E12 M535i Project - 08-21-19 Update

[Jelmer538i]

Its going fast now Chris! Really enjoy this tread!

[Adam W in MN]

Coming along nicely. What is the fender contingency plan?

[wkohler]

Here's the "fender contingency plan:"



I bought these in June, 2010 from a guy parting what was left of a 30k mile B7 Turbo. They had bought a pair of used fenders and had them chemically stripped. They sprayed the insides with a primer or some sort of black paint, but over the years of sitting in the "car" which was was missing the firewall forward (accident was so bad it buckled the tunnel at the rear seat AND behind the shifter). They have been sitting in various forms of my storage since then. I tried to talk to Mike about them last year. I finally did in March of this year and he said that if I could get new ones, go that route. There's a chemical stripper here I originally talked to about stripping the whole car (yes, I was nuts...and lazy, but mostly nuts with some laziness sprinkled about), so I'll have them do these, then have Mike epoxy-prime them and we'll see what happens first, I guess.

The problem is that I should have just ordered new fenders any time before now as with the rest of the new body parts, I'd rather have new ones. These aren't perfect and will need some minor body work as they were sitting inside that car with a bunch of crap (relatively light crap but crap nonetheless) for over a decade.

Either way, with the way my luck works, I will go through all the effort on these and then the new ones will show up. Hopefully not after the car is painted though. I kinda need fenders so I can know how the airdam and whatnot will fit. Really don't want to do all of that after it's all painted.

[Jelmer538i]

Why not order them from W&N? They ship very fast.

http://www.wallothnesch.com/karosserie- ... i-e12.html

[wkohler]

I considered ordering from Walloth & Nesch but truth be told, since I'm one of the "lucky few" with legitimate documentation for an M535i, I went the BMW route of wholesale pricing and no shipping costs. I didn't realize this was going to be the result. My order is legitimate. It just says "In transit" and I've heard several different explanations as to why, but who knows really. I dropped off the used fenders today and while the guy was a total dick ("where do you get the money to have a car like that?" referring to my touring which is a POS and he kept calling me "BMW guy"), I might have them back Friday. They're not perfect but at this point, I doubt the factory ones would be much better from a straightness angle.

Mike called and asked if I was planning to come by today as he wanted me to check the body over before paint. Plan was to paint the body today but he wasn't happy with how the door jambs came out due to some of the rough work BMW did which he didn't notice and wasn't happy with at all, so he decided to redo them. I checked out the underside of the hood and it looks great. He went over the top side a few more times. I checked out the lines at the edges of the hood and they should look right, I think. I've seen them lose definition on E12s before, so it was a concern.





I checked the car over thoroughly and the lines and everything looked clear and defined, particularly at the lower corners of the rear quarters, which is a really cool line on the car you don't see with the bumper installed. Not too crisp but not dull, so I was pretty happy. He also put the seam lines in for the rear panel, which are subtle but need to be there. He still had a bit of sanding to do on those when I was there. Said the plan was to spray it in the morning before it gets too hot. He sent me these photos this afternoon:







Also, I was able to swing by the powder-coater today and pick up the suspension parts I dropped off a few weeks ago. I unwrapped everything and I'm pretty happy with it. It all came out nicely. I used the flash for the photo, but it's a 60% gloss black. I'm actually pretty excited to put it together, but that's a ways off.

[Kyle in NO]

Can he schedule my 533i next?

[leadphut]

[OcCoupe]

Chris this is outstanding progress! Nice work!!!

[Karl Grau]

[wkohler]

Mike called this morning and when I ask how it's going and get, "Well, uhhh," I know things are going very well.

We had decided we were okay using my original trunk lid. I kinda felt bad about that given I had a new one in the storage unit and someone could use it. Turns out that my original trunk lid was hiding a lot of ickiness and that Mike didn't feel it was up to the task. Well, okay then. So, I drove up to the storage unit, grabbed the trunk lid and then drove all the way out to Mesa and dropped it off. I told him what the issues were with it (had some dings and a couple depressions - clearance from BavAuto, like the doors) and that wouldn't be a problem. He had the doors and hood in the booth and was making the final preparations to spray those.

I didn't see my car anywhere and they had actually rolled it into another shop that's vacant to keep it out of the way. Mike took me over there and here it is:













iPhone photos:

[tig]

Word.

[unt0uchable]

I don't know what it is about these metallic BMW colors, but I see it also in the Opalgrun metallic color, and now this Polaris. They almost look like a matte metallic at certain angles. I absolutely love it. Makes me wonder if Zinno really is my favorite color around here.

Looks stellar Chris. Can't wait for moar.

[Jelmer538i]

Really nice!!

[white chocolate]

Outstanding work!

[oldskool]

Sweet baby Jeebus that's inspiring. I'm going to church!

[Adam W in MN]

Great pictures! I forgot yours was a slicktop.

[T_C_D]

You must getting excited now!

[Hffvdbl]

That came out beautifully Chris

[austin8753]

Goddamn. Looks amazing.

[tig]

Now the real work begins.

[1st 5er]

WOW!!! just WOW!!!

[wkohler]

Thanks! The paint right out of the gun looked pretty damn nice. I didn't hear from him today, which was great since I was at work all day which also wasn't bad since I ate what was somehow a $20 burger for lunch (and it was really the most modestly-priced entrée) and the client paid for it.

