2001 M3 Journey: Laguna Seca Blue Edition

[nuc1]

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

Mike

[0-60motorsports]

Awesome work!!!! Came out beautiful.

[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.

[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

[samthejam]

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

[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.

[0-60motorsports]

Amazing progress and some great pics.

[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]

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.

[blknsilver4life]

Amazing build

[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...

[0-60motorsports]

Nice update and great work.