I just dropped off my car for a respray of the factory Calypsorot color. Includes the front fenders, hood, side skirts, front bumper and mirrors from the blue 1998 M3 mentioned above. It also includes an M-Tech rear bumper that I picked up from a nearby Pick-n-Pull. I repaired all dings and other damage, and block-sanded it to the best of my abilities. All side windows were also removed prior to dropping it off for final smoothing and prep. Should have it back in 3-4 weeks if all goes as planned. I can't wait to have the aesthetics match the performance of the car!

Swap manual
 

Hi, I sent a pm about your swap manual. Idk if you ever got it.

Thanks

I responded to questions about my copy of the swap manual...

I finally got fed up waiting for my car to be painted, so I brought it home a couple of weeks ago. The guy was able to fix a few small dings and covered the whole body in sanding primer, but it has since sat for months. :mad:

This week I've been busy cleaning out my garage and building a "spray booth" out of PVC and EMT pipe, as well as plastic sheeting. I'll finish the final block sanding over the next couple of days and get everything ready to spray the basecoat, followed by several coats of clearcoat. I'll be supplying fresh air using three 20" box fans and house filters, and pulling out fumes and overspray using two 20" box fans/filters. I've got a 60-gallon 220V air compressor, and a Devilbiss Finishline spray gun that I've used in the past for small/panel paint repairs -- but no experience finish-painting an entire car. :eek:

I'll take plenty of pics as I progress with this paint job. I'm taking off Friday and Monday; wish me luck!

Looking forward to your pics and progress. Best of luck to you.

This is a lot more work than I originally anticipated, but I'm learning a lot. Over a four-day period, I managed to build the booth (1-1/2 days!), block sand the entire car, re-prime (using etching primer where sanded through to metal followed by PCL high-build Polyprimer/surfacer) a few spots, and will finish block sand again in the next few days. I started with 220 sandpaper, followed by 320, 400 and 600. I use a variety of Dura-Block sanding blocks and cut sandpaper from pre-sticky rolls through 400, and cut sheets for the final 600 sanding.

I used Bulldog adhesion promoter on all plastic and weird-shaped pieces (bumper covers, skirts, mirrors, fuel door, license plate lights cover, etc.), followed by PCL Polyprimer. I also primed the metal front nose piece.

The "booth" works reasonable well, although I ended up turning down the three Home Depot-special intake box fans to the second-highest setting while keeping two exhaust box fans on high. It provides a slightly positive pressure in the booth, while clearing the paint fog pretty quickly. I always blow out the booth with an air nozzle, followed by a heavy-mist spray of water on the floor. For lighting, I've got three ceiling-mounted 8-foot dual tube fluorescents, as well as two 4-foot dual tube fluorescents mounted down low on the sides (outside the booth). I realized last night that I needed more light at the back, so I set-up two LED work lights mounted on a telescoping pedestal. I use a 3M respirator and clear eye protection for primer/base spraying, but will use a supplied-air full mask when shooting the clear (bought it on Craigslist for $50 including the compressor!) because the isocynates are apparently deadly.

My plan is to spray color and clear next weekend. I'll post more pics as I make progress...

Looks like that set up was lot of work. Well done. I'd tell ya good luck, but doesn't seem like you'll need it. Hope it comes out well.

Is this the time then whereas I can mail you all my parts for painting? Be a shame to take that all down. J/k, but seriously I'd try practicing/painting on everything around the house, why not. Calypso rot fridge? Yes please...

More pics...

how did you sync dme and ews? did you go to dealership or program yourself using something like gpeterson's software and vagcom cable?

See post #14... no need to go to the BMW dealer.

So the paint job took a lot more time than I originally anticipated. In total, I probably have 150 hours into this body work and respray project, and I still need to finish the final polish/swirl removal. But it looks GREAT!

The first couple of photos show the base/color coat (two coats). I ended up having to respray the hood and driver side fender because I didn't allow enough flash time before spraying the clear coat and got the dreaded "paint pop" -- which required me to sand down to the primer and start over. I covered the base/color coat with three coats of clearcoat. One lesson learned: push the volume on the clear coat on the second and third coats -- just on the verge of running.

The third picture shows the car during the initial cut/buff stage, where you use (expensive) finishing sandpaper to knock down the orange peel and any dust nibs. I blew it and waited too long to start this process, so it took a LONG time to break through. When the instructions say to begin cutting (also called "color sanding") between 24 hours and 48 hours, don't wait two weeks like I did...

