Petrol Mica BMW E36 318iS M Sport

[HuH]

Been a while. Some stuff has happened.

My wheels arrived from Japan yesterday. Actually one of them was delivered last Thursday but the other three were MIA until yesterday. Weird.



They need a good clean up, but they're straight and very little rash, etc. If I can get all the junk cleaned off I'll paint the inside of the barrels black.



I'm going for 205/45/17 tyres. It seems most people with 17x8+20 Style 5s go for those or 215/40s. These BBS are just ever so slighty lower in offset at 17x8+15 so I'm going with a tiny bit less tyre width and a little more sidewall height. I've got a 7mm spacer which I might try to slip on the rear once the guards are rolled. See how we go.

I got an E30 M3 mushroom type gear shifter thingo.



I put black and white BMW roundels on too but I haven't taken any photos of the car since then.

Some interior shots. Alcantara life.



'90s BMW dash looking the same as '80s BMW dash and '00s BMW dash. If it ain't broke?



Put in a new Sony head unit with variable display so I could get my shit matching. It's all in the details or something.



Did some arts and crafts. The goal was to make up little gasket type things to let me install the smaller, later type tweeters in the doors.



It worked pretty well after a couple of goes. The outer diameter of the rings I made up is the same as the old speakers.



This is one of the damaged speakers, you can see the cracked off bit up the top.



And this is how it looks now with the new tweeter and adapter ring thingo. Not bad, the imperfections are hard to see in person.



Unfortunately all the glue holding the door panel together dried up. Really common thing, all other E36 dudes will know the feel. I stuck it back together with a hot glue gun.



I also changed the door handle seals because it's easy with the door panels off. It looked like this before.



But it looks like this now.



I'm all about those little things. Loving the car right now.

[HuH]

I'll preface this post by saying that I loathe washing cars. On Thursday a mate and I spent almost seven hours detailing the BMW. Never thought it would take that long, we started around midday and didn't finish until well after dark. Not the best as far as lighting is concerned but the results were worth it.



This was what we started with after a couple of buckets of water were thrown over it. I've had the car for a couple of months and it hasn't been washed once. The paint was pretty badly swirled but overall in good nick, so the aim was to bring it back to former glory using whatever we already had and any free cleaning products we'd managed to lift from the office at work.



I forgot to get close ups of the swirls, but you can kinda tell that it was in dire need of a good once over. We started by rinsing it all down with water, then gave it a two bucket wash using this kraut shampoo called 1Z Perls. I got it free with a set of wheels but highly recommend it now that I've tried it. After that we clay barred it using Meguiar's Quik Clay and Juice Show 'n Shine as lubricant.



This photo above was after clay barring as we started polishing. We used Meguiar's SwirlX to polish it and Mothers Carnauba Wax afterwards.



Sometime later this was the result. Back in black!



It's not perfect but a massive improvement. I'd like to get a professional to detail it at some stage to do a more thorough job of removing swirls and scratches.



It's so smooth to the touch now, I love it. Such a lot of effort for results that will quickly fade but I guess that's washing cars for you.



The next morning I used Meguiar's Ultimate Protectant on the side strips to get them black again. Could've been better though.



Close up of the paint in the sun. Love this colour.



And there we have it!

[HuH]

Since the last time I posted only boring stuff has happened. Tedious little tinkering and a bit of eating.



I put the coilovers in and lowered it some. It is still too high. This dark photo is all I've brought myself to take. Got excited today because I thought for sure the BBS must be close, but they're still the best part of six weeks away. Really can't be bothered lowering it until they're on.



Did shed mods with my old man and built some shelves. Hellafunctional. Still not enough room to really work on the car in there but it's better than before.



Lost a parking ticket down the front between the dash and windshield. Fished it out using a ruler and some double sided mounting tape. I was stoked. Found some other old junk down there too looking like it's been sitting there for yeeeears.



Really wanted one of these E30 M3 style 'mushroom' shift knobs but they're pretty rare in leather like this one. Ended up ordering a kinda povo spec rubber one with the same emblem because the shape feels a lot better to me.



Found this sick German buddy on the streets of Sydney with weird tray converted rear end.



And these cool plates on some more German artillery.



Had a massive schnitzel feed that would've put me in hospital with that much cheese had I finished it.



Picked up black/black badges because I like the look.



On Saturday I went to find some replacement speakers at a wrecker but how stupid is this mounting system? It's no wonder they all crack and break. I grabbed some later model ones which are slightly smaller diameter but use the threaded mount. I have an idea for using them that should look neat and last longer.

Couple of other maintenance things in the works, replaced aircon panel because mine was looking shabby. Ordered replacement rubber gasket things for the door handles since they always split. More updates to come in a little while hopefully. Car needs an epic detail ASAP.

[HuH]

That poke.

If you put your hand on the inside lip of the rear wheel you'll feel the brake caliper. The barrel goes about an inch past the brake rotor and that's it.

