MY E36 Compact

Carnt find a projects section so will put up my thread in here

Well since my E46 is no longer with us and due to money grabbers my insurance has gone sky high leaving me with the problem of getting insured on nice cars and as my policy was TPFT i never got anything back from the E46

so it left me with the problem of finding a cheap car that i liked and could still insure

as i have a habbit of being different i wanted to get away from 306's and polo's and will never touch another golf after my last one made it a short list

after reviewing cars i found that to stick with the BMW brand and go for a Compact as they were an insurance group 10 and not to bad to insure also as i liked the build quality of the E46 i wanted to stay with BM but then again me still having a set of 17 inch wheels for a BM might have helped my decision

after looking about on autotrader and ebay and other various places i found a few but when to come to ring up for them they had all gone or had no history with high millage

but managed to find this:





the car does need a good tidy up body work wise

but engine wise i carnt fault it as the cars only done 77K and its a 13 year old car so its 50k under the average millage for the year the car runs smooth with no noises or rattles

there is just cosmetic issues that need sorting really like rust patches and the horrrible blue seats but nothing that carnt be solved with some work and money

but the car is well worth the 600 quid i payed i think


list of stuff to do is;

*Fit Style 32 17 inch wheels
*M3 font Bumper
*Clear side repeaters
*M3 Wing mirrors
*Tidy back Quarter up
*Tidy front wing up
*Coil overs
*replace standard rear lights with red/clear euro ones
*replace gay blue seats with leather

i intend on getting most items off ebay and looking about on variuos websites but my aim is to get the car to some point of lookin like this


img_8967_1600_watermarked by bochmann.photo, on Flickr

Week 1

*fitted an aftermarket stereo as i dont seem to have any casstte tapes any more

*replaced the odd ratty BMW badge for a new one
before:

after:


*replaced the standard 15 inch wheels for my 17inch style 32 wheels

before:

after:


the more i look at the car the more the paint works annoying me carnt wait till i can afford to get it sorted will be soon with some luck though

WEEK 2

Replaced indictaor lenses
i bought some new indictaor lenses although i ordered clear i have smoked them to match the e36 headlights
before:


after:




next i replaced the wing mirrors

before:


after:


after fitting the mirrors im not that keen on how they sit as they dont sit flush with the window frame so will taking them off in next couple of weeks and get em to sit flush with a bit of grinding and fabricating of the mounting plates

WEEK 4

just done a few cheap mods

vyniled my door pillers so it matches the window seals
before:


after:


also de wipered the car

WEEK 5

well spent the day on the car
started by getting rid of the gay blue intrior and fitting a full mtech interior including roof lining sun visosrs handles etc

BEFORE:

carnt beleave someone payed for that for an optional extra :crazy:

here it is after


first was to sort the

next was therust bubbles out on the back arch turns out they were worse than i thought and needed filling rather than the rust just sanding out so got to it the job isnt perfect but looks alot better than the bubble patch on the back arch the panel just requires a good flat and polish now to bring it up with the rest of the paint

BEFORE:


AFTER:

the picture looks a bit hazy but think lens was dirty :rolleyes:

i also finsihed by repairing the cracks in the leather that was on the passenger seat

BEFORE:


first thing i did was sand it down and clean the leather with some leather prep


then added the dye by rubbing it in followed by a satin finsih and now looks like this




so had quite a poductive day

i now know that the rear quarter will need replacing as i aint happy with the state of it but will either be getting a respray or vynil wrap at some point so the wing will be sorted then

also now the seats are in i can take them somewhere to have the fabric cleaned properly as no matter how much upholstary cleaner i put on i dont seem to be getting anywahere

WEEK 6

well the M-Tech rears now on looks better just missing an exhaust now think i will be going for a 3 inch outward rolled when i get round to buying one i think

before:


after:


finally got round to replacing the grill surround as when buying the car it had a nasty scrape in the existing grill surround.


When changing the grill also decided to go for a preface lift one as the kidneys i think look more aggressive in the fact the sit into the grill rather than sit on top of the grill and also gave me a chance to paint them black

old face lift grill


new pre facelift grill fitted


also when lookin on ebay found someone selling a full mtech kit for a compact for £130 so snapped that up gonna relist the rear bumper as im keepin the skirts and spoiler and i raped the front mtech front bumper for its foglights bump strips and M3 mesh as the M3 bumper i bought ealier in the month was missing bump strips,fogs and grill on pricing up these parts was coming up at around 100 quid so me coming across the M tech kit was some good luck anyways here it is with the new M3 bumper now fitted along with the prefacelift grills

before


after




so im starting to like the car a bit more now its starting to get to the point where its lookin ok and better than it first did next step is to get some coil overs and drop it on its arse also as the paint is in such a poor state in little scratches and polisher rash ive decieded a colour change is in order and as i have found a cheap source of vinyl im gonna vinyl wrap the whole car which should be fun

hoepfully i should have the whole car lookin how i want it for trax which is about 6 weeks off so looks like i have some work cut out

