** Acme [Akagi] bought a pink estate car - E30 325i project log! **

Brakes are fine, its an electrical problem with the ABS. It will get fixed but I'm still diagnosing it.

Noticed that the surface rust on the scuttle has turned into a pinprick hole. Think I can probably get away with sanding and treating it and possibly filling the resulting hole with some weld.

Oh and thanks Ace. Sadly the colour match isn't right though. :(
 
Acme, would you have to primer if you were spraying the same colour? Sand back the lacquer until it's all flat, paint and re-lacquer.
 
Primer on metal / rust / filler / repaired areas, if you're just giving the whole thing a quick blow over though then just prep the surface to be painted by flatting it back.
 
I think you only primer the bits that are bare (so the bits you filled) That's the whole idea of primer, to prep the surface for paint. If it's already prepped there's no point surely? I'm not an expert though.
 
Acme said:
And if I'm filling and sanding as well, should I primer the whole panel then?
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Well you'll need to flat the panel back, ie, take off the lacquer / some colour coat so sanding is needed. ;)

Only primer the whole panel if you're either going back to bare metal on it all or going for a change of colour really. If you're using the same colour you should be able to get away with just flatting off the lacquer. What you will need to do though if you're doing a localised paint repair (ie not the whole panel) is blend it into the existing panel so it doesn't show its 3 day old paint vs 30 year old paint.

sigma said:
Well, use the internet to learn before you have a go...
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Or better yet, see if a local college does an evening course on bodywork, City of Bristol College does and I don't see why others wouldn't. This way you'll learn how to repair panels, how to prep them and how to paint them, obviously that does depend on the type of course offered. If you look at this Course Link, you'll see what the CoB course covers and can check your local colleges to see if they do similar.

I did the below on my Golf with colour matched rattle cans and clear lacquer. If I could be bothered then I'd even cut back the clear / lacquer so that the shine / slight colour difference isn't at all visible but I'm not that fussed, my car isn't a show queen, I just wanted to make it presentable.

Primer patches:


Painted:
 
I know that :p

This is just £40 of fun. Proper full stainless system will be coming in future. But welding needs doing first preferably!

Speaking of which, I might be buying a nice 180 amp Sealey mig tomorrow.
 
Acme said:
I know that :p

This is just £40 of fun. Proper full stainless system will be coming in future. But welding needs doing first preferably!

Speaking of which, I might be buying a nice 180 amp Sealey mig tomorrow.
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Yea welding and E30 always seems to be in the same sentence..
I miss having an E30 but when I unbolt bits off my old Audi and don't find nasty surprises underneath it remembers me why I got rid of my last one...
 
Grabbing this tomorrow. £50 in fully working order, complete with the lance, regulator, and even some wire. Just needs gas. Silly cheap! :D 130 amp should be sufficient for welding 2.5mm steel with gas and 5mm steel without. Floor pan steel is something like 1mm... :)

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Now I need to find some metal to cut up and practice on... I have an MX5 Boot lid which nobody is buying, maybe I'll chop some slits in it and weld them up. :p
 
Friend tightened the aux belt which got rid of the squeal, and I replaced the backbox with straight pipes... It sounds fairly awesome but also a bit too trumpety. Will do until I get my stainless setup. Or I might get bored of the noise and weld the backbox back on. :p

Oh and I should say that he soldered up my door loom for me. He's more proficient with a soldering iron than I am!
 
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Twist wires, put soldering iron beneath wires, put solder above wires, wait until you see the solder penetrate the twisted wires. It's pretty basic and easy to become proficient in. The more you do it the better you become - shying away from jobs won't help in the long run :)
 
On painting, I rattled can'd a set of wheels. They looked great for about 12 months and then loads of stone chips started happening and the paint dulled out quite quickly. It cost me very little, but took a fair amount of time. I probably wouldn't bother again, and just take it into the shop.

But the wheels were cheap, and so was the job. So I was happy.
 
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