Thanks all.
I've made some progress as time has allowed. I was just replacing the fender liners, because the passenger side did not have one and the drivers side was all torn and worn from tire rub. Upon lifting the drivers side I notice a puddle on the crib.. yay.
Thought it was brake fluid but it wasn't blue. After some poking around I found the leak coming from the bottom of the coilover, rad! So, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I'm leaning towards not sending it in for repair right now and just get something else. Maybe. I need to do some more reading on what's available in the range I want to spend but since it's a street car I don't need anything crazy.
Anyway, I drove the car for a bit after bringing it home then tore the interior out to work on things in the cabin, and it's been in that state since. A lot more half-assed shit found and fixed/plans to fix, I've got new seats to install, front and rear panels, stereo, steering wheel, etc.. Not sure where to start here so I'll just shoot from the hip.
This turbo doesn't fit the manifold well and respect to placement of the turbo. The PO hacked up the motor mount to fit the air filter since it sits so close and I noticed it starting to crumble. Go me. I ordered a CES mount and installed it, but they were still too close to fit a filter. Then I ordered the AKG turbo and a Garagistic mount with the Garagistic being the smaller of the 3. I installed that, still too close. Fuck. Ordered a matching drivers side mount because I'm not swapping the turbo side one out again, pretty pissed about it all. I'm going to have to hack up the filter, if that will even work, in hopes to run one. Worst case I can probably fit some air filter wrap sock thing over the inlet, clamp it on and hope it doesn't shred and/or get sucked in until I get around to installing the new manifold and snail. No pics of this BS.
Here's a couple of shots of the wheels after powder coat. I have yet to pull the car out into the sun to get some pics but the color came out awesome. The bronze really takes on different colors/shades depending on the light and I couldn't be happier with them. Same bronze all over but the center has a matte clear and the lips have high gloss clear. The dude said it was a total PITA to do the two clears on a one piece wheel, much harder to do it right than the 4x color front calipers sitting behind them that they also did. I thought it would have been the opposite. Either way, the guy did a great job on them. I spray painted the replacement fake plastic hardware with some rattle can black chrome since straight chrome was too much contrast. Went with some Nitto Invo in 225/40 and 255/35 as well.
The tint was shit. Purple, bubbled and hazy. So, I figured I'd save some money by removing it myself. What a shit show. Crappiest tint ever, left the most horrible glue behind to remove AND there were two layers of the stuff. FFS. After many hours, various tools and chemicals I got it all off without messing anything up. I should have just paid to have it done but whatever, it's over. I just need to find and schedule a good mobile tint guy to come by and wrap it up.
Got the main part of the dash painted, waiting on the humidity to calm down a little to refresh the black that surrounds the cluster and controls. I'm hoping to be able to dye the carpet black this weekend if time allows.
Before
After
Various interior parts cleaned and painted
Door panels and rear cards. M Tech cloth, dark grey alcantara and red stitching.
New seats. I've owned numerous aftermarket seats over the years so it wasn't a hard choice picking what I wanted, the hard part was finding what I wanted. I had my heart set on some red Recaro SRD seats but finding a pair that were absolutely mint and actually legit Recaro was pretty impossible. They had to be red, period, so the only ones I was eventually able to find were the SR4's. Not the headrest shape I wanted, the flat top of the SRD is what pined over since it more so goes with the car's lines, but they work. Upside is the material though, and I think that is worth the trade off. It is of MUCH better quality than the cloth my old SRD's had and I think these will stand the test of time a lot better. Being out of a production car I'd really hope so.
Tossed one in the car just to see how it looked in there. I still need mounts and sliders but I haven't settled on what mounts would work best yet (right height because I'm 6'2" and I don't want to be all off center of the wheel). Any mount recommendations for fold-able seat?
The rears were wrapped to match the panels.
Pulled the cluster to replace all the bulbs and so I could paint the dash. Since the steering wheel came off for this I tossed on my new one to see how it's going to look and I'm pretty happy with it.
Once I pulled the rear parcel shelf out I noticed, for whatever reason, the rear deck was hacked up some. I plan on mounting my amp and sub under the deck so this hackery needed to be beefed up some and it did not feel solid. Ghetto fix but it works.
Cut and bent up some flat stock
All exterior trim cleaned up and resprayed with trim paint
I added 2x more grounding cables, one from the transmission to the chassis and another from the block to another chassis ground spot as well as replacing the one from the motor mount to the chassis. That one was in horrible shape. I had also noticed the ground strap on the hood was cut in to and not even connected so I added a new one there as well.
Picked up some intercooler brackets from Zach at 22RPD to properly mount my TR1245. These are really nice pieces that saved me a lot of time from having to redo what I originally made to mount it. I need to find 2x more bolts
I had an unfortunate accident with my headlights that I was retrofitting. The front glass was off and one of the dogs shot ass through the garage and hit the box I had them sitting on, one fell off and the projector got chipped, yay. I found a set locally already done up so I snagged them and threw them on the car.
The windshield cowl was bad and needed replacing. It was dirty AF and just overall unsightly. Plan was to refurb it but after pulling it off it was worse off than I thought so I ordered a new one. It was so filthy underneath it, so filthy. I didn't take an after pic but rest assured it was cleaned up to where I wouldn't mind eating off of it. I also cleaned and painted the windshield wiper arms before reinstalling.
and all buttoned up
Pretty basic stereo system going in. Alpine deck, underseat sub, 4 channel amp and some mids/super tweets. The only thing mounted so far is the sub, which I mounted under the rear deck firing down. Not sure how well the sub is going to sound but anything is better than the nothing in there now. I have no plans for big speakers and boxes so hoping for the best and expecting the worst. I need to enlarge the kick panel holes to fit the 6.5" mids still, should be fun.
And some pics of various other things I've ordered for the car.
AGT side skirt extensions
Various pieces. All new parts to mount the exterior trim, door panels and cards, roundels, kidney grills, fuse box lid..
New shift boot, e-brake boot and e-brake handle.
Red carbon shifter surround and glove box trim.
I guess that's about it for now. As soon as I finish the dash I'll get the head unit installed so I can run the wires so I can mount the amp. Once tint is in I can start putting it back together.
Last edited by SyCK; 04-11-2019 at 06:43 PM.
Turbo E36 M3 with all the things..
Don't Hassle the Hoff
Originally Posted by drstuess
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