E30 M3 minor rust repair

[xworks]

No, served my time and have worked ever since as a
HGV mechanic. I fix buses for a living. Just love building
cars at home.

[///Mflossin]

Awesome thread! I love this thread for no other reason if only to show just how much work it takes to get and already "fairly straight" car straight. Body work is an art and you have to be talented to do it right. It's not something that you go to school for and all of a sudden you are good. Great stuff xworks....keep it coming!

[Lionel]

The tittle kind of throws you off at first as it says minor rust. Once you open the thread you find your self with one of the most extensive preps, repairs and restoration projects that been documented on S14.

Great job XWorks! Definitely above and beyond a normal restoration.

Cheers!

L.

[jinkly]

AWESOME!!!
welding and bending master, it's great that you can do all that in your own garage.

The "chasis" to turn the cage it's great too. Have you calculate the metal beams thinking on some cage weight?

Regards.

[xworks]

Thanks for the kind words,
not sure what it is your asking, but I'll take a guess.
We didn't do any calculations for what metal to use
for the spit. We're not really calculation type people
We just used some metal we had lying around the garage,
bolted it on and stood back. If it broke, weld in some more
metal, if it didn't, then leave it alone and pretend you knew
exactly what you were doing. Cars been on the spit 4 months
now and it still works fine. Theres a link somewhere in there to a drawing
we done afterwards with measurements in case anybody else
wanted to have a go.
http://www.xworksmotorsport.com/m3%2...%20%282%29.JPG
cheers,
Brian

[jinkly]

Thanks for the kind words,
not sure what it is your asking, but I'll take a guess.
We didn't do any calculations for what metal to use
for the spit. We're not really calculation type people
We just used some metal we had lying around the garage,
bolted it on and stood back. If it broke, weld in some more
metal, if it didn't, then leave it alone and pretend you knew
exactly what you were doing. Cars been on the spit 4 months
now and it still works fine. Theres a link somewhere in there to a drawing
we done afterwards with measurements in case anybody else
wanted to have a go.
http://www.xworksmotorsport.com/m3%2...%20%282%29.JPG
cheers,
Brian

that answered my question, the drawing was perfect.
thanks!

[beemer_rider]

It absolutely amazes me the skill some members of this board possess. It's good to see a restoration done properly, one which the restorer will never recover the cost of his time but done out of the love of doing the job right. Great stuff Brian

Ken

[theplumber]

Beautifull projet and very good work.

I like the tittle: E30 M3 minor rust repair

And thanks for the information about the turn cage

[Ivan Petrov]

One of the Best Projects Ever!

[S14PWR]

Any updates ??? WHY ISNT THIS A STICKY???

[xworks]

Nothing worth posting up just yet. Sanding, sanding and more
bloody sanding. Should have the final prep. work update in
a fortnight as we're hoping she'll be ready for paint then.
This part is fairly frustrating as you just want to see it
in it's new colour, but, if you don't take the time to try and
get it all perfect before paint then there's no one to blame
but yourself if it's not perfect afterwards. Gotta keep telling
yourself it'll be worth it in the end.
If your looking for something to pass the time this is the last
car we built, not an M I'm afraid but it is an e30, albeit with
an Italian engine....
http://www.e30owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2435

[diln]

lookn good keep it up u nearly ther mate if u were little closer i would come n give u hand

[xworks]

cheers mate, i appreciate the thought

[xworks]

Evenin all,
Theres been a little bit of a gap since the last update,
reason being the budget had started to run low for this project so I
decided I would win the national lottery, for some reason I can't yet
fathom I haven't been contacted by the Lottery people to arrange
how much I'd like to win. Still I'm sure it's only a matter of time.
The next plan to rob a bank has come to no end as it would appear
the banks have even less money than I do, bad timing, I know.
So after a month working the spanners for other people I could
now return to my own project. Where more sanding awaited.
With the exterior of the shell wrapped up last time it was now on
to the individual panels. First up, the doors....



