Henna Red 323i

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kdevitt
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:23 pm

Some of you might recognise this car - bought it off Vinni on here a few weeks back. Am going to restore it, hopefully doing as much of the work as possible myself.

Got it home last Saturday - had Monday off and took back the arches to clean metal and primered them up. ALso colour coded the mirrors while I was at it!

Lots left to do, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

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Last edited by kdevitt on Tue May 07, 2013 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ollie_bwoii
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:30 pm

:cool: Looking good! Black mirrors are better imo! winkeye

Are you going to keep it original?
Alex
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:37 pm

looks awsome, i agree black mirrors are better, most chromies had black mirrors

good luck with the resto, the car deserves it :D
hubble
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:40 pm

Nice early example there. I agree with the mirrors being black though. Get some t-cut on that chrome too!
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bss325i
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:42 pm

:cool: Its being saved!

What are the plans for it other than a resto?
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kdevitt
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:02 pm

Hehe - I knew the black mirrors would be popular alright!

Am going to take the porter cable to it tomorrow hopefully and see how the bonnet, roof and boot come up. I think the paint is original on them - its very dull (the photo is quite deceptive!) The bottom of the car seems to have had paint all over - there was some quite bad paint runs on the offside rear quarter, but that was no issue since I was removing surface rust in the same area anyway, and just sanded them back.

It'll need a new offside wing - its a bit rotten at the bottom, so will be getting a new one from the dealer. Will replace all the plastics - such as the front grilles.

I intend to use period parts for most of it - although I know not everything will be to everyones taste. The headlights are truly awful, as are the brakes, so might look at improveing those somehow. The tec I kit for Vinni's other car is on its way to me too which is probably the biggest thing I'll do, would like a set of genuine Alpinas, but I'll be taking my time either way. My daily driver is an E46 M3, so that tends to eat up the funds as well - especially with the way us Irish are screwed for driving big engined cars (€450 paid last night for 3 months road tax :cry: )
hubble
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:08 pm

kdevitt wrote:Hehe - I knew the black mirrors would be popular alright!

Am going to take the porter cable to it tomorrow hopefully and see how the bonnet, roof and boot come up. I think the paint is original on them - its very dull (the photo is quite deceptive!) The bottom of the car seems to have had paint all over - there was some quite bad paint runs on the offside rear quarter, but that was no issue since I was removing surface rust in the same area anyway, and just sanded them back.

It'll need a new offside wing - its a bit rotten at the bottom, so will be getting a new one from the dealer. Will replace all the plastics - such as the front grilles.

I intend to use period parts for most of it - although I know not everything will be to everyones taste. The headlights are truly awful, as are the brakes, so might look at improveing those somehow. The tec I kit for Vinni's other car is on its way to me too which is probably the biggest thing I'll do, would like a set of genuine Alpinas, but I'll be taking my time either way. My daily driver is an E46 M3, so that tends to eat up the funds as well - especially with the way us Irish are screwed for driving big engined cars (€450 paid last night for 3 months road tax :cry: )


8O I'll never complain again about paying £101 for six months
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kdevitt
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:10 pm

hubble wrote: 8O I'll never complain again about paying £101 for six months
Yep - and it goes up by 5% next month :eek:
Alex
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:12 pm

kdevitt wrote:
hubble wrote: 8O I'll never complain again about paying £101 for six months
Yep - and it goes up by 5% next month :eek:
robbing bastards :roll:
hubble
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:15 pm

Alex wrote:
kdevitt wrote:
hubble wrote: 8O I'll never complain again about paying £101 for six months
Yep - and it goes up by 5% next month :eek:
robbing bastards :roll:
+1
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eko
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:18 pm

Nice to see this being saved :cool:
Would love another chromie in my life and no doubt will again at some point.
Did you get my PM last night Ken?
The loghts are on there way over to you,probably arrive Monday.
Buy yourself a set of HIDs to fit at the same time,you wont regret it winkeye
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Blitz
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:23 pm

Great buy. I was gonna buy that as well.
vinni
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Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:32 pm

Good to see work being started on it after being hiden away for nearly 12 years, keep us up dated on the progress mate. :thumb:
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bss325i
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 2:07 pm

I have a set of four genuine 16x7J Alpina wheels for sale with caps, 2 keys and two good tyr.s. £400
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bmwsport
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 2:12 pm

And a good price that is ^^^
'85 Hartge H28
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kdevitt
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:11 pm

A lot to do before I stick new wheels on it I'm afraid! Great price though - I'd snap them up if I wasn't so afraid of my missus :)

I did a bit of work today - enjoy.

So todays job was to see if I could do anything with the bonnet. I'm sure you've all seen similar threads - so you'll know whats to follow!

Here is the bonnet before anything is done. The photo actually doesn't look too bad - but it was extremely dull.

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I'd found that Megs 83 previously didn't make enough of an impact on the BMW paint, so on advice I'd purchased Poorboys SSR3. The first pass was done with this, on a spotlessly clean white sonus pad.

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Needless to say, it seemed to be having an effect as you can see from the pad in the photo above.

I followed this up with the Megs 83, and then the Megs 80. A coat of Poorboys sealant was applied, and this was then finished off with the nattys paste wax. The finished result was fantastic in the flesh anyway :)

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I managed to mess up my elbow at go-karting last week, so only actually got that half done befoe the pain got too much. More to do next weekend!
Last edited by kdevitt on Tue May 07, 2013 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
hubble
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:45 pm

Well done kdevitt. Cracking job. You can beat an orbital. I use the Meguiars Dual Action Polisher G220. Great bit of kit.

