2001 M3 Journey: Laguna Seca Blue Edition

[M3_legend]

Your attentions to detail! Love this build this is a good reference to any carbon roof swap. I need to add this to my E90 M3 in the future

[0-60motorsports]

Nice update and great work.

[bavarian3]

Carbon Fiber roof install - Part III - Roof Bows

This post covers the front, center, and rear roof bow install and prep.

First let's work on the center bow. Starting by removing these brackets. The coat hook hanger on the left will get swapped with slicktop specifc ones. These are NLA so source them in advance!





I got a second hand to help so I could drive a self tapper in the appropriate spot. Aligning this beam will be obvious once you're in there. The self tapping screws here make some sense as they're used for the other brackets in the area.

Nothing fancy is needed here as the panel bond will do the work in the end.




Outline the space and drill some holes for rivets. Don't use crappy rivets. Stainless with stainless mandrels so you don't rust down the road.




Prep the bow. Doesn't need to be perfect as panel bond will cover any exposed steel.




Clean everything up, get your rivet and adhesive gun ready and send it.

I used 3M 07333. I planned to use this for the whole project, but realized it's a bit too viscous. It got the job done for this part.







Sometimes when you're deep in a project you make some boneheaded mistakes like forgetting to tape off outline of the bow for a clean install. Buying myself more work but I knew I couldn't leave it like this.





Went down a rabbit hole of a mess. It ain't always wax on wax off.






After a mess of sanding, spraying, masking, fighting with blending colors....(this was definitely the most annoying part of the whole project) quite the improvement.


It actually matched way better in person. This was freshly sprayed, after curing it's hard to tell it was ever touched now.




Back to perfectly factory looking.

Note: The airbag does have to come down for the roof bonding step.





Now the front and rear bows.

The goal is to prep the surface for windshield adhesive. You can either scrape off the existing stuff leaving a thin layer(windshield adhesive bonds great to old windshield adhesive), or completely remove it then reseal.

Here you can see the remaining black strips of adhesive I started working off.





I opted for full removal.






Then to reseal. I used the same SEM EZ (olive color) coat which matches perfectly with the factory finish. It's also direct to metal coating.






All the bows ready to go, for the next step at least...





Now we wait...

[blknsilver4life]

Amazing build

[0-60motorsports]

Appreciate ya both! Feel free to holler with any questions. I'm about to lay 2 more slicktop headliners now that I have the fabric.

Thats great. I think im going to buy the fabric next time im in the states and change back to that getting rid of the alcantara. I'll use the headliner alcantara to redo a part of my OE CSL driver seat.

[bavarian3]

Great job on that headliner! Definitely will be referencing this when I reupholster mine

Amazing progress and some great pics.

Appreciate ya both! Feel free to holler with any questions. I'm about to lay 2 more slicktop headliners now that I have the fabric.

[0-60motorsports]

Amazing progress and some great pics.

[bavarian3]

Carbon Fiber roof install - Part II

I'll cover the removal process in this post.


To prepare for glass removal, remove the A, C pillars, 3d brake light, windshield cowl, rear view mirror and any associated wiring yourself before the glass service provider arrives.

Nice to see the 3m 90 still holding up on the pillar fabric.







Carefully source a mobile glass service. This can be challenging as many don't R&R, or do quality work. Find someone that uses the string method for removal, shown in pic.





Front and rear glass came out clean without issue. The rear was the main concern as the front was a beatup safelite that would be replaced anyways.





Next step was to remove the headliner and sunroof assembly. For the headliner, there's an assortment of push pins and screws in various areas to get this out. Fish around and they'll be obvious.

You'll also need to remove the B pillars if you haven't already. I left these as is and regretted it, very much got in the way throughout the process.





Don't forget about this one next to the sunroof motor.





Easy to remove with the windshield out.





This is what you're left with.

The sunroof assembly is slightly heavy so get a second hand ideally. I just let it rest on my head as it came down and hit the bolts with an impact, lol. Not recommended.





Easy work. Much weight removed. These break on e46's apparently so be sure to sell it to recoup some funds.





Not counting the motor or bolts. 31lbs for the sunroof assembly.

Not pictured - the roof skin was about 23lbs.






Now just left with a roof skin.






Now the fun stuff. Drilling into a perfectly good car. Mask the car very well. This process makes an effin' huge mess.





Now use one of the these paint stripping discs to get a clear view of the spot welds. This battery powered die grinder was amazing to have. Angle grinders are too cumbersome and risky for this work IMO.





Let the mess begin.





I used the Blair spot weld bit. It worked well for me. No walking around like others have complained about. For the front and back, I worked on releasing each spot weld one by one to minimize the amount of removal.





You can see the weld material is well intact on the bottom layer. This is what you want. You only need to weaken the spot weld enough to fail/release.






The sides are more of a pain as you have less access with a chisel. Just be mindful and work slow. The sides will pretty much have to all be drilled at once.






Eventually you'll be able to start prying things up. Pry bar works best here.

The windshield adhesive across the roof bows will make this harder. Pry up hard enough against the roof rail as leverage, not the front or back edge. The adhesive will fail and audibly let you know.






And just like that, congrats you've ruined your car!






A look at the results of all that drilling. All spot welds remain left perfectly intact where they should be. This is how it should look if you didn't go too far.

Forgot to document this but pulled a couple screenshots from some video clips.






And after test grinding a few down smooth.






At this point I stopped the prep process on the roof perimeter as I wouldn't be using a primer. Meaning I held off on grinding the entire perimeter to raw steel to as late as possible. This is to avoid having to scuff it again due to surface rust.


