Rusty's Build Thread [250+ photos]

[M.Burroughs]

October 20, 2008

So Louise and I yapped back and forth, talking about what was next, and I went out and shot the feature.









And while it's not a mag shot, I'm including an ever-elusive interior photo...



So those familiar with getting your car in a magazine, you know there's a serious wait.

So I waited.

I shot some photos of the car for a class project on Ilford Film. The teacher thought it was weak.











And some others:










December 4, 2008

Still waiting for the magazine, I decided to put the hood up, and swap the old one back on.
I also bought some snazzy rimzziz







I rocked 'em for about a week, then swapped the HREs back on:








It was far from perfect, but that was probably the car's prime.





And then my world changed.

[M.Burroughs]

September 18, 2008

Next on the "How to make a VW" list was a roof rack.

I started by buying Austin's Yakima roof rack.



I bought two oak dowels for the cross bars and several planks of poplar for the slats, and stained them with a "cherry" stain of some sort... I forget what it was.







September 19, 2008

Now, in between rusting my hood and making a roof rack, I had spotted a set of wheels.... Wheels I regret selling to this very day.

17x9.5 et -6 and 17x10.5 et +5 HRE 504s...

A buddy of mine in Atlanta had them and was willing to split with them... so I snagged 'em, and paid more for them than any set of wheels I had at that point (which, looking back, wasn't very many). $1800.

Roof fitment:


Front fitment...


Rear fitment....



Hella lip:



Those who I had asked told me it would be impossible to fit 'em.. but man, I was stoked.

So I put 'em on, with 215/40s up front a 225/45s out back. It was my first step into the stance game, to be honest.

I spun those coilovers on down...





September 27, 2008

September 27, 2008 was the day that "Rusty", although not his name at the time, made his initial debut. I'd like to think it was the day the BMW game changed a little bit. We put a dent in the fresh paint finish known as Bimmerforums, going against the grain and bringing some VW flair into the BMW world. I'm sure I wasn't the first to do it, just the first to be public about it.















In retrospect, it was nothing fantastic. I guess I was just the first to hop in with it, and perhaps the first to execute the look "right" although I'm sure that's debatable.

It was an important day for me for another reason as well. Aside from "trying something new" and doing what I wanted for myself, I got my first magazine feature offer...

Louise at Performance BMW Magazine emailed me, saying:

Hi Michael,

I hope you're well. I saw your thread on VW Vortex and I'm very interested in featuring your car, if you could get back to me it would be really appreciated.

Regards,

Louise Woodhams
Editor
PBMW

To say I shat myself is an understatement. I had always dreamed of such a thing, but for my E36. If you had told me what I was doing would lead to this, I'd have laughed in your face. Honest to God. I had no idea such things would happen....

[M.Burroughs]

So browsing the depths of the internet, I came across this car....



I've always been a rat-rod guy, and loved the way he tied old and new together. I had bought a silver parts car quite some time back, and it's hood was already quite rusty...

[I'll find a pic for this later...]

So I decided I'd do something similar.

September 9, 2008

I posted photos online claiming this would be the last time anyone saw the car looking anything like this...



A week or so prior, I made a game plan. I had a parts car at the time with terrible paint on the hood, and the hood had already started rusting in the middle of it... I tried grinding the metal off and letting it sit in the rain. It did this, which I was unhappy with:



So I spent several days trying to come up with a "rusting solution".

September 13, 2009

I had finally concocted what I thought was the ultimate rusting solution. I gave it a whirl, and the results I could not have been more happy with.



I wanted to run a colored valence since I really liked the way this mk1 pulled it off:


So I tried this:


I wanted something more maroon, as it came out a bit too purple... so I did the next best thing and went for olive drab.





So I had the rusty hood game on lock down. I hadn't shown the car to anyone yet though.

It was time to get trendy....

[M.Burroughs]

This is Rusty's build thread. There's a lot missing, and in due time, I'll fill in the blanks.

December 16, 2007

It's the night I got the car. I traded an e30 I owned at the time for it- an '89 325i. I traveled to South Carolina to get the car, which was a 26-hour round trip drive, everything said and done. We went through snow on the way home, which sucked, and it broke down about 20 miles from home... Off to a good start.

But I got it home, fixed the spark plug that came out, and took a photo.


Of course, the first thing I did was put the type A's I had at the time on it.



January 5, 2008
By this point I had sorted out the kinks and cleaned the car up. Mandatory euro plate was put on and nicer pictures were taken.






May 18, 2008
I didn't do much to the car for several months. Hell, I didn't do anything to it. I spent most of the time playing with my white E28 I owned at the time.
Come may, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making an exhaust.
It was done horribly, but hey, it sounded really good.





July 25, 2008
I made a special order with Ground Control. I ordered a custom coilover setup. They had done a few before, but no one had called asking to "set the car on the ground". Well, I guess that still wasn't clear, because that obviously didn't happen, but it sure did go low. Lower than any other E28 I had seen, that's for sure.


I took my front struts off to have the housings shortened. I took 'em to treehouse to have 'em welded but Jon advised against shortening them... so we didn't.


Installing the coilovers sucked ample phallus. The spindle nut on the driver's side refused to move. Of course, I wanted everything done in time for Import Alliance that year, so I made things hard on myself. We stayed up all night trying to get the nut off, and resorted to renting a 1" electric impact hammer. Busted it off, got the coils on, and finally brought the car down to earth.







I also put the bumper on the car.

So I putted around for a while, rocking the look. I knew I needed spacers but never did much with it.