looks nice and flat doesn't it, and in fairness it actually felt reasonably
flat aswell, but we all know a car doesn't make to through 20 years
without getting the few odd belts of the supermarket trolley, so, a
coat of guide coat....



and some 320 grit on the sanding block....



and volla, instant dents, I can also make rabbits appear from hats
but they too would probably be dented or missing an ear or something...



dents weren't actually too bad, these group of 3 below the crease line
being the most noticeable...



while those above the line couldn't really be called dents, more depressions
really, what you might get as a result of a fat kamikaze bumble bee ...



so a little filler to all and let it dry while moving on to the next door....



which also looked pretty smooth....



apart from 2 quite obvious high spots at the base of the door skin...



a little hard to see in the picture I know, but you could feel them
fairly obvious when you rub your hand over the panel, and after
guide coating and sanding the panel down you can see where the
high spots has rubbed through to the bare metal....



the high spots would need to be taken down level with the rest of the
skin and to do this we break out a hammer and dolly...



place the dolly under the high spot....



and then beat the sh*t out of the raised section, well actually no,
if your like me you have to use all your self restraint and ever so
gently tap the metal down....



when done another little coat of guide coat just to confirm that the
raised spots have gone down enough....



and thankfully they have....



a talented panel beater could get that section flat enough that no filler
would be needed and someday I hope to be able to..... hire one to
do it for me.
So, all the dents identified....



shovel on the filler...



sand most of it back off again and take a little step closer to
insanity in the process...



when that was done, flip the door over and sand every inch to
complete the task of going insane...

with the doors done it was on to the bootlid, as you can see it's
still in the original colour because M3 bootlids are made from GRP
and dipping it in a vat of acid would have resulted in an expensive
pool of gue. So, a quick lick of 320 to break the lacquer...



and then a guide coat, white guide coat this time as the mensa members
among you will have guessed black guide coat on a black panel
would be as useful an under water hairdryer....



had to take a minute to admire the quality of the panel when sanded,
no filler needed in a 20 year old fibreglass moulded panel. Thats
pretty neat...





then as you may have noticed from the picture above it was on to the
after market spoiler i'd bought to replace the original. It's a fiberglass
replica of the sport evolution item with the adjustable flap. I had
considered buying the genuine item from BMW right up till I phoned them
for the price, after the cardiopulmonary resuscitation I started searching
for a cheaper alternative. The item was sold as a race quality part and having
done some work on fiberglass parts before I knew it would probably
take some work to get totally flat, but given the price difference it was
worth the extra effort.
First up some guide coat to the main flap....



well maybe quite a bit of work....



was a bit awkward to hold the spoiler for sanding so ended up bolting
it to the bootlid backwards and forwards to get at it all. It only
needed some filler here....



and here...



and here....



tiny bit here....



here...



and here...



and there....



like I said just a little bit of extra effort and a weeks sanding.



next up was the flap that bolts on to the wing using these bolt holes
underneath.....



the fibreglass spoiler did come with a fibreglass flap as seen in
the pic below, but, I'd also bough a carbon fibre flap to replace
this with.....




only snag being that while the fibre glass flap was predrilled with
the correct spacing holes....



the carbon fibre one wasn't drilled at all....



so how to transfer the holes to the new flap and get them in the
right place without making a balls of it? Sheet of paper the size
of the flap taped to the spoiler, punch the holes in it and...



place a few bits of double sided tape on top of the paper...



place the new flap down on top of the spoiler and hope the paper
sticks to the new spoiler showing you where to drill the holes.
I know, I can't believe it worked either...

[xworks]

tape up the marks for drilling....



and bolt it up with the new bolts....





to be honest the new bolts that came with the carbon flap were handy,
instead of needing the flap to be drilled precisely for the countersunk
heads, these came with a nice little cupped washer which meant you
could elongate the holes underneath to get everything lined up right....



and thats about all for tonight, still have another 80 or so pics
and verbal diorea that comes with them for tomorrow night, but
right now I'm off to get very very drunk. Tomorrows update
will most probably have a lot more spelling mistakes.