Casa de Mesa’s M3 color change from blue to blue

[Tbonem3]

The yellow calipers look even better with this blue

[Casa de Mesa]

The yellow calipers look even better with this blue

Thanks! I like them better on this color too.

[Acarv_426]

That looks amazing! Wow!

[usdmej]

have you considered using the shorter CSL specific dipstick? it's a little extra work to check your oil but no risk of a kinked dipstick or scratched airbox

[cobra]

Dude it's looking so good!!! Love the color and, well, everything.

[m3_aaron]

You've made an excellent colour choice. Keep up the great work.

[Casa de Mesa]

That looks amazing! Wow!

Thank you! Appreciate that.

Dude it's looking so good!!! Love the color and, well, everything.

Thank you sir! Still amazed at your front main seal tool. Such an ingenious design. Did you decide to change any aspects of it? Curious if the much bigger washer helped or not, that might have been all that's required.

Hi to my boy Nobu 😀

You've made an excellent colour choice. Keep up the great work.

The respray was a bit of a gamble and that first day showing up at the shop after it was painted was a bit tenuous... until I saw it! I'm super happy with the color so the gamble (for me) paid off! Thank you!

have you considered using the shorter CSL specific dipstick? it's a little extra work to check your oil but no risk of a kinked dipstick or scratched airbox

Man, funny you should ask that. In short, YES.

I do not like how the bent dipstick mod turned out. It works and it's out of the way, but given how little of a pain checking the oil level is, even with needing to remove the front half of the plenum (& snorkel), I'm likely going to go the CSL dipstick route. I don't like having to hold the top of the dipstick tube to steady it while pulling the dipstick out. Seems like after time, something will give way as it's totally unsupported up top and that's a lot of leverage acting on the bottom of the dipstick tube. I haven't seen any great ideas on how to make this work that support it from the top and don't look Fischer Price.

[robgill]

Man, funny you should ask that. In short, YES.

I do not like how the bent dipstick mod turned out. It works and it's out of the way, but given how little of a pain checking the oil level is, even with needing to remove the front half of the plenum (& snorkel), I'm likely going to go the CSL dipstick route. I don't like having to hold the top of the dipstick tube to steady it while pulling the dipstick out. Seems like after time, something will give way as it's totally unsupported up top and that's a lot of leverage acting on the bottom of the dipstick tube. I haven't seen any great ideas on how to make this work that support it from the top and don't look Fischer Price.

I routed mine behind the wiring harness plastic and against the DME barrier on both my cars. Didn't have to bend it and it's sturdy. Also doesn't interfere with strut bar. Crappy pics...

[Casa de Mesa]

I routed mine behind the wiring harness plastic and against the DME barrier on both my cars. Didn't have to bend it and it's sturdy. Also doesn't interfere with strut bar. Crappy pics...

Rob for the win. I will try this. Thanks for posting these.

I see it's routed between the aux H20 pump hoses. Are you getting rub-through from metal on rubber? I don't like it when two parts not designed to rest against each other do exactly that. One or both parts inevitably wear in an unintended way. It could just be this photo...

Regardless, I am definitely going to try this before buying the CSL dipstick. There has to be a way to isolate these two parts.Thank you!!

EDIT: In thinking this through more, with the top of the dipstick fixed to DME housing, and the bottom mounted to the oil pan, as that motor twists, are you seeing any signs of wear at the oil pan? Or at the DME housing?

I'm presuming "no" given you're running this on both your cars.

[Casa de Mesa]

Meguiar's #57 Marine & RV Vinyl & Rubber cleaner & protectant

Meant to mention this in a previous post. I found out about this stuff from Tbonem3 . Tyler, this stuff is gold! For any re-used plastic and rubber parts, after cleaning them with Simple Green, I soaked them in this stuff. Here is a pic of the first coating of #57 on the pusher fan. You can see where on this piece, it soaked into the plastic but was a little blotchy. For almost ALL pieces, this didn't happen and it soaked in evenly. But for some pieces, it only took a second soaking with time to absorb into the plastic before wiping clean again and the parts looked uniform and awesome. Literally in some cases, better than new.

HIGHLY recommend this stuff for all exterior plastic and rubber bits. This has become my Frank's Red Hot Sauce - I put that s*** on everything.



New and/ or refurbished trim

Despite the trend to go back to chrome with kidneys and grills and such, I decided to go gloss flat black everywhere. With this blue, my opinion is chrome would look odd. I have always like black trim on lighter color cars - the contrast checks all the visual boxes for me.

So while I did buy all new exterior door and window trim in gloss black:

P/N: 51327890453 Gloss Shadowline Trim - Left door
P/N: 51327890454 Gloss Shadowline Trim - Right door
P/N: 51367891911 Gloss Shadowline Trim - Left quarter window
P/N: 51367891912 Gloss Shadowline Trim - Right quarter window

...I wasn't willing to cough up the $2600+ per side for the gloss shadowline trim that runs from the A-pillar back the C-pillar and terminates at the base of the Hofmeister kink. The matte black ones from my car were in really good shape, right down to the rubber seals, so I asked Vintage Restoration if they could paint them gloss black. Yep!

Here they are, a bit dirty, but having these mounted to the car - TRIM ON THE CAR!! - feels pretty incredible at this point in the project.

P/N: 51717030845 Gloss Shadowline Trim - "A to C pillar" - Left
P/N: 51717030846 Gloss Shadowline Trim - "A to C pillar" - Right






Door weatherstripping going in

All cleaned and then treated with the Meguiar's #57. Stuff is awesome.

