19birel's Silber-Grau BMW E60 Progression Thread

[19birel]

I think some spacers, and a little lower will make it perfect oem+

I agree, the car will be lowered once I get around to refreshing the suspension. The setup I plan on getting will be slightly lower than OEM sport suspension (my car doesn't have this) and it's only 10% stiffer which is the same as OEM sport as well. Rear spacers will come as well too maybe 10mm or so

Next up will be tackling all the maintenance that I deferred over winter tho haha

[hinrichs]

I think some spacers, and a little lower will make it perfect oem+

[19birel]

Nice car and nice wheels but they are definitely too small for the size of the car, I think the e60 needs 20s

Thanks!

As far as wheel size goes, I didn't want to sacrifice ride quality too much as I put a lot of miles on this car and drive on some pretty bad roads. In the future I might consider going to 19s, but for now I'm pleased I think they still look better than my old 17s haha. The goal is to keep an OEM+ look with it for now.

[Fruttolo]

Nice car and nice wheels but they are definitely too small for the size of the car, I think the e60 needs 20s

[19birel]

So when I got the wheels, they came with 3 hub-centric rings, I didn't think much of it. I ordered another set from ECS but they looked a little cheap and didn't fit well, so I ended up reusing the 3 I had and only used one ecs ring and of course there was some vibration. Ordered another set from amazon, and same deal. Did a couple measurements, and it turns out that for the AC Schnitzer wheels Ronal used a massive 82mm center bore and the appropriate rings are hard to find. If anyone has a set of red 72.5 to 82mm AC Schnitzer hub centric rings, let me know! For the time being though, this is what I've done to try and mitigate the vibrations as much as possible

wrapped the ECS one with electrical tape and threw it back on




This will have to do until I find a set of rings, I put about 25 miles on the car like that today and it felt fine so hopefully they hold up for a while.

[19birel]

So yesterday I finally got the wheels on, tyres are Nokian Z-Line 245/40/18. I love the way the color came out against the cars paint,it's a subtle difference, but looks more stealth than the typical hyper silver IMO. Also with the lower profile, wider tyres (the stocks were skinny 225s) the car feels more planted and less floaty. Any ways here are some pics I just shot her, lmk what you think!






I think I might throw some spacers on the rear at some point, but for now I'm pretty satisfied.

[19birel]

damn dude, those wheels look great in the pics. Cant wait to see them mounted up

Thanks! First set of decent wheels I've ever had on any car so I'm stoked.

[hinrichs]

damn dude, those wheels look great in the pics. Cant wait to see them mounted up

[19birel]

So finally an exciting wheel update! They're painted!

Got the cracked wheel back, and my buddy knocked it out of the park. Fixed the crack and even the chunk that was missing from the inner lip!

His shop is called Twisted Iron Fab, in western PA. If you need an fab work done, AJ is the guy to go to.

After sanding I had a go at fixing the curb rash, for the smaller imperfections I just used bondo


For the bigger stuff I used metal infused epoxy putty which worked a treat






Then I masked everything up and hit them with some primer


Got ready to spray the Duplicolor Hyper silver paint, but I think it was a bad batch or something because it simply would not come out of the can consistently and ended up with a blotchy mess


I'd like to think i'm pretty good with a rattle can, but things were going downhill fast so I rummaged around the garage and found an ancient can of VW Reflex Silver. It didn't have much pressure but sprayed much nicer than the other stuff allowing me to bring it back into the realm of acceptability.

After a coat of reflex. (after Left, Before Right)


Just before applying clear

Finished result


Considering this is my first refinish I'm satisfied with how they came out, if you look closely there are some minor imperfections but overall nothing I can't live with. I put about 3 coats of Duplicolor Clear Effex metallic on each wheel and in the sun it pops nicely, after some touchup work I'll take them outside for some proper pics with the real camera to better illustrate that. Tyres should be ordered sometime this week so they should be on the car soon!


Random instagram pic of the centers (which need resprayed because a gust of wind blew dirt in the clear right after this lol)

[19birel]

I have never tried to fix rash, but I think I see a lot of people using that metal epoxy putty with very good results.

