E12 M535i bodywork and paint journey

[CSBM5]

I'll be honest, I do have worries about putting her all back together when said and done. I'm good at taking things apart and starting projects, but sometimes I have to really kick myself to finish them! I don't want to end up with an expensive, freshly painted car with new bodywork, but a lack of motivation to reinstall the interior, drivetrain, and all the other little details that need to be done.

If it was me, I would have to put together a schedule with all the tasks required, and then work the plan. If I didn't map out my plan, and then have that to follow, I would go out in the garage, fool around a bit, and then decide to put it off 'till later. Once I have a plan/schedule created, then I mentally imagine doing the work, feeling good about my progress, and sometimes I throw in personal rewards for major milestones along the path. With it all mapped out ahead of time, reaching those milestone moments along the path are very important to me.

[Adam W in MN]

Great advice, thanks. It's all in my head, more or less, but the psychological factor of putting it in writing would be a good step to take.

[MicahO]

Wow - Adam, I'm blown away. As noted in another recent post, I don't spend enough time in Eye Candy, and look at what I'm missing.

Incredible work on a outstanding car. It's great to see how much can be done when someone is committed to the right vehicle. Thanks for sharing, and I'm going to be better about following the progress.

[Adam W in MN]

Not a lot of progress, but have been organizing some parts that came back with the car, draining fluids, removed seats, and other misc. Big jobs like dash and further interior removal are next as well as the engine and trans removal.

Yesterday I got the diff out. First time I've done this job since I've owned the car and wow it was really easy. Having the exhaust off the car helps tremendously to get easy access to everything. I forgot how much diff oil stinks, jeez. Also I've always wondered if my car had a 3.07 or 3.25 diff, any way to tell from these markings?

I took a few pics of the diff mount area. They did the undercoating after the subframe and diff were bolted back in and I'm thinking that I'll leave the diff mount removed from under the trunk and ask them to go over it again. If you look inside the square hole I think the bulge running towards the front of the car is where he welded in more metal. I couldn't see anything in there laterally.

[Adam W in MN]

Hoping to get the car back to the bodyshop before Halloween for phase two to commence. Made a lot of progress the last two weekends; dashboard, driveshaft, engine, and trans are out. Still need to remove heater core and carpet, sound deadening in the floor, some misc trim, and whatever i can get out of the engine bay so it's bare. Any recommendations for the steering, ie should I leave the rack and everything hooked up so they can steer it when they move it around the bodyshop? What do people typically do?

Crappy cellphone picture.

[Nanajoth]

Quality work, I am doing a small amount of rust repair on my 528i trunk. Nothing close to this amount of work however.

[bkbimmer]

Gonna be a nice car, congrats on money well spent.

[pants|works]

Wow. Great progress. Super excited to see how it goes!!

[demetk]

Any recommendations for the steering, ie should I leave the rack and everything hooked up so they can steer it when they move it around the bodyshop? What do people typically do?

They should be able to steer it by kicking the tires. I've seen that in American Hotrod.

[tig]

I'm loving this build. Moar pics pls.

[bkbimmer]

I hope someday to make progress on my e12, just makes me happy to see someone is... If I had any human emotion I would be feeling jealous right now.

[OcCoupe]

Wow, wow, and wow!!! What an undertaking! Great progress Adam!

[Adam W in MN]

Phase Two begins tomorrow. The body shop is picking her up on the flatbed to keep for the winter. I've loaded the new fenders in the trunk and new radiator core support in the cavernous, empty interior. They'll have to come back with their pickup to get the four doors and firewall piece.

The doors are still mostly assembled with glass, cranks, and trim for when they mount the new doors and convert them over.

[wkohler]

Looks great!

[tig]

I love threads like this. I can't wait for the day that I send a stripped shell off to my paint/body guy. Someday...

[Adam W in MN]

Cell phone wouldn't focus, but you get the idea. On its way! I'll have more updates in a few weeks after we assess the plan of attacking the rust.