A little tip on this stuff. After letting it soak in for a few days, come back and wipe them clean again with a dry cloth. It will remove any minor (very minor) residual protectant that didn't soak in and as such, won't attract dust/dirt.









Quarter windows

Quarter windows back in!! Another huge milestone. After staring at a shell for so long, seeing side glass back in the car is monumental.




Reassembling the doors

This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but mostly thanks to (once again) robgill who warned that when he did this, he wished he took more pics. I have probably 200 pics of just the driver side door!

The vapor barriers in these pics below are the original ones, and somehow, that goopy sealant BMW uses is reusable if you take your time on removal. I know the fact that it's reusable is pretty well documented elsewhere on the internet, but I'm glad I took the time and went slow during removal. I couldn't find a replacement sealant that BMW uses hence why I opted to go slow and on removal, but it sealed right back up way better than I expected. I used isopropyl alcohol to clean the surface where the sealant would go and it worked really well.







New exterior door handle seals.




Slicktop stuff

A parting shot to the Slon Workshop carbon roof bow. Got all the interior wiring and side curtain airbags back in place. Got the slicktop coat hangers and associated hardware mounted up. Of course all the wiring (except speaker wires) was refreshed with new Tesa felt tape because I bought 5 rolls of the stuff and man does 1 roll cover a lot of wiring!

A huge shout out to my buddy Don who came down from PA and helped with this part. His beautiful (but dirty in this shot, no judging) E36 M3 is one of the reasons I decided to move forward with this project. It's originally Hellrot Red, but was resprayed and the car looks absolutely mint. This is a horrible photo below...





Hellrot gloriousness...



Front bumper stuff

Got everything I needed to install behind the Euro bumper done. Last minute decision, I decided to reuse the existing windshield washer reservoir. I will eventually come back and mount up the E36 tank in the drug bin per one of my earlier posts (using the Brey Krausse adapter), but I was missing some caps, plugs and fittings I needed to make it work. Getting those was going to take a while and at this juncture, it was holding up progress. My solution until then it to keep the bare minimum amount of washer fluid in the reservoir.

Also, after missing the motor install due to bronchitis, my father came down and helped with a lot of this part of project also. Also like I've said earlier in this thread, we are car family going back to when cars started to become a thing (early 1900s). Having my dad's help and expertise was invaluable. Thank you Dad!

It's starting to look like a car again...








License plate mount (trunk)

Here's a few shots of my method to get this thing mounted up. It's a bit anxiety inducing drill into freshly painted carbon. After marking the hole locations, used a center punch to dimple the paint/trunk. I just used my hand a pressed in. I then took the smallest drill bit I had, and slowly "drilled" into that center-punched dimple by hand. As in, held the drill bit in my hand and slowly made the initial marks you see. After I had a good start, I then switch to an actual drill bit and very slowly with very light pressure, drilled into the trunk...

I still love that this trunk is serial #13.

[Maxima SE]

Really nice build ! Great job! Color looks like a richer version of LSB with more depth

[cobra]

Thank you sir! Still amazed at your front main seal tool. Such an ingenious design. Did you decide to change any aspects of it? Curious if the much bigger washer helped or not, that might have been all that's required.

Hi to my boy Nobu 😀

Thanks! I ended up sending it to someone else with a larger washer and it worked fine. Then I sold it permanently to someone else so I guess it's working fine Have not had time to make a new design!

Keep up the good work!

[heinzboehmer]

I routed mine behind the wiring harness plastic and against the DME barrier on both my cars. Didn't have to bend it and it's sturdy. Also doesn't interfere with strut bar. Crappy pics...

I did something similar, but passed my dipstick under that plastic harness bracket thing. Same deal, no bending and pretty sturdy.

Shitty pic as well:

[repoman89]

It’s hard to tell from your pics but it looks like you might still have the sunroof coat hook brackets in there. Don’t forget to replace with the non-sunroof versions if you haven’t already. Otherwise the coat hooks won’t fit right or work correctly, and certainly won’t screw back in. Stupid little detail that kept my entire interior apart an extra five days or so while I waited for them

[Casa de Mesa]

Thanks! I ended up sending it to someone else with a larger washer and it worked fine. Then I sold it permanently to someone else so I guess it's working fine Have not had time to make a new design!

Got it! Earlier in this build thread, I mention that you have the FMS tool for rent. I can edit the post if you're not planning on renting one out anymore.

I did something similar, but passed my dipstick under that plastic harness bracket thing. Same deal, no bending and pretty sturdy.

Shitty pic as well:

The pic is perfect! I see exactly what you mean. Did you attach it at the top or does the way you routed it provide a friction fit so you don't need to?

And from your other post somewhere on here, I see what you mean about you also having that little air gap with the BMC CSL filter. It's literally in the same exact place!

It’s hard to tell from your pics but it looks like you might still have the sunroof coat hook brackets in there. Don’t forget to replace with the non-sunroof versions if you haven’t already. Otherwise the coat hooks won’t fit right or work correctly, and certainly won’t screw back in. Stupid little detail that kept my entire interior apart an extra five days or so while I waited for them

Those are the slick top coat hook brackets!

51168223047 Left
51168223048 Right

Thanks for calling that out though. I saw you post that about yours and man, not having those stupid little brackets and having them holding up progress would have driven me nuts!