Next I'll cover the roof bows.

[samthejam]

Great job on that headliner! Definitely will be referencing this when I reupholster mine

[nuc1]

Thank you !



Very little. Probably 20oz or so including test spraying, but it's not really sold in smaller units.

While I haven't used the canned version the reviews make it pretty clear it is not nearly the same quality of product.

Much appreciated!

Mike

[bavarian3]

Awesome work!!!! Came out beautiful.

Thank you !

How much of the gallon of adhesive did you use? They also sell 14 oz aerosol bottles.

Mike

Very little. Probably 20oz or so including test spraying, but it's not really sold in smaller units.

While I haven't used the canned version the reviews make it pretty clear it is not nearly the same quality of product.

[0-60motorsports]

Awesome work!!!! Came out beautiful.

[nuc1]

How much of the gallon of adhesive did you use? They also sell 14 oz aerosol bottles.

Mike

[bavarian3]

Carbon fiber roof part I - headliner restoration.

Ok in efforts to entertain you all how about this one. I'll break this up into parts because frankly every step of this project felt like a project.

As you all know sourcing a slicktop headliner is a PITA. I watched pick n pull inventory for months and months till finally, a slicktop e46 non-m came along. Shockingly, TWO of them popped up across different yards a handful of miles away.

It's so grimey going in these places but you do what you have to do.

One of the donor beauties...





Success. Quite easy to break these free, but not as easy to thread them out of the car with the windshields intact. I never thought to pull the seat out till Heinz mentioned it but that would likely help. Key here is to not bend the board as it can create weak spots.





Also managed to grab some other bits and pieces while it was there. These coat hook brackets will be needed later on.





Made quick work of the two junkyards and went from no slicktop headliners to two slicktop headliners. I will restore the second one and sell it to whoever wants it.





Now obviously these headliners are in cosmetically trashed condition. So here's how to restore them.

First step is to peel off the fabric and remove the old adhesive. A soft nylon brush attachment for a drill is the way to go here as it easily removes the old adhesive without damaging the board.

Most of the adhesive is already removed here, but you can see the remaining areas. Battery required of course.




All the nasty remains of it. A broom handles it well as long as you don't step on it, or else its like gum. Please wear a dusk mask at least.




Go in with a nylon hand brush to get any remaining nooks.




All cleaned up and prepped with IPA.




Now for applying new fabric. Here's where folks go wrong. I learned a bit since I did the A/B/C pillars. While the 3m 90 I used on them has held up so far, I wasn't convinced it could handle gravity and heat long-term of the headliner.

I investigated what the pros use and learned about a product called Weldwood Landau Top & Trim by DAP. The key benefit is that it won't fail under hot temps like 3m.






The catch - it needs to be sprayed with an hvlp gun.

This also means a decent capacity compressor is required. My existing one is laughably small. Harbor freight + coupons makes this all pretty serviceable.




The compressor requirements are less than if you were actually atomizing paint as low pressure is used. The product kind of just splatters out, not a fine mist.

Get a larger tank like >10g or high enough CFM to keep up with the output (>4scfm). I didn't want to lug anything huge so I got this one. It has suitable flow rate, but a small tank so it will run a lot.

Here's the gun all setup. Nothing fancy is needed here. $20 harbor freight gun with 3/8" hose. Also, don't get this compressor unless you hate your neighbors. It's actually under there in this pic, and no, you're not supposed to cover it with blankets like that. Do what you have to do.




Doing this on the ground works well, unless you have a large stand or table.

I was lucky to source a couple remaining yards of BM134 from Nate047 . The downside is 2 yards meant I had one shot at getting it right.





If the fabric has some creases like this, you can very gently steam them out. Heat breaks down the adhesive so be gentle.






To apply it, you'll spray the board, AND the fabric. Then wait a short time, maybe a couple mins is all that's needed, but 5mins is fine too. It doesn't bleed through as bad like 3m. Just keep in mine once you lay it, it STICKS.

Work in sections, not all at once. I did half half. You can actually work in sections at your convenience since you can spray the fabric. If you couldn't spray the fabric itself, it would be hard to avoid it when spraying remaining board sections, if that makes sense. Smaller sections also reduces the requirements for robust compressors.

Basically I started like this, sprayed the board and fabric then applied the half.




This is the only challenge area. I actually recommend leaving this vertical side as a dedicated pass. Work the fabric by stretching it gently to avoid folds. This all came out perfectly with some effort.





The back side is a whole nother exercise. It takes time but pretty self explanatory from the pics. Pic only shows about half of the backside complete, but you get the idea.

This doesn't need to be pretty since the accessories will be pressed into these areas. Just fold the fabric over and trim the excess. On tight corners you can snip the fabric several times to lay down.

Pro-tip - you can actually use a brush with the adhesive for small spots to avoid the spray mess. Since it lays on thicker with a brush you must wait ample time (5mins?) so it doesn't bleed through.






And the final product.




Can't complain. Came out 99% perfect and looks amazing. Best thing about this is it's one of the few freshly OE fabric upholstered slicktop headliners out there, while many out there are used or on aged adhesive.

And yes that box under there is what ya think. Stay tuned!

[bavarian3]

Are you using the stock strut bar nuts (51717895241)? They have an extended threaded collar for more thread engagement.

Don't think they're necessary here though, looks good as is!

Ah nice tip! I wasn't aware of these. Naturally my car came with these: 31316769731.

But I'm using the nuts that came with the Karbonius brace. They have a nice finish to them but are standard flanged nuts. The threads go all the way through, but no extra past the top of the nut.