[Adam W in MN]

Hah, getting a full shell from Walloth and Nesch might have been faster!

http://www.wallothnesch.com/rohkarosser ... 00-00.html

[grbbenny]

Hah, getting a full shell from Walloth and Nesch might have been faster!

http://www.wallothnesch.com/rohkarosser ... 00-00.html

I had to laugh at the magnified image of the W & N shell - it appears that it has already started to rust.

[Adam W in MN]

Small update. Visited the car at the shop today to get the early assessment. They are still wire wheeling the various trouble areas to get a good look so they can get me a better estimate than we had on phase 1 (rear of the car).

The biggest trouble areas are the transmission tunnel as we knew and the jack points/floor boards. They'll have to get creative since I don't have new panels to provide on those areas. They plan to drop the subframe and suspension up front to really get in there and work on it after the radiator core support is removed.

We also went through my long list of attention items including allowances for installing the reproduction/Paul Cain Alpina dead pedal, fitment issues with the airdam that I want to fit together better, welding the cowl cracks, filling transmission tunnel holes from aftermarket a/c, door brake reinforcements, carrying over the oil cooler brackets which Motorsport must have added because they aren't on the new core support, and a few others.

[milicz]

Your floorboards look to be in much better shape than mine! Although I was lucky not to have the rust around my windshield like that, but I still haven't managed to put mine back together :/ The headliner was a nightmare for me, can't wait to see the finished product!

Luke

[Nanajoth]

After looking at my diff mount today, I am very jealous of what yours now looks like!

[Adam W in MN]

Went by today to take a look. They've made a ton of progress, and are really involved in some small but significant sections of the work. The firewall replacement panel donated some significant sections of the sheet metal needed which makes me all the happier that it was still available from BMW. Such as the footwells under the dash and jack points.

The transmission tunnel rust was the worst and they had to completely fabricate the tunnel piece. The guy working on it spent a quiet day after Thanksgiving cutting out the old section and creating and welding in the new piece. A guy in the shop walked over when I was there today and pointed to the trans tunnel and said "there's only one other guy in this shop that could have done what he did there and he has carpel tunnel issues with his hands. What you have there, it's artwork to fabricate that".

He has to clean up some welds here and there including a small patch in the driver side shock tower where his apprentice in the shop had a crack at it but it could look better so he wants to redo it. The passenger side floor was pretty rotten, even worse than I thought after pulling off the sound deadening, so that consumed a lot of time to rebuild the jack point and the floor where they had to do some minor fab work. Next up is the driver side floor including some rust by the gas pedal mount and more in the jack point there.

The firewall sheet metal is about ready to go in along with the windshield wiper motor cavity piece. They were able to clean up the passenger side tray where the windshield washer fluid tank sits which was bent up from the car's collision damage under previous ownership. I bought a new panel (only $40) through Blunt but won't need it now.

[bkbimmer]

That is a lot of work.

[Kyle in NO]

This is going to be 'spensive.

[m-racer]

Looks like they are doing really good work. Can't wait to see the finised product.

[leadphut]

keep the car white now?

[Adam W in MN]

Yes, will look like this when it's done, except with 16" BBS RS wheels.

[fastcrs]

Lots of passion going into that baby...

[stuartinmn]

A bubbled up spot on one of the fenders on my 325ix finally broke through as a rust hole the other day, I should go see these guys about getting it fixed.

Yes, will look like this when it's done, except with 16" BBS RS wheels.

Can you still get the stripe kit shown on the poster, or will that be done in paint?

[Adam W in MN]

The proper wide stripes have been NLA for many years. I have one section of it, new old stock, that would go along one of the back doors (I forget which side it's for). I plan to use that as a basis for having the whole stripe kit reproduced in vinyl.

I considered doing the white paint, then having the stripes painted on, then doing clear over it. There are several factors that persuaded me to stick with the single stage white paint and vinyl stripes path including the thousands of dollars more it would cost to do that paint strategy.