I used Meguiar's wet/finishing paper: 1000 for the initial cut, and then several more stages to remove sanding marks (1200, 2000, 2500 and finally 3000). I literally wore off my fingerprints holding the 1000 paper onto a small rubber sanding block; the latter stages only required a few passes to remove the previous paper's marks. In essence, you start sanding until the little low spots are gone, constantly squeegeeing off the water to see your work. The Meguiar's finishing paper ain't cheap -- between $25 to $35 per package of 25 sheets -- but it is very high quality. Everything I read on-line says to not scrimp on the finishing paper.

The fourth and fifth pictures show what happens when you sand through the clear coat -- because I sprayed it on a little too thin on the passenger side wheel arch. So I roughed it up with 600 wet/dry 3M paper, and reshot the clear coat. But I learned my lesson and began finish sanding within 48 hours, and I cannot say how much easier it is to do when the clear coat hasn't fully set-up like granite! Anyway, this rework required about 10 hours to fix.

What I didn't show is me having to repaint the roof, driver quarter panel, and the driver door because of "moisture splats" that only showed up during the buffing process. Apparently, my two-year old desiccant "whip" between the Harbor Freight canister filter and the hose, as well as the little "pumpkin" filters that I used right at the spray gun, didn't remove all the moisture, and I ended up with a few atomized water droplets in the base coat. :mad: So I bought a new desiccant whip and used the orange Motor Guard see-through desiccant filters (the desiccant beads start out blue but turn pink as the moisture collects), which did the trick. There goes another 15 hours of sanding, based coat, clear coat, cutting and buffing...

While the initial cutting is messy (the slurry gets everywhere!), buffing is even messier. I used an 8" wool pad on the big panels and a 3" wool pad on nooks/crannies. Meguair's UltraCut is the stuff that flings everywhere. Do yourself a favor and spread cheap plastic film over everything nearby. I took it real slow so I wouldn't burn through, and the results are dramatic. My wife kept chiding me that I ruined glossy paint by sanding (!) it, and I have to admit that I was worried that it would never look good. The first pic below shows what the 3000-sanded paint looks like next to a buffed section, and the second shows it after being buffed with the wool pad. Even Nancy is impressed...

Because I'm a total glutton for punishment, and Rich (BlackBMWs) is my enabler, I decided to swap from a Sandgrau interior to a black one to match the various Stoff/Anthracite parts I'd been gathering. Rich provided a lot of the plastic pieces, and I grabbed a black molded carpet and dash, as well as a relatively rare tintop headliner, from the Moss Landing Pick-n-Pull.

The first picture shows the gray dash cover next to the black one. The second pic shows the black carpet; note the fore-aft cut I made at the front -- this allows you to slide it past the HVAC drain tube that empties over the trans tunnel. I managed to muscle the HVAC unit out at the junkyard in order to get an uncut carpet set; much swearing to be sure! I cut the stock gray carpet out in pieces.

The third, fourth and fifth pictures show the gutted car, including the headliner. A DAPO replaced the factory liner material with an ugly Sisal material, which just had to go...

The first picture below shows the carpet in place, and the final picture shows everything mostly buttoned up, with the exception of the Sport door and side panels. You'll also notice I am still using the factory gray glovebox; I will paint it in the coming weeks if I'm unsuccessful finding a black one. I bought a can of SEM Landau Black plastic paint if it comes to that.

I just ordered three yards (60" wide) of Synergy II faux suede padded material for the headliner and one yard of non-padded material for the A-pillars. The leftover will be used on my WRX-powered Porsche 914 project that I hope to get back to soon!

Right on! the paint looks great! Let me know if you ending up missing any pieces. If I have them, I'll ship them down.

DONT get me started on painting... Need to paint the Z3 hood, but after the S52 project.

You know what my conversion has been. I did get the ZF in, E34 M5 clutch and UUC FW, rebuilt the rear subframe, swapped in a 3.25 LSD, Solid tranny and engine mounts and swapped in a Z3 rack today. Still a solid day and a half work left to do, but it's coming along. Thanks for your note this weeks. It helped as I searched for a driveshaft.

Thunderhill on Saturday and Sunday i'll post up some pics..

See ya! :cool: