So, would you like to see what I have been working on the past few months?

[Yngvejos]

Nice work! Your car looks great. :)

[Jonathan M3]

Don't know how I missed this thread before. Awesome work, Eric! I'm back in LA working on a levee job in New Orleans for the next year or so, we need to get another meet together sometime!

[Eric Giles]

Don't know how I missed this thread before. Awesome work, Eric! I'm back in LA working on a levee job in New Orleans for the next year or so, we need to get another meet together sometime!

Hey Jonathan-I was wondering what you had been up to lately. Hard to believe its been almost 4 years since our last meet. We definitely need to try to meet up soon!

[Dirtboy]

I just saw this thread too. This is what I'm going through right now with an 89 325i. I hope mine looks as good as yours when I'm done. :pimp:

[TrentW]

Bumping to life this old thread I know, but Eric, I'm finally getting my body and paint work done and looking to order the "is" side skirts also. My question is re the mounting hardware and what I really need or don't need. RealOEM has question marks for the quantity of items 9, 10, and 12. I've also heard that the mounting may not be so straightforward. Any help you can provide is appreciated.



No. Description Supplement Qty From Up To Part Number Price Notes
02 Covering left 1 09/1987 51711947059 $29.88
02 COVERING RIGHT 1 09/1987 51711947060 $29.88
03 Covering left 1 09/1987 51711947063 $124.69
03 COVERING RIGHT 1 09/1987 51711947064 $124.69
04 Sheet metal screw B4,8X19 2 09/1987 51711939302 $2.59
04 Fillister head self-tapping screw ST4,8X19-Z2 2 09/1987 07119907954 $0.25
05 CLAMPING BOLT 2 09/1987 51711933719 $1.94
06 Plastic nut M6 2 09/1987 16131176747 $0.53
07 Clamp 2 09/1987 51711922599 $0.42
08 Plug 2 09/1987 51711927439 $0.58
09 CLAMPING ? 09/1987 51711938940 $1.56
10 Grommet D=9,1 - GRÜN ? 09/1987 51711932996 $0.23
11 RIVET 4 09/1987 51111942789 $0.90
12 Clamp ? 09/1987 51711959929 $0.85
Ads by RealOEM

[Eric Giles]

I know it is usually bad forum etiquette to bump an almost 10 year old thread, but since I started the thread and I have some updates, I think it will be ok this time. How many of you remember this car from 10 years ago?

First of all, I updated the first post in the thread with some pictures of the original build process of this car...all of the original pics were lost during the Imageshack mess from a few years ago, but luckily I found some on an old hard drive. So there are still pics missing, but you can still see the end result.

I owned this car until spring of 2011, and then...I sold it. Why? At the time I was just burned out on E30's and wanted a change. I also was about to get married, so I sold almost all of my toys I had...including an E30 M3 and a E39 M5. I was BMW free for almost 5 years, then got sucked back into it...and by hobby is worse now than it was before...if that is possible.

To try to cut to the chase...fall of 2017, I was contacted by user glasig on Facebook...he was one of the people that owned this car after I sold it. We talked about the car at length and how I missed it, and he had the contact info of the current owner. I decided to give him a call...not really to try to buy it back, but to just check up on it and see how it was holding up. The owner said he was considering selling it, as he was about to get remarried. He just had a rebuilt cylinder head installed by Kadunza in Knoxville, TN and provided a lengthy list of receipts of all the work he had done during his ownership. We talked price, but in the end I just decided against buying it back.

Fast forward 7 months later, and two weeks ago I get a text from the current owner. He is now married and the car had to go. He offered it at a much lower price, and was I interested? Damn right I was. The next weekend me and my friend Ken...the guy that did all of the bodywork 10 years ago...made the 14 hour round trip to bring 'Rommel' back home.




Overall, the respray has held up remarkably well...especially considering it has been thru 5 owners and 50k miles since I sold it. Rommel has 206k miles now, and you would never know it...still as tight and solid as it was 10 years ago. This is the first time I have ever bought back a car that I owned previously...it is a weird feeling, but as soon as I started driving it, it felt like home again.

So the plans are that Ken and I will once again...strip it down for a full respray within the coming year. Although it still looks great, there were some issues with the paint on the hood reacting with the primer, which caused major cracking under the clearcoat. There are also numerous chips and a few scratches, as well as the issues we experienced from having to rush the paint process. This time, we will be able to take our time and do it right all the way to the end.

[mike.bmw]

Cool story! Even cooler that you are continuing the original thread!

[luckybeard]

Awesome car! Love the color, my fav for e30!

[spiDmang]

Gorgeous car and amazing story! sub'd!

[325isman]

Great job

[2mAn]

Finally an appropriate necro bump

[TrentW]

Hey congratulations bud! This is good to hear and I'll be eagerly watching for updates.

[Eric Giles]

When I made my last post to this thread, I never expected it would be 37 months later before I had any sort of updates...but here we are. Essentially, the repaint process did start fall of 2018, but was never completed. Some work was done, but it sat inside the shop for over two and a half years. The body shop was too busy with other work, and then at the end of last year it closed due to issues related to the pandemic. I figured it would likely never be finished. Then in February, me and another good friend took ownership of the collision repair shop and opened it back up, and rehired the employees...one of them being Ken, who originally painted the car and started the process again in 2018. So now I finally have some process updates. We've removed all of the trim again...all glass, body moldings, bumpers, etc. Some final priming has been done and the body has been sanded. We are about to mix 3 quarts of BASF Delphin Gray Metallic paint. I also ordered a gallon setup of Glasurit clear coat. The plan is to paint the body by next week, then take the car to another location so it's out of the way of everything else. Then we will prep the bumpers, valence, etc and paint them. There will be a light wetsanding and polishing done, and finally reassembly will start. I'm still two months or so out from having it back together, but at least the job will be done. Here are a few pics of where we are now. Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

[Codym42]

This is going to be good! The photos back from 2008 look awesome. Was this car ever in Atlanta? I feel like I've seen it before at Caffeine and Octane, way back when they held the event in Alpharetta.

[Eric Giles]

This is going to be good! The photos back from 2008 look awesome. Was this car ever in Atlanta? I feel like I've seen it before at Caffeine and Octane, way back when they held the event in Alpharetta.

It's possible...it seems that the person I bought it back from mentioned Atlanta at some point. He was in Chattanooga, TN so it wouldn't have been too far of a drive for him. How long ago would that have been? Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk