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

You making it wider? The arches look a bit wider than OEM, might just be the camera angle, no wheel and colour difference.
 
Not a lot been happening cos of the weather. Edges of the new welds were starting to rust on the surface so I wire wheeled it all back, primered it again, and put some seam sealer on, ready to primer again, then put some chassis black on.

Turns out I'm useless at applying seam sealer, and I have the wrong type of brush so it just got all clogged up... So I'm going to have to wire wheel it all off and do it again. Or put more on top... The former would probably be better... :o

Stripped the old underseal and dirt and crud off of one inner arch which took lots of scraping and wire wheeling and scraping and cleaning, put seam sealer on the edges of the footwell repair then painted it with chassis black... The other side is next. Can you tell which is which? :p

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Oh and I have a new shiny. Well, 50% shiny. Honestly, the tips are a tiny bit too big for my taste but I am a sucker for the angled tips and it was a really good price from a mate. Heard it on his car and it sounds awesome.

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Slow progress really, welding commences next weekend, two day welding extravaganza... Hoping to get most of it finished off!

Car has two new wings fitted, sadly the wrong shade of red but they are solid and will be fine until the car gets sprayed at some point in the future.

Collected the exhaust mentioned above, at the same time collected an IS front lip, a new passenger side scuttle trim, a new fuel filler neck (mine is probably rotten, not sure yet), new coolant cap, and a new boot spoiler.

Also ordered new AP shocks, new AP lowering springs, new Meyle HD top mounts, new rear drop links, and new poly rear subframe bushes. Front links etc have already been done and arms and other bushes seem OK for the time being.

Did a quick photoshop of what I'm aiming for the car to look like this show season:

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(IS lip, wings will be the wrong colour during the shows so I thought I'd stick some yellow film on the inner lamps to try and draw attention away from it, will re-fit my clear indicators so it doesn't look like a fruit salad with the yellow orange and red, and lowered it to the approximate height I think it will be with the new suspension fitted.)

Don't worry, in time the panels will all be the same colour again, the yellow tints will be binned, and the OEM indicators will go back on... Just something I want to try. :p

Next update will hopefully be more rot and gape and welding. :eek:

Oh and in case you wondered what it sounds like with no exhaust...

 
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Rot chopping in the rain again... Didn't take pics of the finished welds before slapping loads of seam sealer and paint on top... Which is a shame cos they were pretty. :p

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The before pic corrupted sadly but here's a #chop from under the fuel filler neck.

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And done...

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Jammy. :p

Also a fire started behind the rear strut tower and we couldnt get to it to pat it out, it quickly escalated, and there was a frantic scrabble for the hosepipe. Now the interior is a little wet. :o
 
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£60 of paints and shizzle ordered... 2 litres of underguard which should be enough to do all the arches and the inner sills off of a gun, some chassis black, and a bit more zinc primer...

Recommendations for easy to work with body filler anyone? c:
 
Great I'll look into it. Thanks!

While we are at it, any decent companies for colour matched cans which don't suck? I know the paintwork is old and faded so even a perfect match won't look quite right, but the eBay cans and the Halfrauds cans I've tried before were both far too orange even for how the paint would originally have looked...

Need to do one rear quarter and a bit of both sills at the very least. Possibly then the front wings and a couple of other bits if I can get a decent finish!
 
Yes - Rage Gold, Rage Ultra or anything else really from the Evercoat range is genuinely good and absolutely worth the money compared to generic cheap filler.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj8H340g5Xk

Blimey £100+ quid for a tin! :eek:

How far will 3 litres of it go? What is its shelf life? :)

Any UK suppliers to avoid the £40 postage, who don't charge over £130 a tin? :p
 
If you're trying to save but still get a good product, EZ Ultra Lite is readily available over here. I've used it myself, it's very nice filler.

If its worth it I'll buy it, I just didn't realise decent body filler was so much! Appreciate the advice. :)

Its £20 a tub vs £100 a tub. Is the difference at all justified? Bearing in mind it will be my first time using filler so I doubt I'd notice the difference when working with it? :p

In other news, my suspension arrived!

Excited to get it fitted, but I feel like I should wait until the welding is done..... :p
 
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