WEEK 7
well pay days here so been spending

so far i have bought

*set of coil overs
*clear/smoked side repeaters
*5 meters of matt grey vinyl
*2 meters of matt black vinyl

and a GT front splitter like this

well these turned up today



bought em off ebay for 200 quid new comes with 2 year manufacture warrenty so sure i will need to take advantage of that with em being cheap coil overs but carnt really complain for the money i paid

Also my vInyl turned up to for begining of the wrap

next thing is just to get em fitted

well this weekend i have treid to fit my coil overs this resulted in lots of swearing and getting pi**ed off

all started when i decided to start on the front passenger side by accident i undid the wrong bolt resulting in the suspension strut and unloading the spring at that point i wasnt to fussed as it was coimng off anyways but later when i came to undo the the hub from the suspension leg i hit problems

first problem was one of the bolts in the hub which bolts to the suspension leg deicded to snap at the head leaving the rest of the shaft in the hub this now means the hub needs replacing

so thought oh well will carry on undid the next bolt no troubles then came the top suspension/hub nut that came off ok leaving just the bolt sat in the hub which just needed knocking through. But no matter how much i tried wouldnt shift i spent all day with wd40, penertrating oil and lots of hitting with hammers plus bending a t bar by swinging on the bolt resulting in this:

by this time i was getting anoyed at the car so deicided i would just take the hole hub and leg off so started to undo the wisbone bolt which then decided that would cross therad and also sheer some threads off so thats now resulted in a new wishbone being required at this point it was started to get dark and was running out of light there was nt enough room in the arch to get the spring back on the strut so i imprvised and bodged some support (blocks of wood) to hold the leg in place so i could put the wheel on and put the car to onside over night


well with it being a new day thought i would give it another go this time with a blow tourch and the hammer and another Bar tried for a few hours by myself not getting anywhere then my dad came gave us a hand he swung on the bolt with the bar while i heated it up this released the hub/suspension bolt finally making it possible to hit it out

the offending bolt :

that little ba***rd has been a pain all weekend and the more anoying thing it was tapped so there shouldnt have been ought stopping it from coming out

now with the leg off i decided i best put the new coil over in for now untill my new hub and wishbone comes this week as the MOT is due ive ordered new wishbones and droplinks for both sides might aswell replace them as no dobut it will come up on the mot

the suspension leg was now fitted


deiceded to leave the car outside the garage for the rest of the week as i dont think its safe with the wishbone bolt not on securly and one of the hub/suspension leg bolts missing but i do have to say does look a dam site cooler without the arch gap

Bloody hell, all happened so quickly man, looks a hell of a lot better now

i aint really put any pics of it on facebook tbh

its come to quick just getting odd things off ebay on payday and stuff and had alot of spare time so been putting it into the car

the wraps had to be put on hold i think with having to buy wishbones and hubs and stuff so will just tidy up the paintwork best i can for now

cumin along nicely

Looking loads better Damo

Cheers Emz

well the coil overs are now on but still carnt drive it as im waiting on passenger side hub to come also got some new wishbones to fit this weekend so havint really set the ride hight properly

i think these cheap prokits are the same suspension kit thourgh the 3 series range as the aftermarket spring is only a inch shorter than the standad but has more coils so stiffer in effect due to the compact being a hath back there isnt much weight on the back so when i first put the coil overs on at the rear i had huge arch gap more than standard so what ive done ive ripped the adjuster nut out and sat it just on the springs at back till it settles in a week or two then when its sunk im gonna put the adjusters back in so it sits at a nice sensible hight anyways here how it looks

that looks much better

well after a long weekend of bashing the car some more and drilling and blow tourching things the wishbones on the passenger side and coil overs are on along with my GT splitter

the cars sitting a bit high at the back but that should drop over the next few weeks

also i think with the coil overs set to where they are i wont be leaving my splitter on for daily driving as it sits a bit low with it on so will just put it on for shows and meets

the cars starting to get to a point where im really liking it the car looks so much more aggresive now than before the only thing i really hate about the car apart from the dog slow engine is how bad the paint work is hopefully i should be ok come MOT time and wont need anywork doing leaving me money do do the wrap which all being well if it goes to plan will solve the poor paint work problem

anyways heres how its lookin now also got some more plates made up

Looking good mate

cheers mate just a few more bits left then start saving for the next project

well the splitter dint last to long till it got damaged after i found a series of speed bumps when going to a cruise last night managed to get it caught on one of them



so its now off the car being fixed also sprayed my M-Tech spoiler and gonna fit that tomorrow

next on the car im unsure on as MOT is due this week so have to see what that brings up i guess onto how much i will be doing on the car before trax with trax only being 2 week away

Well finally got round to spraying the spoiler im unsure on it at the moment dont know if it looks better without tbh

needs a good flat and polsh aswell gonna be doing that next week on my week off i think when i do some other panels that need it

anyways here it is

before:



after:

Hummmmm not sure on that :/

yeh seems a love it hate it thing on the forums i have just posted on

i think i little lip spoiler would suit it better (maybe)

yeh i only fitted this cos it came with the M Tech kit i bought for 130 quid

might stick this up on ebay at some point and get a lip spoiler