I'ma new member but i figured i'd start with a bang

[Kaleb]

My name's Kaleb, I'm a new member pretty much. I signed up for the forum a while ago but havent been active...anyway i've owned two bmw's over the past 8 months or so and i've restored both of them. One of them i sold and one is mine. They are both 325is' ona a 95--sold-- and the other a 92--mine--....I've been working on the 92 since around january just doing what ifeel like here and there and it's getting close to being finished--if there is such a thing, i'm never finished-- and so i'm not going to lie, i want to show off my work=D..anyway its a work in progress but i know i love build threads that you can go through in one night and dont have to wait for the finished result and thats what this one is going to be. However sadly i did not feel the need to take pictures of the fairly extensive body work i had to do there were a few dents some holes.. but the worst part was all the rust..anyway i have pictures of where it started then it picks up after i've primered it and i haven't been following closely but i'll tell you the in betweens.. i always seem to lose.. i mean misplace my camera.. i have 69 pictures so far so i may not be able to post them all at the moment

this is the car when i bought it rust dents holes and all--however like i mentioned before i did not take pictures of the damage but if you look closely you can some of it---





ok so i spent about 2 or 3 months fixing dents and scratches where someone viciously keyed the car and a few holes along with alot of rust that was uncovered after sanding and grinding... i took the car to have it finished in primer then painted and the guy told me it would be 1200 dollars so i said i'll just do it myself...so i made a trip to the paint shop across town and bought a primer gun a paint gun some high quality primer, mid quality seal gray met.--porsche color-- paint and i high quality uv resistant clear coat and had a 500 dollar bill...-- by the way expensive car colors like porsche cost more so my advice to someone who wants an expensive cars color on their car, just find something close because i paid 350-400 for the paint a clear coat-- so the bill was probably more like 550...anyway thats less than the 1200 and the 750 i got quoted at by two different places...so i went back home and began to prime the car and i primed and blocked and primed and blocked until i ended up with this the day of paint which brings me to my next pictures


this is what i started with



giving the car one last look down before mixing the paint


yes i know i look young and its because i am, i'm seventeen but i'm very good at what i do and i appreciate every aspect of cars unlike most my age but i shouldnt have to explain appreciation of cars to anyone here..anyway this is my fourth car to own/work on on my own time with my own money and second 325


BEAUTIFUL


so i started to paint



i didn't get any pictures of me spraying the color just the clear..my assistant was helping me during the color part this was my first FULL car to paint and it was my first thing to ever paint in my garage and it was also my first thing to paint solely by myself

and about 6 hours later...i was done

a better respirator would have been awesome cuz that pictures not fuzzy...thats fumes

For those who were wondering i painted with a 70 dollar gun and a small 200 dollar compressor that never ran out of pressure-GO KOBALT!- i was told by an expret that there was no way it would work...ah and i used 3 disposable water filters on for prime one for paint and one for clear 6 dollars a piece and they worked beautifully

so i ended up with this when i woke up in the morining=D


and moved it out in the sun to have a look







so as you saw the car was painted in my garage...no prep was done to prevent dirt from getting in the paint other than putting a fan by the garage door facing out and closing the door and sealing around the fan so there was a good bit of dirt in the paint at this point although im not sure if you can see it in the pictures but the paint felt rough on the top surfaces from all the dirt/bugs but thats no biggie...wetsandingand buffing compound is a miracle in a bottle--kinda like turtle wax ice, try it it amazed me and i'm a hardcore supporter of mcguiars-- so i wetsanded the paint smooth and was pretty happy with the paint but it wasn't quite cutting it for me--i'm a perfectionist-- but i left it for the time being.... a month later i was driving and noticed my interior was looking dull and boring and i didnt like that so i decided to do something about it...i went to the store and bought some red vinyl/car pet paint--14 dollars for two cans-- and some silver screws..you'll see how i used that in a minute...(oh and somewhere between the painting day and the wetsanding day i bought some new halo projector headlights off ebay--140 dollars-- and they made a MASSIVE difference)... i also used some turtle wax ice on the entire car before these pictures and about passed out when i realized how well it worked it took off buffing compound that had been on the car since i had buffed it anyway heres some pictures of the car today...









you may have noticed that the exhaust isnt stock, theres a magnaflow 11" muffler on the back..i'll try to post a sound clip if someone wants to hear it..if anyone wants to give me a tip on how to do that please share=)

and now for my little interior experiment



this panels leather had shrunken as is common in these cars so i used the screws to hold it down as well as for style



next i'm going to paint the backs of the seats and possibly change the headliner to make it red also




also in this time period of working on my car i built a custom speaker box--which was my first speaker box to build and i have some pictures of the build process on my phone and if i can get those on my computer i will post them..its a dual action port which means the air has to exit two smaller ports before exiting the box which makes the air pick up speed which makes the sub sound cleaner and definately louder

heres some finished pictures





and i believe this marks the end of the book for now i'm thinking a small engine tune up is next

[Neel]

Im not a fan of the front bumper. The car does look solid in the grey. What do you have in mind as far as engine work ?

[CraigMakDaddy]

Originally Posted by Neel

Im not a fan of the front bumper. The car does look solid in the grey. What do you have in mind as far as engine work ?

Agreed, I believe an e36 M3 front bumper is in order. Other than that this car is looking pretty amazing for doing it all yourself.

[Kaleb]

ah well the e36 bumper would be nice but unless i get one for free its not going to happen...and nothing major to the engine just a tune up

[Chet]

Dang, nice work on the paint.

[khAn3817]

Wow nice work. I'd get into some stuff like that with my car but I don't have that kind of confidence, afraid I'd mess something up.

[Nelson]

Nice work.

[M3-Zero]

You did a great job on the paint. If you didn't post pics of you painting it I would believe it was professionally done.

[polizei144]

not a fan of the e46 bumpers on the e36's. just looks out of place, like someone found one on the side of the road and taped it on. very rice. nice job on the paint though.

[Mateo M3]

very nice job on the paint. on the interior you need some help but practice made perfect. on the panels you should have place the screw underneath the red fabric and use small nuts to hold it together. but nice job on the paint

[PIPE_DREAM_AUTO]

thats a nice color and u did a really great job at painting it yourself as well

[BCI Butcher]

Nice home job

[Katie_K]

As before really not a fan of the bumpers of the bolts in that lovely red leather.
But the colour is spot on, well done

[mistreku]

i agree with katie, not the best bumper ever, you could go for a E3 M3 one. the interior is kinda crappy but congrats on your paintjob.. all by yourself.. way to go, dude! keep it up!