325_driver

@Olaf telling you, was about to put it to a vote on a poll, I love that sparkling graphite with pearl, but that artic race blue on the new 4 series is something else.

Atleast I can redeem that colour by putting it on something without a botched up grill aspect.

Will be the only e46 in the world that color too at my guess as that color just came out in 2019

Basically just got to get this edge un-fakd from the crow bar job on it and thats this side done.

Really starting to appreciate the work panel beaters do

It's not 100% , don't know if I'm going to get it to 100% but compared to what I started with it's actually starting to look like an e46 read guard again.

Had so much on the plate at the moment, still chipping away at panel work, will upload photos at some point. But in the mean time, a new color that came out on the 440i came out that caught my eye.

Artic race blue

So decided to order 100ml and spray out on the car again since this seems to be an impossible decision for colour choice

Thinking of going that colour because it's such a unique blue, very different looks in different lighting.

Finally made the conversion in the e91 to full black leather.

Big thanks to @Steveo1 for the fronts + door cards

And big thanks to @BM WORLD for sorting the other half of the puzzle with rear and side bolsters.

Getting those seats back in require some pretty advanced tongue twisting and trigonometry, good thing I read up on some forum topics giving some pointers to the little seat being loosely secured first and then the bigger seat jiggles/ jolts onto it.

Had to convert the rear sedan door cards to the touring ones, luckily there was a some what cutout for me to follow carefully with the help of a jig saw and drill, felt extremely un easy cutting into a nice condition door card. Managed to transfer the bracket across relatively easy with some OEM BMW glue to re secure in place.

Fixing this absolute botch job of wiring from the previous owners garage.

Had o2 sensor error line fault possibly linked to that wiring, and secondary disa self diagnosis fault.

Massive thanks to @Steveo1 for throwing in the entire manifold + loom attached + o2 sensors to get this looking nice and tidy. Absolute legend.

Forth time taking this thing off, managed to get it off in 1 hour, with no Pipe breaks, and very little swearing getting the sump return odd with that ac line tool

After all of this no regrets,

A considerable bump in power, no lag in lower rpm range. That smaller DISA must have definitely been dead. And fuel economy  back to 14km/l open road and 10.5km/l mixed. (From 7-8kml)

@Steveo1 purchased disa and o2 sensors off him, ended up throwing in the entire loom to dme box to fix the absolute botch hack job the previous owner did installing non OEM sensors.

Absolute gentleman and would trade with again

Hey there, good to see you joined. Just bought some parts off you today, absolute pleasure to work with. 

Hopefully you can regain that garage and drive way back soon by moving some of those cars and parts haha.

anyone got this lying round they want to sell?

Out of an e91 wagon

Don;t need the side bolsters or the seat, 

just the folding lh/right hand backs

I'm the type of guy to spray clear coat over the base coat in the final stages here to see what it's going to look like. 

I'll be sanding it all right back anyway so why not.

Had to mix up some clear for some thing else so instead of getting rid of the last 50ml I coated the panel haha 

Can't wait for the day time so I can get a good look at that colour.  But it looks mint

@balancerider hahahaha you and me both. I just ain't slapping the 18" BBS rims w potenzas on because can't be bothered masking up when I'm spraying atm.

Guide coat on just to get a fresh look at the panel curves, been alot of rebuilding on it. used the rest of the graphite, an expensive guide coat that was 

Its looking 1million times better than when I started and happy that I spotted the dodgey guard flaring and didn't compromise on the body work.

Not entirely 100% with it but can definitely see the end in sight. 

Might start on the other side and use the other side as a guide to Match up he RHS. 

She's getting closer

Probably give it a few more runs to get it defined then move onto the other side.

Finally

Lol

@Sammo maybe he means, because it's not from the BMW Dealership.