Are you going to do the rest of the car??
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vinni
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 5:44 pm

Looking good mate, keep up the good work :cool:
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kdevitt
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:49 pm

hubble wrote:Are you going to do the rest of the car??
Yep - will do the rest of it next weekend hopefully. The dark evenings gtend to cut down on the amount of time I can spend on it! A sore elbow doesn't help either.
hubble
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:31 pm

Just be a little careful. These cold days/nights play havoc with polishes and waxes. They don't break down to easily.

Look forward to more pics
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Alex
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:58 pm

hubble wrote:Just be a little careful. These cold days/nights play havoc with polishes and waxes. They don't break down to easily.

Look forward to more pics
tell me about it, took me ages to wax me roof
hubble
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 8:32 pm

Alex wrote:
hubble wrote:Just be a little careful. These cold days/nights play havoc with polishes and waxes. They don't break down to easily.

Look forward to more pics
tell me about it, took me ages to wax me roof
Keep it up Alex, you'll have arms like Popeye soon!....or should that be Brutus?.....:D
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Alex
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 8:33 pm

hubble wrote:
Alex wrote:
hubble wrote:Just be a little careful. These cold days/nights play havoc with polishes and waxes. They don't break down to easily.

Look forward to more pics
tell me about it, took me ages to wax me roof
Keep it up Alex, you'll have arms like Popeye soon!....or should that be Brutus?.....:D
:chuckle: :D
feens
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 9:36 pm

Looking good Ken the paint came up really well, could do with geting some tips off you for using thr portercable ive only used mine a handfull of times asd still learning :)
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kdevitt
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Mon Dec 22, 2008 10:59 pm

So a bit of a quick update.

Anyhoo - the car came with pinstripes from new. I sort of like them, although I could live without them. Given the fact that I need a new wing, which has been ordered from the dealer along with a few other little bits, it meant I was going to be left without pinstripes on the wing. So I decided to remove them all.

The tool I used is called an eraser wheel. You'll pick them up on eBay easily enough.

So here is the eraser wheel attached to the drill:

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This will cut through your paint if you're not careful! Car needs to be spotless, and only use the flat edge of the disc. Max revs on the drill is 4000rpm. Take your time and the stripes start to clear:

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Make sure to wear a face mask when you're doing this - the wheel sheds a lot of rubber, as you can see from the following pics:

Wheel after:

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Car After:

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Next up was the rear of the car - weather was crap yesterday, so didn't have a chance to do too much. I decided I'd get as much done with the bootlid and spoiler as possible! I managed to primer the new spoiler, and laid down two coats of paint before starting on the car itself.

The bootlid looks ok in the photo here - but as with most of the other panels, it was very dull.

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I removed the spoiler - leaving a fairly dirty mark underneath! This isn't really an issue, the new spoiler covers more of the lid than the old one.

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The model badge obviously needed to come off to allow me to get the lid done properly. I heated it with a hair dryer, and then used a credit card to remove it. Then I covered the drill holes for the spoiler with tape, and put down a liberal coating of diluted Poorboys general cleaner, leaving it for ten minutes or so to work in.

The adhesive left behind by the badge was never going to wash off - so out came the eraser wheel again!

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A quick rinse down followed by some Portercabling and the lid looked alot better.

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That said - it seems the more I do, the more I need to do. I thought the lid had escaped paint in the past, but its not the case. The lid had obviously been painted before - with the 323i badge just being masked up. Theres a quite noticeable lip of paint around where it was, so I'll be sanding it down and painting it again at the weekend!

I managed to put down the final coat of paint on the new spoiler tonight, so should have something to show for my efforts at the weekend!!
Last edited by kdevitt on Tue May 07, 2013 10:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
vinni
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Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:51 pm

Looking good mate, what spoiler is going back on ? :cool:
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vinni
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Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:54 pm

vinni wrote:Looking good mate, what spoiler is going back on ? :cool:
Opp's i just thought, you bought the tech1 kit didnt you lol, silly me :mad:
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kdevitt
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Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:59 pm

haha - yes thats the one alright!

Car has now decided not to start up though :( Think the engine is flooded
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Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:23 pm

The tool I used is called an eraser wheel. You'll pick them up on eBay easily enough.
I used a razor blade to remove the pin stripes from mine. :D
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Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:47 am

this makes great reading i'm glad you bought it, as everyone said it was a car that needed someone to come along and give it the love it needs
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Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:55 am

Looks nice, I have always wondered with home resprays on red cars, how the hell do you get a good paint match. Even with revitalising all the old paint, new stuff out of a tin must be miles off? :cry:

Is this where your detailing magic comes in?

Good work so far. 8)
kdevitt
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Wed Dec 24, 2008 2:19 pm

Simon13 wrote:this makes great reading i'm glad you bought it, as everyone said it was a car that needed someone to come along and give it the love it needs
Cheers - thought I might be boring people to death!!
Jon_Bmw wrote:Looks nice, I have always wondered with home resprays on red cars, how the hell do you get a good paint match. Even with revitalising all the old paint, new stuff out of a tin must be miles off? :cry:

Is this where your detailing magic comes in?

Good work so far. 8)
The paint seems a good match alright - there seem to be a few different shades on the car from where its had paint already though, so I don't imagine it'll be easy to match all over!
bss325i
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Wed Dec 24, 2008 5:06 pm

kdevitt wrote:Cheers - thought I might be boring people to death!!
Not at all!

Its refreshing to see some restoration love going into the cars instead of people wreking them with BK's and tacky rear lights!

Keep up the good work!
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jamie323i
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Wed Dec 24, 2008 7:13 pm

Looking good so far,nice to see another chromie 323i being saved,i have a list of jobs to do on mine,must get cracking over christmas.

As for boring,never,bring on the rest of the restoration pics! :cool:
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CourtM3
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Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:39 pm

Good job, need to get my henna back in that condition.
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