JackBenny's 1991 318is Project

[jackbenny]

that is nice.
how long till you are completely done with the e30?

Sadly, the goal for completion was for this year's Vintage but you can see how badly I failed with that. For now it will be this summer as I want to start on the E21.

I have been doing some sanding and polishing in the meantime. I'll try and get some pictures up later today.

[DuMa]

amazing thread. bump for more updates plz!

[Oleg P]

that is nice.
how long till you are completely done with the e30?

[Simon S]

Jesus Christ.
That body work is coming out nice.
Jesus Christ.

[jackbenny]

If you need to thin your brake pads , flat rough concrete like a driveway or sidewalk works very well. Just rub them face down (obviously) til they are the thickness you want. I usually then give them a few passes over some 80 grit on a flat surface to give them a little finer finish before install.

This is definitely an option but I want to take a closer look at the calipers and see if I was just a dumbass when I rebuilt them.

I will try and get an update sometime this week. There is much dust in the garage from sanding. Sanding. I'm really beginning to hate sanding.

[LJ851]

If you need to thin your brake pads , flat rough concrete like a driveway or sidewalk works very well. Just rub them face down (obviously) til they are the thickness you want. I usually then give them a few passes over some 80 grit on a flat surface to give them a little finer finish before install.

[PGAero]

Seriously, looking good.

Talk about doing it right...

Thanks for the great thread.

~P

[drutt23]

Brake pedal feel is awfully subjective and I really haven't driven the car enough to give a good opinion on it. The Hawk pads in the rear are too thick and grab the rotor when hot. I think when I get that fixed, I'll have a better idea. To be quite honest, it's been so long since i drove the car stock, I'm not sure I remember what stock feels like! I like the feel so far but the pads haven't really been broken in. I would not purchase the booster from Treehouse though. I do like treehouse and their eyeball control arm mounts but I was disappointed in the booster. For what it costs, it should have come with a brand new booster and it sure didn't look like one.

And lest anyone thinks I've been slacking...

Another weekend, another panel...

Hmmm...that's a bummer about the booster. Rather disappointing considering it costs $400. Glad to know before I buy it though! Thanks!

And the paint is lookin good man! That gloss is lookin awesome!! :up:

[jackbenny]

Quick question for you....how do you like the modified booster from Treehouse racing???? Is the performance of it fairly stock or is it stiffer??

Brake pedal feel is awfully subjective and I really haven't driven the car enough to give a good opinion on it. The Hawk pads in the rear are too thick and grab the rotor when hot. I think when I get that fixed, I'll have a better idea. To be quite honest, it's been so long since i drove the car stock, I'm not sure I remember what stock feels like! I like the feel so far but the pads haven't really been broken in. I would not purchase the booster from Treehouse though. I do like treehouse and their eyeball control arm mounts but I was disappointed in the booster. For what it costs, it should have come with a brand new booster and it sure didn't look like one.

And lest anyone thinks I've been slacking...

Another weekend, another panel...

[drutt23]

Quick question for you....how do you like the modified booster from Treehouse racing???? Is the performance of it fairly stock or is it stiffer??

[sandlock]

Trial and error develops skill if you're smart enough to learn from the mistakes. Good luck with the rest of the panels; you're a bolder man than I with that 2000 grit in hand ha. Your tail light polishing technique is a winner.

[jackbenny]

I began work on fixing the swirls that were still present on the driver's side fender.

I wasn't going to use the large polisher because of what happened on the passenger fender. The first time I did the driver's fender, I used a 3 inch pad on the end of my cordless drill. Why? It was cordless and had pretty good speed control so I could refine my technique. The downside? It ate through the batteries like crazy. Rather than beat up my good cordless drill, I picked up a corded drill that had a fairly low RPM max speed. This allowed me to get the paint hot consistently and go from this:



to this:



Now that I had a technique that I was comfortable with, I finished up the panel.





It's not perfect, though I think I put too high expectations for my capability. Let's face it, I'm not painting and buffing a riddler award winning car here and I'm doing this in the harshest light possible. In the sun, it should look quite nice.

All these panels thus far have been tackled more than once. I now needed to try and get a sanded panel to a state I was satisfied with all at once. I nominated the passenger door and since it gave now objection, the preparation began in earnest.



I started off with a combination of a pretty rough 3M pad and then used my orange pad with a medium cut. My first pass at the top of the door, seemed to yield satisfactory results.



Here the top is polished with step one while the rest of the door is still wet sanded with 2000 grit.



The reflection is pretty straight but still hazy. I would go through a fine cut cleaner, swirl remover, and machine glaze before waxing.





Not the greatest picture but you get the point. This is fully polished without wax. There is some waviness but further sanding would have made the clear coat much too thin.

I decided I needed a break from the car so I polished the tail lights and the C-Pillar trim.



I had started sanding the lamp housings a while back and thought it would be a good time to finish it off.

The process was the same but instead of using the drill, I used my drill press and moved the part instead of vice versa. It made a mess, but I was pleased with the results.



Things have gotten a bit ... messy.

I decided to install one to see how it looked.





This made me feel good. These were some pretty ragged lenses and I think they turned out much better than I thought they would. To be honest, I didn't think this experiment would work and I would have to source some new ones. Lucky me.

I still have the c-pillar trim to put back together and it's been quite uncooperative thus far. I'll start the passenger rear quarter next but that may not happen until this weekend.

[jackbenny]

Please post pictures of a good outcome...

Im about to roll my car out of the garage for the first time and commence wet sanding/polishing the new paint...which was also done not in a booth...

*cringe...

I have some pictures from this weekend that i'll try and upload tonight. The weekend was met with moderate success.

[Chrisv006]

Please post pictures of a good outcome...

Im about to roll my car out of the garage for the first time and commence wet sanding/polishing the new paint...which was also done not in a booth...

*cringe...

[jackbenny]

Looking good. Let me know if you need a ps delete to fix your puddling issue ;)

NEVER!!! j/k Ok that's option B and I have considered it. but i do like my power steering. :D