Wheels look Great! ^.^

I think i need to find a BMW to run them on myself.

Like I said, needs more wide body E28!

i love the concave lip bbs's

Thanks man! Keen to see how they look in a few weeks when they turn up from Japan.

More please, more !!

those are some crazy wheels

I say by those wheels off of your friend, You can have the maddest poke in the game!

Hahah. He won't ever sell. I wouldn't want them anyway, there's absolutely no reasonable way they would fit a stock body car. You'd have to put in a cubic buttload of work with flares on the back and custom everything at the front. No amount of tyre stretch and negative camber will get tread under the guards unless they're on some bippu demon camber ish and I'm not that guy. Never say never I guess, but that job is for a braver man than I.

[NathanHeeney]

I say by those wheels off of your friend, You can have the maddest poke in the game!

[DinanDave]

those are some crazy wheels

[jeger]

More please, more !!

[244Brick]

i love the concave lip bbs's

[ScarecrowX7]

Wheels look Great! ^.^

I think i need to find a BMW to run them on myself.

[Broche]

That poke.

[HuH]

This is dumb.

















I have a buddy who imports secondhand wheels from Yahoo Japan and has a love affair with Impul Hoshinos. Five stud versions are hard to come by but he happened upon this 5x120 set in ridiculous sizes. We had to know how idiotic they would look on the E36.

They are 15x8.5 -21 and 15x10 -40. No idea what they will actually end up on long term, but he won't sell them for love nor money. Needs more E28 with wide body kit.

Still no pics of it as it sits over the M3 wheels with the coilovers fitted. I want to detail it proper and take some photos but I haven't because lazy/busy.

[jackjamesw910i]

That's going to look real nice man

[HuH]

Won a set of wheels on Yahoo auctions Japan the other night. They're on their way now but won't be here for 6 weeks or so thanks to slow sea freight. They're not exactly what I want in the long run but they should sit nice and were too good to pass up for the price. BBS RN006 17x8J ET15.



Fitted coilovers last night. Rear sits neat enough for now but front needs to go lower with a bit more camber. I drove it to work today to let it settle in, I'll adjust tonight and get some photos.

[HuH]

Well the panel shop certainly did their thing on the old nugget. I got it back on Thursday and the work is first class. I asked how they fixed it (trying to establish how much bog was in there) and he said that they pull the interior panels out, push as much of it back as they can, then they weld a pin to the other side and pull the rest of the dents out before skim coat and painting. I don't know much about bodywork but that sounds good to me. The colour match is bang on too.



Needs a good polish ASAP. So many swirls in the paint. Curse you dark colours.



Looks way blue in these photos because the sun was about six inches from earth in Sydney yesterday and made it look like that.



OEM touch up paint satisfies my otakuness. I know, exciting stuff.



I did get around to putting the M3 lip on. I bought it on eBay and got the fasteners from BMW. Found out that an OEM lip would've only been about $50 more than I paid for the copy which kinda bummed me out because mine is not a perfect fit, but it's pretty good so I'll just cop it.



Coilovers arrived and they seem great. One of the photogs at work took a few product shots for the guys at ISC since they looked after me.



Had intentions of fitting the suspension on the weekend but I bought a project bike instead. I'll hopefully do the coilovers over the Easter long weekend and give it a good clean up then maybe take some better pics. Still need to show off the super luxo alcantara interior swag.

[HuH]

subbed because you use funny words when you are mad lol

Haha. I had a few choice words at the time.

glad you had insurance and got the guy to pullover!

Thanks bro, me too. The smash repair place called me today and I should have it back on Tuesday. Rad.

Decided to leave the spoiler on. It was going to be an extra $400 to get it removed then the holes welded up properly and the bootlid painted. I can think of a few better ways to lose 400 bones so it stays for now. Nothing wrong with it really. Could've gone cheaper with body filler in the holes but if it shrinks you'll see little circles under the paint and nobody wants that.

Been looking at a bunch of different wheels. Considering BBS RKs, Tarmacs, RML Snowflakes, Regamasters, Borbet Type As, stuff like that.

I think what I want is either a really chunky face and super simple design or some kind of mesh. Five spoke wheels are so classic like the ones above. Even old Work Equips and stuff like that. Going to see what comes up. Borbet Type Bs would be hot, Epsilons, that sort of thing but I think 17" is the go. Check out these British made Image BBMs. So delish, but too rich for my blood.



Got a lot of time for these AEZ RHs in 17x 8.5J+13 and 9.5J+15 but pretty hard to find, especially in Australia.



Dunno about doing the OEM thing but I have a big hankering for Throwing Stars. There's a set on Aussie eBay right now going for a decent price. Don't have the money ready to go though so that's a downer. Always the risk of window shopping and dreaming I guess.



Does anyone know if you can get Regamasters in legit 5x120 or is redrilling/adapters the only choice? Need more Desmond in my life.