, you want everything else to look as good as the fresh, shiny paint.

I've decided that I'm gonna have a body shop get the finish looking smooth and took the car to a local shop that does some custom hot rod work as well as the obligatory insurance jobs. Unlike yourself, I just can't bring myself to bring even 2000 grit paper in contact with the the new paint. Anyway, the owner told me that wet-sanding is practically old school, as it removes too much clearcoat in the process. They do a dry sanding with a DA sander, as it supposedly gives a glossier finish. Do you have an opinion on this method?

[jackbenny]

buffing can be a pita...dont you just love where the compound goes...

Ugh, I have little specs of that crap EVERYWHERE!!!

Good god you are a madman.

I wish Danny. Progress is moving so slow. I really want to get it finished and drive it regularly.

[Danny]

Good god you are a madman.

[e30s50dan]

buffing can be a pita...dont you just love where the compound goes...

[jackbenny]

hai gais, I haz updates!

Life continues to impede progress on the e30. Coupled with the southern heat making the garage anywhere from 100 to 120 degrees F, I haven't been spending much time in the garage. Luckily, I got a portable A/C and while it isn't as cold as the inside of the house, it certainly makes the garage more comfortable to work in.

I continued to experiment with the pads, polishes and sanding. I upped the grit to 2500 and this helped with the scratches. I also got some Mequire's 105 and 205 compound and polish. The initial test was fairly successful.



The initial results were promising so I decided to work the entire driver's side with this technique.


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I wanted more practice with the rotary buffer before I started though, so I took the sunroof panel off and brought it to the bench to work on. You might remember I initially sanded it with 1500 grit paper. As a result there was a great effort required to get the panel flat and remove the damage.


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There are still flaws though. Admittedly I am looking at the surface with florescent light but any further sanding puts the clear coat thickness at risk so I'll have to learn to live with it.

I brought the panel into the house for protection and decided to implement the same procedure on the side of the car. I started on the rear quarter.


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There is still a bit of waviness but given the circumstances, I'm satisfied with the flatness.


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Blue tape was applied to the body line for protection and to keep things straight while sanding with 2500 grit.


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Rear quarter completed.


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Even though I had already polished the front fender, it wasn't flat enough compared to the rest of that side. That and my previous technique wasn't yielding the same results, so I started sanding the fender again with the same 2500 grit and polishing as on the rear quarter.


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much better. Here the upper portion is polished and the lower portion is sanded.


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and here is the panel finished. You can see the difference compared to a sanded panel just looking at the driver's door.


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Sure do have a lot of pictures of the lights and workbench. Actually it was nice to have something standard to judge how I was doing.


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The problem is when you work this close to the paint, you get to see and know and remember each individual flaw. When everything is polished up, it just makes them more obvious. Regardless, I am pleased with the results.


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Now I needed to work the driver's door. This situation was unique because I had not touched the door at all, I started sanding with 2500 grit right off the bat. Note the cheap box fan used to generate near tornadic winds in my work area.


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Lights continue to make their appearance...


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and we are left with a polished driver's side of the car.


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I still need to work the paint under the door protection strip but I'm pretty pleased. I'm going to try and get the roof finished before this weekend as well as Dad is coming to visit and we are going to repair the two screwups I made in the paint.

Til then....

[Ant_e30]

great work mate, enjoy the attention to detail. also as awful as it sounds its refreshing to see that even the best of us who build brilliant cars and have access to tools/others with greater knowledge etc still have issues. But its inspiring to see you press forward. I always seem to hit major snags and ask myself if others have this sh*t or is it just my luck haha

looking forward to seeing it all fall in to place :D

[thowes24]

WOW! I just read through all 45 pages. Your attention to detail is amazing! I can't wait to see it finished!

[Massimo]

Man it has been a long time can't wait to see her finished!