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I thought I would start documenting my project here. I am new to this site, not to cars. I have to admit I am not big into the whole form>function thing, because personally going fast is a priority, but I love how active this is website and there is a lot of people with serious skills on here and I can respect that. Plus it's fun stuff to look at. I've been following heist's and chowder's amazing builds so I figured I might as well post my own.
Anyways, here it goes.
Jason/23/Bellevue, WA
I love BMW's
Had lots of E30's, and an E36
Done plenty of motor swaps, mechanical shit etc...
Now (well as of November) I have a 2002...
Plans: paint, fix rust, coilovers, turbo flares, turbo air dam, turbo spoiler, 15x8 somethings, cage, high comp m10, sidedrafts, yada yada
College student, on a budget, never done bodywork or welding before...
Harbor Freight build
The car has been sitting for like 12 years. Towed her home and took the trim and stuff off, seats out.
As you can see the paint is destroyed so I'm going to take care of that first, also the hood and trunk are rusted through.
Rat homes and a couple dead rats, and a couple rust holes you can't see.
Spare tire area rusted through
Stripped her down to bare metal (never do this). Burned out 3 Harbor freight grinders and went through tons of 80 grit sanding discs. I've spent more on sandpaper than on primer and paint itself.
This kind of skips ahead, but it was lots of boring stuff like bondo and more sanding, and primer. Also found out the driver side motor mount bracket was sheared off so I yanked the whole front subframe/suspension.
Ordered some single stage kirker merlot paint. It's close enough to the original Malaga color and was cheap. Sprayed it with my $15 Harbor Freight purple gun in my tiny carport.
Pretty happy with the outcome of the paint for what I paid and having zero experience. Theres some orange peel but that will get taken care of.
Wetsanding with 1500 for a few days now, orange peel is disappearing, not all that quickly though. I have a new respect for body and paint guys now. Sooooo many hours into this. Planning on spraying another coat after I get done with the 1500 because primer is starting to show through in a couple spots.
Got tired of sanding so I directed my attention to the motor mount bracket. Made another trip to harbor freight and picked up an arc welder. I've never welded before and I don't want to pay somebody so I went and picked up a $150 stick welder, it got great reviews for what it is so I figured why not.
Grinding down the spot
First go at welding
More to come...
Anyways, here it goes.
Jason/23/Bellevue, WA
I love BMW's
Had lots of E30's, and an E36
Done plenty of motor swaps, mechanical shit etc...
Now (well as of November) I have a 2002...
Plans: paint, fix rust, coilovers, turbo flares, turbo air dam, turbo spoiler, 15x8 somethings, cage, high comp m10, sidedrafts, yada yada
College student, on a budget, never done bodywork or welding before...
Harbor Freight build
The car has been sitting for like 12 years. Towed her home and took the trim and stuff off, seats out.
As you can see the paint is destroyed so I'm going to take care of that first, also the hood and trunk are rusted through.
Rat homes and a couple dead rats, and a couple rust holes you can't see.
Spare tire area rusted through
Stripped her down to bare metal (never do this). Burned out 3 Harbor freight grinders and went through tons of 80 grit sanding discs. I've spent more on sandpaper than on primer and paint itself.
This kind of skips ahead, but it was lots of boring stuff like bondo and more sanding, and primer. Also found out the driver side motor mount bracket was sheared off so I yanked the whole front subframe/suspension.
Ordered some single stage kirker merlot paint. It's close enough to the original Malaga color and was cheap. Sprayed it with my $15 Harbor Freight purple gun in my tiny carport.
Pretty happy with the outcome of the paint for what I paid and having zero experience. Theres some orange peel but that will get taken care of.
Wetsanding with 1500 for a few days now, orange peel is disappearing, not all that quickly though. I have a new respect for body and paint guys now. Sooooo many hours into this. Planning on spraying another coat after I get done with the 1500 because primer is starting to show through in a couple spots.
Got tired of sanding so I directed my attention to the motor mount bracket. Made another trip to harbor freight and picked up an arc welder. I've never welded before and I don't want to pay somebody so I went and picked up a $150 stick welder, it got great reviews for what it is so I figured why not.
Grinding down the spot
First go at welding
More to come...
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