@Seba FCP is the way to go, all OEM parts, make sure you stock up on some oil filters at the same time, alot cheaper over there than over here

Been slowly chipping away at the guard roll, 

right hand side was completely non-existent, just follow the same contour as the arch, so had to beat a lip back in with a sled hammer, don't know what these turkeys were up to

Other side, existing edge was still there, but they had wrenched it out with a crow bar, and it was all rippled

the edge is slowly starting to form, all the front left / front right rear left seem to be about 15.5 on the calipers

But i've got a long way to get to a nice defined arch like this. 

once arches are done, only a one more difficult ripple on the quarter panel lhs, then will be in a rapid sand down of the car and prepping for paint.

Wish me luck

@Olaf learned to paint pretty quick as the missus kept getting hit by uninsured drivers, and didn't want to pay excess haha.

I've learned painting good ain't that hard sticking to basics.

Painting exceptionally However is probably something id need in-store trade experience with. Like my clear coat strokes aren't thick and heavy usually because I hate runs, I just do lighter coats and 3 to 4 of them instead of a painter doin 2 efficient thick coats.

Having good lighting is really essential in the clear coat stage, been tripped up going to thick in an area because I cant see.

It's all in the prep as you know anyway, and can't emphasise the importance of wax and Grease remover or having a good substrate before paint gets applied, i.e. in the past I've had some spider web like flare up to an unknowns chemical from a previous repair.

Diy at home there's probably one thing I'm really struggling with, bug control haha, painting at night and a plague of those little buggers migrate to the garage 

Definitely get a compressor and paint gun, one of the best asset / toys to have in the shed. Get a devilbiss flg5 from spraygunsdirect.co.uk

An very good all round gun and exceptional finishes with it. I might recommend you find a cheap gun for primer. And the flg5 for paint / clear.

@Olaf wish me luck, I still have to un bleep the guard flares

Did another test spray with another paint color that caught my eye

Sparkling graphite metallic, A22 variant G X6 or something

Think I'm going to take the leap on this one, it's different

And going to look sweet with the gun metal BBS rims

div widget

Looking like that color, winner winner chicken dinner

Like a darker shade of steel grey variant with more purple ish hue than blue pearl.

@Driftit cheers bro for pointing me in the direction

Had seen sparkling graphite metallic but they were all more of a stock graphite, did more digging and found a variant of it that looks to be the first photo.

Yeah I meant Deltron usually $800-900 for the 4l of bc alone, and the reducer is pretty steep too, like $150 Ontop.

Paraglaze usually has the exact same colour codes in base coat but it would be 40% cheaper. Like $600 for base coat in that colour.

@Olaf that color is bloody Amazing

Just hope I can get it in something other than a DELTRON brand because it's $200 per litre plus gst for that colour code 

@Olaf yeah, the non variant one was nice just more or a standard graphite, I had a suspicion there was one out there with a blue pearl in if @Driftit was right and I reckon that might be the colour. Going to slap it on a quarter panel and make the call haha.

Obsession is real

$20 for a test 100ml

It will eat away at me not knowing. 

Thats the variant of it with blue pearl.

@Driftit you may be onto something with the first call on sparkling graphite.

I still reckon that colour is steel grey in the first image, but the variant of it

there's definite 2 options in the paint shop for bmw colour code 400 steel grey, one is a dark shade with like white pearl, the variant is the one below with a blue pearl in it.

https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=464380

@Jacko i was actually about to make a mention on something about exactly this, I used to run edge 5w40, by 3500km i chewed through 1l, so 1l top up, and then in 2000km that 1l was chewed up, top up -> then lucky if i got another 1000km out of it before top up.

I switched to Penrite HPR, it's been 5400km since the fill and have just chewed through my first litre, which is substantially better than 3500km on the edge, hard to say 100% for sure right now, but if i make it to my 7,000km oil interval without having to top up, this pretty much would suggest that Castrol Edge oil integrity breaks down quicker than penrite HPR in a substantial way.

No real leaks either to add to usage, sump is relatively dry, oil cooler gasket is dry, block is dry,. Just the od "seepage" here and there in common places.

Cleaned the car, and produced a little bit of low level car porn

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