Zen and the Art of E46 M3 Ownership

[Bimma360]

Lol oye vey. Famous last words. Been following along love the thread and car; great work

Haha you don’t know the half of it. It’s a condition.

[Bimma360]

So a few weeks ago, after 13 years of ownership and at 245k miles I sold my arctic silver e36 m3.





I taught myself to sew on that interior. And I honestly thought those days were behind me. But instead of sending out the rear e46 seat out to get redone to match the front Nogaro Munich's, I decided to just do it myself. There is really nothing online on how to take apart the seat backs, so here are some pics for those that are wondering.







I also came across a can of Arctic Silver paint I’d completely forgotten about, so I decided to repaint the SMG shifter console with it. Just to bring a small piece of my E36 into the new car. I ended up changing my mind about the bezel as well and swapped in the Storm version to match the knob.





I am basically twiddling my thumbs waiting to get the car back. I cleaned up the side grills, and replaced the emblems, exciting stuff haha.

[Bimma360]

A little bit of seat progress...

[0-60motorsports]

A little bit of seat progress...

Nice!

[Grke46m3]

The truthful answer is I have issues. Rock chips all over the front necessitated a full front clip respray. Paint damage at the lower rear quarter window trim meant the whole left side basically needed to be painted. And there was some blending work needed in the rear b/c of the trunk being painted. More or less 2/3rds of the car was going to get paint, and it would have been an 8.5/10. So as I was talking to the owner of the shop about the work, halfway through I was like you know what screw it just respray the whole car, if I am going to do a lot of this anyway I might as well do it right.

Here it is in the booth earlier this week...

Who's doing the painting? I need some paint work on mine and I'm right next to you.


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[karter16]

A little bit of seat progress...

What size (type?, gauge?, class?, weight?, whatever the correct term for a sewing machine is) sewing machine do you need for this sort of work?

Looks great btw!!

[Bimma360]

Who's doing the painting? I need some paint work on mine and I'm right next to you.


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PM'd

What size (type?, gauge?, class?, weight?, whatever the correct term for a sewing machine is) sewing machine do you need for this sort of work?

Looks great btw!!

I use a Singer Heavy Duty Model: 4411. I can't even tell you anything other than that, since I bought it over 10 years ago, and I don't even remember the specs haha. It's a budget starter machine. What I have learned though is you really need a "post bed sewing machine" for this type of work, but those are more of a commitment as they cost over a grand. The Singer I have, for example, is a flatbed machine and is good for 80-90% of the work. When you get to tight curves, it gets really hard to use a flatbed and do it right. Case in point, the rear headrests, after learning my lesson with the e36 I am just going to take to a shop to do them for me. They are impossible to do right on a flatbed. In fact the curvature in that middle section of the seatback pictured above was a pain in the ass. 10 years ago I didn't know any better when I was shopping for machines. But If I was going to do an entire interior this time around, and not just the back seat I would buy the expensive post bed machine. The amount of money you are saving doing a full interior more than justifies/pays for buying a nice machine. And it will make the whole experience so much easier and more pleasant.

[karter16]

I use a Singer Heavy Duty Model: 4411. I can't even tell you anything other than that, since I bought it over 10 years ago, and I don't even remember the specs haha. It's a budget starter machine. What I have learned though is you really need a "post bed sewing machine" for this type of work, but those are more of a commitment as they cost over a grand. The Singer I have, for example, is a flatbed machine and is good for 80-90% of the work. When you get to tight curves, it gets really hard to use a flatbed and do it right. Case in point, the rear headrests, after learning my lesson with the e36 I am just going to take to a shop to do them for me. They are impossible to do right on a flatbed. In fact the curvature in that middle section of the seatback pictured above was a pain in the ass. 10 years ago I didn't know any better when I was shopping for machines. But If I was going to do an entire interior this time around, and not just the back seat I would buy the expensive post bed machine. The amount of money you are saving doing a full interior more than justifies/pays for buying a nice machine. And it will make the whole experience so much easier and more pleasant.

Awesome thanks for this - really helpful info!

[Bimma360]

No car yet, but got the rear bench done. I don't know how I keep convincing myself to do the things I don't want to do anymore haha.

[bavarian3]

Incredible work! Keep going. Sometimes certain parts of the journey are just a grind.

[Bimma360]

Incredible work! Keep going. Sometimes certain parts of the journey are just a grind.

Thanks dude! Only 2 more pieces to go.

[0-60motorsports]

Those seats look so good. Great work.

[Bimma360]

Car's finally back! Of course I won't have time for the car this weekend, haha.

Generally, I am pretty pleased though. There are a few small areas of concern that they are going to address. I am going to put everything back on the car first and give it some time for the paint to further cure.

Oh the joys of refreshing old cars.

[0-60motorsports]

Car's finally back! Of course I won't have time for the car this weekend, haha.

Generally, I am pretty pleased though. There are a few small areas of concern that they are going to address. I am going to put everything back on the car first and give it some time for the paint to further cure.

Oh the joys of refreshing old cars.

Looks great

[Bimma360]

I've been chipping away at this thing over the last month. Installed all of the new exterior trim and gaskets around all of the side glass and this weekend finished up the front end. Couldn't do anything with the trunk since the body shop needs to do some more work on it.

Before I knew the partsgeek kidney's were a good option I picked these up from Schmiedmann:



Bumper time!



Test fitting the inlet tube (I do have the worm clamp). FYI, you can't install the bumper with the tube installed it turns out haha.



Bumper fully installed. This thing actually ended up fitting really good. I am really happy with it. I didn't need to do any trimming on the kevlar carrier like I initially thought I would. I am not wild about the center grill, but I'll live for now. Might try to figure out something more OE for the grill down the road. Also used those 3D printed side brackets that allowed for more adjustment. I am sure they had something to do with it.





If anyone has ever wondered how the CSL bumper inlet tube sits in the engine bay, here you go:



Put the headlights back on, and with that the front end is complete.













On the interior front, I learned how to remove tint. So that was a thing.





State of things a month ago:





Before I could even think about installing door panels, I had to make a side mirror switch relocation harness. Lucky me, my mirror switch was a dual port switch.





Ripped everything out to run the harness.



Out with the old and in with the new.





And onto the door panels. I actually installed the CSL carbon centers to the door cards a solid 3 months ago.



Might as all refresh the speakers while I am in there. Crazy part, the stock speakers are in fantastic condition, I was a bit shocked honestly.



I decided to go with M6 Rivnut inserts for the CSL door handle brackets.







And passenger door is done. Feels good.