We will see how the rest of it goes. I got my latches and what not cleaned up last night so they can be used to fit the doors. Once I get the car back home, everything will come apart again and they will be sent out for plating since I spent 40 minutes or so tonight figuring out how to remove the rubber pieces from a set of E28 latches and ended up removing them all so they could be transplanted into the E12 ones when they come back since they are in overall better condition. Sadly, the E28 latch mechanisms aren't exactly interchangeable (I think they would be if the car had manual locks) otherwise, I'd just use them since they were in essentially mint condition. Little victories I guess.

I also nearly stripped the bottom of the old hood this morning and got everything cleaned up since it all has to be painted. I also discovered that the new hood insulation I ordered for the car in 2011 is falling apart in my closet and it is now $80 (double what I already paid for it), so I'm not particularly impressed by that.

Now the real work begins.

I think once I'm on my own schedule, things will be less stressful. Right now, my stress level is off the charts. I am quite often totally stressed out but I'm at a completely new level here and it's insane. I am only concerned right now with getting whatever Mike might need so we can get the body of the car together properly. I have been working on getting the garage almost to the point where it could be mostly dedicated to putting this car together. I might even find a way to stick a fourth car in my storage unit, though I might need the 528i as a shelf. At this point though, I'm not sure what's going on or how soon any of that will happen. This project hasn't exactly been deadline-ridden.

Of course, none of this can happen until I get some damn fenders.

[cddallara]

Tell you what-I'll fly out and drive the red car back here to California for a year or two, and bam, storage issue solved.
Seriously though, great to see the progress, looks great!

[tig]

Right now, my stress level is off the charts.

I can understand that. I doubt it'll help, but know we all (well most of us, anyway) are rooting for you and know it'll come out great in the end. All adventures have ups and downs.

[wkohler]

Talked to Mike on Friday. Doors and hood were all shot early Thursday AM. He had his wetsander/buffing enthusiast there working on the shell and not to bother coming today. He said he'd let me know what was happening since I had offered to install the latches and wiring in the doors as well as the trim along the tops of the doors and get everything ready so the doors could be hung on the car. I also offered my help on that though he did a fine job on the B7. I only had to add a shim or two and that was me being picky.

I called the dipper and he said that my fenders were "still cookin'," so he said that I'd probably get them back Wednesday. Great. Still no word on the new ones. I guess it's good the prospective buyer didn't want these after I placed the order.

Saturday rolls around and I keep working waiting for the call. He calls around noon, so I head over. I get everything going on the driver door, then the time came to install the upper trim. I really didn't want to deal with the paint when it's so fresh, but the door seals need to go on and on E12s, this stupid trim is the upper channel for the door seal, so...

It took us nearly 90 minutes to get the one installed on the driver door. I made sure all of the tabs were straight and it just didn't want to do it. We got it on and it survived. Ridiculous. Of course, no pictures since I was so frustrated.

Right now the car is in another building on the property which used to be an exhaust shop but Mike evicted the guys. No electricity right now and it is mildly warm, so it was uncomfortable.

I installed the wiring and latches in the other three doors and since they were new, the door trim didn't take as long, but it wasn't 100% installed. Mike had to leave and it really is a 2 person job. Of course, not if you have the set of three tools I have been trying to buy for five years. Vance found them in Germany on eBay but the guy wouldn't sell to us because we are dirty Americans. By the time I found a German to buy, so someone got them. So, needless to say, it's a two-person job.

I did grab a shot of the hood before leaving though.



Mike called today to complain about the trim on the right front door being loose and I reiterated that it wasn't totally installed, so I went by and we worked on that. Made quick work with a chisel, hammer and my hands. Trim is securely fastened and the seals are installed. The seals for the rear doors are NLA, but I was able to come up with a WAAAAAAY NOS set from the early 1980s, and fortunately they fit. The new new ones for the front doors don't seem to be the same material and were harder to install in the complex curves.

We unmasked the shell (left it masked up so the wet part of the wetsanding and the compound wouldn't get all over the inside. I "installed" the strikers which will all come off again along with the latches to be replated but I need Mike to hang the doors, so here they are.

The nice thing about wiring harnesses on E12s is that there's no stupid rubber conduit for the front doors, instead a sheathing like heatshrink, which is what I used. Came out pretty well.

Here's some photos:











The iPhone did a bit better job to show depth of the clear and clarity of the reflections than I could capture with the other camera. It's very dark in here.















So, some day this week, I'm going to help install the doors.

[Tammer in Philly]

I need to find a shop that can do body work like that in Chicago.

[Adam W in MN]

A lot of great updates there! I'll be asking you lots of dumb questions when I get to some of the points you're going through now.

[MicahO]

Outstanding work! I can't wait to see more.


(That said, this thread and Adam's and others like it are *the* reason I don't usually inhabit the Eye Candy forum. As much as I am inspired by the work and the cars and the artistry, I just spent a large amount of time reading every. single. word. since the last time I was in the thread - which was when the motor was removed from the chassis. Perhaps I should just do a better job of staying up to date?)

[Karl Grau]

This thread is why those Project Binky guys never update anymore.

[bkbimmer]

I love how nice the parts look and how sketchy the shop looks. There should be hobos warming themselves by those burn barrels.