Scott's E36 Touring

[Minuki]

Damn! Have you got all the extended leather bits now?

Not yet man. Still need the glovebox and underside of the steering wheel, console surrounding the gear stick and door cards if I can find them

[Minuki]

So I'll start with some good news. I came home to Scotland for a week to work on the car.

First thing to do was to get the car from where it had been stored for the last 7 months. I headed to my friends barn and there she was, under her cover, just where I left her. I whipped the cover off to find her just how I remember, paint like glass and smells of leather. The battery was dead, but a quick jump and she fired right up.



My excitement was a little short lived as the power steering didn't want to work all that great, so I'll need to address that. I took it easy on the way home.



First thing to sort was the extended leather console. Quite tricky if you don't know where the bolts are, but I managed it in the end. It looks brilliant, I've got the non-smokers cubby hole in there now and will be getting the rubber mat to cover where someone has unfortunately drilled some holes into it.



Next thing to do was to take it up to my friends body shop to have the front bumper, nose cone, wings and bonnet resprayed with shaved nozzle jets and side indicators. As well as having the rear arches done again and full undearseal/waxoyl.

So everything was going fine, I got the front end stripped.



I then took the side skirts off to gain access to the front wings. I was then greeted with a familiar, but extremely surprising site. Rust. A lot of it.







Needless to say, I am BUMMED. Keep in mind that I had this repaired, professionally, two years a go when the car was first painted. So to have it come back and even worse this time, is a real kick in the balls.

I decided not to fuck around anymore and bought two new complete sills. I'm really annoyed as I only took enough time off work to do the bodywork, so this is such a set back, but at least the car will be 100% solid and not patched. That's the plan anyway.



On a brighter note, Performance BMW have featured some of my photos in this months Magazine.

[Earl]

That's no good=( Did you find that it was fixed with bog the first time or did it really rot that quick?

[Minuki]

That's no good=( Did you find that it was fixed with bog the first time or did it really rot that quick?

Yeah, this is the part my painter and I can't understand. We cut all the old shitty metal out and replaced everything with good steel. Primed, painted, seam sealed then undersealed it. So I honestly have no idea what has happened. Hopefully I'll have a better idea tomorrow

[Earl]

I thought I remember that too. At least you're sorting it right again=)

[Minuki]

My Dad took a few days off to help me with the car. After cutting the sills off, we learned the full extent of the rust!



It was a lot worse than we all expected. Quite frankly, it was a mess. A lot of people would have probably considered re-shelling or scrapping the car even, but that wasn't an option, I love this car.





So we cut all of the crappy metal and cleaned up all the surface/loose rust with wire brushes and grinders. Treated the bare metal with a rust converter and then painted it in a few coats of industrial primer type stuff and then with a zinc based, weld through primer.

A few hours later and the new sill was ready to be welded.





I'm so thankful for my Dad's welding abilities, it's not the first time he's saved my cars



And fast forward a few hours later, the new sill was on and she was back on the ground.





Tomorrow we are doing the other side and starting on the rust prevention. I'm not kidding when I say I'm filling each sill with a tin of waxoyl, I might even do two each!

[DER E30]

That blows about the rust! Those pics in the mag are nice!!! Congrats!

[OrangeBlue]

As a Opel/Vauxhal owner i know your feel about the rust...

Great you fixing it, you may know about brantho korrux, its
used for paint in sea ship ballast water tanks.
You can paint your sills and inner fenders, should be pretty strong.
Also Fluidfilm Liquid A, and Mike Sandes do a great job preventing rust.

[Mehowski]

This car is waaay to good to get chucked in the bin cause of rust. Really glad you love the car and went ahead to repair it.
Are you bringing it back down to London or leaving it in Scotland?

[Minuki]

That blows about the rust! Those pics in the mag are nice!!! Congrats!

Thanks dude.

As a Opel/Vauxhal owner i know your feel about the rust...

Great you fixing it, you may know about brantho korrux, its
used for paint in sea ship ballast water tanks.
You can paint your sills and inner fenders, should be pretty strong.
Also Fluidfilm Liquid A, and Mike Sandes do a great job preventing rust.

Yeah, it sucks, but that's it done now! Getting started on the otherside today.

This car is waaay to good to get chucked in the bin cause of rust. Really glad you love the car and went ahead to repair it.
Are you bringing it back down to London or leaving it in Scotland?

Yeah, I couldn't give up on it after the amount of time and money I already have invested in it. It will be staying in Scotland for the time being, I've not found anywhere to keep it yet

[Minuki]

Got the drivers side sill all welded up today and primed. Happy to know the car is completely solid. Pretty stoked.

Made a start on shaving the side repeaters too.



Light skim of filler and these should be good. Tomorrow I'm relocating and shaving the washer jets as well as getting a whole host of other stuff done for primer on monday

[nellydragracer]

That's a hell of a lot of rust, Scott. You should see the state of my rear arches on my coupe after a similar repair four years ago...

What are you doing about side repeaters? I thought about removing mine and using an LED strip (I saw some on a new Camaro import) but couldn't find what I wanted.

[Minuki]

That's a hell of a lot of rust, Scott. You should see the state of my rear arches on my coupe after a similar repair four years ago...

What are you doing about side repeaters? I thought about removing mine and using an LED strip (I saw some on a new Camaro import) but couldn't find what I wanted.

Yeah, I was extremely surprised to be honest. Couldn't believe it!

I'm just going to leave them. I might put E34 running lights in the bumpers, so might have a look at making them flash.

Got an early start on the car today to finish off the little bits of welding with my Dad.



Shaved the washer jets



There was quite a bit of paint on the bonnet, so I chose to strip it right back in order to get it perfect.





Also started stripping one of my wheels to get polished.

[19birel]

I've just read through your entire thread and I must say job well done thus far. I really like how you're taking the time to get things done properly to create something properly awesome. Keep up the quality work!

[Thooooom]

damn. the sills! since we spoke about the roof bars i cant help but think i definitely prefer them without haha.

top job on replacing the sills, it took me a year to replace a wing, cant imagine ever doing that kinda job!