Hey there,
new here.
My name's Bastien. I'm a 22 year old car-crazy German with a stupidly low BMW. I realize it may be a bit too 'new' still, to be called 'retro', but with it being already 15 years old (and the earliest E36s having reached 21 years actually), I think it can be tolerated, haha.
I bought the car bone stock back in late 2009. It had roughly 200.000kms and a few problem spots like a rusted passenger side fender.
I had owned a 320i sedan before and still had some parts left over, like a set of fresh Depo headlights, smoked turns and most importantly coilovers. I also sourced some rare smoked MHW taillights. Additionally, the car was equipped with the M bumpers, skirts and mouldings and by then looked pretty much like this:
Bought some wheels. BMW Style 32s from a 7 series E38 in 8x18 ET20 and 9x18 ET22. They would be wrapped with 215/35/18s. Had them powdercoated RAL 9022 light pearl grey.
Rolled the rear arches, adjusted the coils and... bam.
Fitted the missing chin spoiler:
Then I had a stroke of bad luck... first I hit a fox while going around 100km/h. This ripped out the foglight and cracked the bumper.
Ripped off the whole bumper while entering a friend's street and had to ghetto fix the mounting tab using a soldering iron.
And in December 2010... I hit a sign pole.
Dented the quarter panel and broke the bumper.
Decided it was time for a rebuild! Took the car off the road and started ripping it apart.
The dent:
The rear bumper was cracked, I soldered the crack back together and smoothed and filled it and applied a layer of fibreglass to the rear for stability.
Took apart the front end:
These parts would go in the trash:
'New' parts:
Took a hammer to the quarter panel:
Rebuilt my suspension with new shocks and excentric M3 3.2l strut bearings (mounted inversed for more negative camber).
Got new wheels... BBS RF, 8.5x17 ET13 front, 9.5x17 ET13 rear.
Had them redone and wrapped in 205/40 and 225/35 Falken FK452.
Fronts fit perfect with the additional camber:
Rears would need some bodywork, though:
So I pulled the arches.
Adjusted the bumper mounting tab so the bumper would sit flush with the fender again:
Thought about paint. Was going to paint the car myself using Montana spray cans (see nose panel), but decided I didn't like the texture and would rather have a gloss car, so I decided to have it repainted in the stock color.
Cranked the coils down, test fit time. But the front was so filled with bump stops, the car didn't go low enough. They were taken out immediately after these pics.
Rear camber was also adjusted to the max negative setting.
Took the car apart again and drove it over to the painter's like this ;D
At the painter's (here we also swapped out the front doors due to rust):
Doing some final assembly at home:
Got some short-term plates and drove for a few days like this:
Had it registered again! Didn't get the wheels TÜV approved unfortunately because of some missing papers (oh how I envy you UK peeps
), so immediately went into winter mode on steelies. That was last November.
Newest mishap as of last week:
Untersteered in a roundabout and slid into a curb. Alignment is out of wack, probably a bent tie rod.
New tie rods along with control arm bushings are already ordered.
In the meantime, did the brakes using some Brembo Max discs and ATE pads.
Also got this waiting to be mounted, AC Schnitzer exhaust...
That was it up till now, I'll keep you guys updated if you're interested at all, haha.
As a sidenote: Yes, the car is not and never will be perfect, there is lots of small issues and things that are not 100%, but it's not meant to be a concours winner, just a nice daily driver I can enjoy.
new here.
My name's Bastien. I'm a 22 year old car-crazy German with a stupidly low BMW. I realize it may be a bit too 'new' still, to be called 'retro', but with it being already 15 years old (and the earliest E36s having reached 21 years actually), I think it can be tolerated, haha.
I bought the car bone stock back in late 2009. It had roughly 200.000kms and a few problem spots like a rusted passenger side fender.
I had owned a 320i sedan before and still had some parts left over, like a set of fresh Depo headlights, smoked turns and most importantly coilovers. I also sourced some rare smoked MHW taillights. Additionally, the car was equipped with the M bumpers, skirts and mouldings and by then looked pretty much like this:
Bought some wheels. BMW Style 32s from a 7 series E38 in 8x18 ET20 and 9x18 ET22. They would be wrapped with 215/35/18s. Had them powdercoated RAL 9022 light pearl grey.
Rolled the rear arches, adjusted the coils and... bam.
Fitted the missing chin spoiler:
Then I had a stroke of bad luck... first I hit a fox while going around 100km/h. This ripped out the foglight and cracked the bumper.
Ripped off the whole bumper while entering a friend's street and had to ghetto fix the mounting tab using a soldering iron.
And in December 2010... I hit a sign pole.
Dented the quarter panel and broke the bumper.
Decided it was time for a rebuild! Took the car off the road and started ripping it apart.
The dent:
The rear bumper was cracked, I soldered the crack back together and smoothed and filled it and applied a layer of fibreglass to the rear for stability.
Took apart the front end:
These parts would go in the trash:
'New' parts:
Took a hammer to the quarter panel:
Rebuilt my suspension with new shocks and excentric M3 3.2l strut bearings (mounted inversed for more negative camber).
Got new wheels... BBS RF, 8.5x17 ET13 front, 9.5x17 ET13 rear.
Had them redone and wrapped in 205/40 and 225/35 Falken FK452.
Fronts fit perfect with the additional camber:
Rears would need some bodywork, though:
So I pulled the arches.
Adjusted the bumper mounting tab so the bumper would sit flush with the fender again:
Thought about paint. Was going to paint the car myself using Montana spray cans (see nose panel), but decided I didn't like the texture and would rather have a gloss car, so I decided to have it repainted in the stock color.
Cranked the coils down, test fit time. But the front was so filled with bump stops, the car didn't go low enough. They were taken out immediately after these pics.
Rear camber was also adjusted to the max negative setting.
Took the car apart again and drove it over to the painter's like this ;D
At the painter's (here we also swapped out the front doors due to rust):
Doing some final assembly at home:
Got some short-term plates and drove for a few days like this:
Had it registered again! Didn't get the wheels TÜV approved unfortunately because of some missing papers (oh how I envy you UK peeps
), so immediately went into winter mode on steelies. That was last November.Newest mishap as of last week:
Untersteered in a roundabout and slid into a curb. Alignment is out of wack, probably a bent tie rod.
New tie rods along with control arm bushings are already ordered.
In the meantime, did the brakes using some Brembo Max discs and ATE pads.
Also got this waiting to be mounted, AC Schnitzer exhaust...
That was it up till now, I'll keep you guys updated if you're interested at all, haha.
As a sidenote: Yes, the car is not and never will be perfect, there is lots of small issues and things that are not 100%, but it's not meant to be a concours winner, just a nice daily driver I can enjoy.