I think I have some of that laying around from another project, I'll give it a try for sure.

So my plan was to be mostly done with sanding by now, but I was assigned a project due during my break so that ate up most of my time, as has this.



2016 GTI S 6MT w/9.5k miles, my dad's new project car that I'm helping with. I'll be documenting this build with some videos on my YouTube channel so subscribe HERE If you're interested.

Anyways, one of the wheels has a crack that needs welded, but I wanted it sanded before I dropped it off so I attacked it pretty hard today haha


Before


An hour or so later


It's about 95% done, just needs some touchups. The wheel should be done by early next week, so come friday my goal is to lay some primer. Just gotta get the other two sanded!

[hinrichs]

I have never tried to fix rash, but I think I see a lot of people using that metal epoxy putty with very good results.

[19birel]

Small update- was able to get a refund on the Niche Targas since they weren't quite as advertised with the flat tyre. Decided to bust out the Type IIIs and throw fresh rubber on them. I had most of the smaller imperfections sanded out of the wheels but they still have quite a bit of sanding to go, here is the first one I have pretty much finished up.



One wheel has a hairline crack, so I'm going to try and get that one sanded this weekend as I got it booked in at my buddy's shop to get repaired next week. I have next week off for spring break so my goal is to have all the wheels at least in primer by the weekend, and then, weather permitting I'll spray them next weekend. Any tips on getting a good result with wheel refinishing & curb rash repair are appreciated!

Random interior pic I took the other day


Also, on another note, my front suspension has started making a few noises, so it looks like I'll be doing a suspension refresh this summer once I have some more money

[19birel]

Did some car stuff this past week, on of my license plate bulbs went out so I threw in a set of LEDs.


They're super bright, they actually make it easier to see when backing up at night haha




Then much to my dismay, one of my rear tyres got a nice puncture. Since it's in the sidewall it can't be fixed, and since they are around 50% tread depth or so, I can't just replace the two rears, I'd have to replace all 4 to avoid issues with X-Drive. My AC Schnitzers still need some work, one has a small hairline crack that needs welded, so I can't just buy rubber for those. Not wanting to spend the money on tyres for my stock wheels I hit the classifieds and found a set of 19" Niche Targas wrapped in Toyo Proxes for a reasonable price.



They had some curb rash, but would clean up nicely, was just going to run them temporarily until the ACs were done and maybe dip them silver as I'm not a huge fan of the black.


Unfortunately when I went around to check the tyre pressures in them, one had no air, and when I tried filling it up, I could hear air rushing out. Of course it's on the sidewall too so like my all-seasons, I can't have it repaired. I bought them from a parts breaker so I called them up and the guy I dealt with said he'd talk to his boss about giving me a refund on monday since he had assured me they were fine. Hopefully that works out. If not I'll clean them up some more and sell them on, and hopefully that will give me the time needed to finish up the other wheels. Until then I'll be rolling on my winter wheels with bald tyres that make the car vibrate like mad

[19birel]

I think M-Sport Bumpers would be rad, but make sure it's a plug and play situation. Depending on how much they are, and how much time you have left in school, it can always wait...

I used my summers to fuel car part 'needs'...

Love the E60, though! Those ACS wheels are gonna look great!

I priced it out and it looks like it'll be about $1k for the whole body kit if I try painting it myself and that would be using ebay replica parts which I'm not entirely keen on. My other option would be to buy a used OEM front bumper and re-spray it, then get a set of skirts which would be around $650ish all in. I'll just wait and see what sort of shape my wallet is in when the time comes, worst case, I just stick to my original (and much cheaper) idea of a lip and skirts and then save M-Sport for when I have the money to do it properly. Last thing I want is to empty my wallet in order to install an ill fitting bumper with a shoddy color match haha.

And thanks! I can't wait to get them on just have to finish repairing the curb rash and they should be ready for paint!

m sport is always good...

Agreed!


In other news I went to a local show called World of Wheels this past weekend and shot some video/took pics. Video coverage of the show will be up on my YouTube channel this Wednesday so subscribe Here so you don't miss! Here's a few stills


easily my favorite from the show

[C2_mad]

m sport is always good...