My 2005 Imola Red M3 6MT Build Journal

[Bimmerchop]

Subbed! Love these restoration journals

[BoomTastic]

Nice touch on the floor mats, never seen anyone go that length

[8000RPM]

Cool, thanks!

[Inizes]

How does it look in person? Would you rebuy again?

I guess it’s pretty solid. I have a little bit of wrinkling on under the right spoke, stitching isn’t 100% oem. At the price it’s good. I would probably do Ledermanns or a new oem wheel if I had to do it again.

[8000RPM]

How does it look in person? Would you rebuy again?

[Inizes]

Your new wheel looks great. How much was your OE Coby wheel with the tri-color stitch? $295?

I paid $323 for everything. So sounds correct + tax and shipping.

[8000RPM]

Your new wheel looks great. How much was your OE Coby wheel with the tri-color stitch? $295?

[Inizes]

Just finished up a weekend in the Tennessee mountains and it was a great trip. Weather was perfect and the M3 performed flawlessly. With COVID going on, I don’t know if there was a better mini vacation to take than being in a secluded cabin in the mountains and driving some fun mountain roads.

The trip down to the cabin was about 6 hours from Columbus. I met up with my group of friends in Northern Kentucky to caravan down together. The drive was rather uneventful until the last ¼ mile where I came around the last corner before our cabin and came within a few feet of hitting a black bear walking across the road. Honestly they’re smaller than I thought, or I just found an adolescent bear.



The morning views from the cabin were second to none.



We spent most of Friday driving the Tail and the surrounding roads knowing that the road would be packed with traffic on Saturday. The Tennessee State Troopers were out so we didn’t have free reign over the roads like we were hoping for, but it was still fun.









We also took a little adventure over to the Fontana Dam. Views were also great there. Every time I come I make a trip to the bottom, but I have only been to the top once. I decided to make this trip a bit more memorable and drive over it as well. The speed bumps definitely are not low car friendly over the dam. My friend in his lowered Audi hit his subframe on the bumps if he went at more than a snail’s pace.









Saturday we spent only a few hours at the tail. With all of the traffic, we decided to park on one of the pull offs to spectate while enjoying some lunch.

Sunday morning we felt the cabin shaking a little bit. Sure enough it was North Carolina’s strongest earthquake in 94 years. The epicenter was about 150 miles away and registered a 5.1. Nothing crazy but still rather rare for the area - just adding to the memories of the trip. The trip ended with just under 105k of the odometer. All in all it was just about 1000 miles from start to finish and I enjoyed every moment of it.

[Inizes]

It’s been a bit since I have updated this but I haven’t been up to too much. Fun car budget has gone down a bit due to buying an engagement ring. Wife-mod (hopefully) soon to come 😊

I took advantage of the FCP Euro clearance sale this week and bought brand new OEM A and C pillars to replace the ones I fixed earlier this year. It was hard to pass up — brand new and a lifetime warranty for when they eventually peel again. Didn’t snap a picture of those however.

I ventured outdoors to a cars and coffee this last weekend. Ended up making friends with an E39 owner. He also owns an E92 and an E46 ZHP so we chatted about that for a bit. Not many E46 M3 friends around Columbus that I’ve met so I’m happy to have someone to have a conversation with haha. Also got a decent photo of it. Really happy with how the car looks. It’s come quite a ways since I picked it up 7 months ago.

Car is prepped and ready for a 1,200 or so mile weekend to Deals Gap in early August for the Tail of the Dragon. Should get some good photos and lasting memories - definitely excited.

[Inizes]

With the weather warming back up, I spent the last month or so focusing primarily on the interior. The first thing I wanted to do was clean up the leather. The seats and wheel looked greasy and could use it, so I went with the trusty Leatherique. I have had good results with it in the past and once again it did wonders. I really wish I remembered to take photos for a before and an after. Trust me, it was dirty. The photo below is just from cleaning the passenger seat.



The seats all now have a matte finish and feel great. The steering wheel was also disgusting, but after cleaning I presented myself with a new issue. There was prior wear damage from 15 years of use at the 1 o’clock position. Cleaning all of the dirt and grease that had packed itself into the damage allowed the leather to begin breaking loose from the wheel. So my cleaning made 95% of the wheel look better, but made the damaged part worse. I reached out to Coby Wheel and ordered a nappa leather replacement. I was torn in between having the OEM style grains or the nappa - ultimately I chose nappa because of the finish and feel. Below is the OEM wheel on the left with the new nappa covered wheel on the right.





With the wheel being out of commission, I also took advantage of refinishing the slightly damaged lower steering wheel trim and the tired shifter bezel. Again, I neglected to take before photos. Texaz3 killed it and they look amazing. Would absolutely recommend him and may be sending some more trim pieces to him in the future.









I am extremely satisfied with how everything turned out! Car is starting to look new again and I love it.

I did run into one small issue and I am willing to share my failures. When I put the shift knob on, I hit the knob too hard. When I went out for my test drive I noticed the shifter was vibrating terribly in second gear. I immediately knew that I had popped the rear carrier bearing out of its spot. After getting under the car I confirmed my failure, luckily it only cost me about an hour of time.

For my (hopefully) last piece of maintenance and Inspection II, I needed to change the spark plugs. They were last changed at 71k miles, or roughly 32k miles ago. Everything looked pretty normal to me! Photo below of all of the old plugs, with cylinder 6 on the left and cylinder 1 on the right.



And here is a comparison to new…



In the future I will be changing the coil packs as they are getting up there in age and are due. For now I am content though.

[Tbonem3]

Ya or just get Rogue Engineering if you don't want to do any permanent modifications to the tranny/tranny brace mounts. E21s are just so cheap and beefy though, hard to resist!

[Albino09]

You're welcome! It's oe, but tighter, and with a weighted knob, smoother too!

Interesting. So you recommend E21 3-series trans mounts, rebuilding the shifter back to OE and adding a weighted knob? What makes the E21 mounts so special?

EDIT: I found the link you shared. Nevermind!

[Tbonem3]

Back in M3F, I talked to Tyler/ Tbonem3 about what he decided was “the best shifter feel for under $100.” This included the E21 transmission mounts I had previously completed. The rest of it was rebuilding the shifter with new bushings.

... The really amazing thing was the shifter feel. It is night and day better than before I did the refresh. Thank you Tyler for the recommendation.[/FONT][/COLOR]

You're welcome! It's oe, but tighter, and with a weighted knob, smoother too!

[Mike0032]

Checking back in to this thread has only increased my desire for an Imola E46M. Car looks great.

[Inizes]

Nashville closed before the state did, and remains so even though the state reopened last week. The only issue with the dragon was that the county in NC in which it resides had closed road traffic last month. Hopefully they've since reopened.

I think I saw they reopened. 129 itself was closed somewhere East of the dragon itself. I’m pretty sure The Hub and other Robbinsville locations closed, but the road itself was always open (at least according to Killboy).