Picking away at my "new" M3

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Phishy4

New member
New to me at least. I finally found a late model e36 M3 sedan with very low miles for a price I could live with down in Florida, so I bit and had it shipped. I knew it needed some suspension work (as in all the suspension I found out) and paid accordingly. I've got a fellow e36 enthusiast in town that has a lift and has rebuilt many of these cars from the ground up, so after Christmas we're going to overhaul everything underneath. It's in good shape for the age, but you can tell the inside has never been deep cleaned, so I decided to play around a little since it was an astonishing 47 degrees today (astonishing for December in Minnesota anyway). I've got a full leather master kit to try out, but I thought I'd take the initial run at the door and drivers seat with OPC 3:1 and a toothbrush. Here are some pics of what I've got so far. Gotta love Dove leather, its going to take a looong time to bring back I think.



Here's the car itself (painted trim has to go, going back to the black factory M-Technic trim soon. I fixed the broken clips to at least make it stay on for now)



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Drivers side airbag cover before:



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Drivers side airbag cover 50/50 after:



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Driver seat front bolster 50/50:



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Drivers middle back section 50/50:



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The two back sections next to each other:



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I probably won't have time before the weather turns again to do much else besides getting the mechanical checklist punched through (struts, mounts, sway bar links, RTABs, drivers side window regulator, get tint stripped out and put in legal stuff, get a front plate mount, etc) but I'll update the thread as I make progress.
 
Congrats on the purchase! I love the silver color. And grey interior for an M3 is relatively rare. Nice score! Look forward to seeing future posts on your progress.
 
Brad B. said:
Congrats on the purchase! I love the silver color. And grey interior for an M3 is relatively rare. Nice score! Look forward to seeing future posts on your progress.
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Thanks man. Yea, the e36 sedan is fairly rare anyway, then a 5spd (rarer yet) with dove interior (rarer) and with only 73k I couldn't pass it up. It definitely needs some work to get it where it needs to be, but man it goes like hell when you mash the fun pedal.
 
Thanks everyone. Yea, the first owner did a couple things right (clear corners, BBS wheels, got the OEM ones as well) but he put some really really stupid racing type pedal pads in there that are borderline dangerous they're so big, he also had coilovers in it and put the "factory stuff" back in before he sold it to the guy I bought it from, but its sitting way to low to be factory springs, especially in the back. He did a lighted "M" shift knob, but its a 6spd instead of a 5spd knob, bad (real bad) tint job, stuff like that. He pulled all the black M-Technic trim and rear diffuser and had it sprayed professionally (so it was at one point a good job) but its chippped bad enough that I'm looking at either respraying it or just going back to new black trim. I think I'm going back to black while I can still buy it new, and I'll hang on to this stuff and maybe rattlecan it with OEM paint at some point if I change my mind. The front plate thing sucks, and I really don't want one but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get shook down without one. I might just push my luck, eat a ticket or 2 and see how it goes.
 
Phishy4 said:
Thanks everyone. Yea, the first owner did a couple things right (clear corners, BBS wheels, got the OEM ones as well) but he put some really really stupid racing type pedal pads in there that are borderline dangerous they're so big, he also had coilovers in it and put the "factory stuff" back in before he sold it to the guy I bought it from, but its sitting way to low to be factory springs, especially in the back. He did a lighted "M" shift knob, but its a 6spd instead of a 5spd knob, bad (real bad) tint job, stuff like that. He pulled all the black M-Technic trim and rear diffuser and had it sprayed professionally (so it was at one point a good job) but its chippped bad enough that I'm looking at either respraying it or just going back to new black trim. I think I'm going back to black while I can still buy it new, and I'll hang on to this stuff and maybe rattlecan it with OEM paint at some point if I change my mind. The front plate thing sucks, and I really don't want one but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get shook down without one. I might just push my luck, eat a ticket or 2 and see how it goes.
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i drove a Z4 for three years in Illinois without a front license plate. i guess the police didn't notice or didn't really care. a friend told me that if i was stopped for speeding, got a parking ticket, etc then the missing front license would be noted, but it is considered a fix it or ticket violation. i'd leave it off...
 
jcandiman said:
i drove a Z4 for three years in Illinois without a front license plate. i guess the police didn't notice or didn't really care. a friend told me that if i was stopped for speeding, got a parking ticket, etc then the missing front license would be noted, but it is considered a fix it or ticket violation. i'd leave it off...
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I've been told the same about Minneapolis. Basically stay out of uptown or downtown and you nobody will say anything. I'll probably keep the plate in the car in case someone says something and give a sob story about how I was just about to get a mount to put it on or something. The tint has to go though. Besides being a very poorly done tint job, it's pretty far over legal here (which is like 50% or something ridiculous) and they love to hand out tickets right outside my office. I've got 2 friends who do very high end tint work so I'll let them straigten it out when they get time.



Scottwax said:
Nice car! I look forward to seeing what you can do with it once you have time to go nuts on the paint.
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The paint isn't horrible, and being silver definitely helps, but when you look close you can tell it's never seen the business end of a buffer. Rasky and I have been trying to get together to play around with it, but the schedules haven't lined up. I'll get around to starting on the paint in the next couple weeks hopefully.
 
Phishy4- Nice, and you're making good progress already!



I'm sure you already know about the waterpump issue, right? ;)



FWIW, I always found the black trim on mine to be a big PIA. But I can understand your wanting to go back to it...just give it some thought.



On the front plate, enforcement varies and nobody can say how it'd work out for you. In my case, no problems and we go without one on most of our vehicles, have for decades.
 
Accumulator said:
Phishy4- Nice, and you're making good progress already!



I'm sure you already know about the waterpump issue, right? ;)



FWIW, I always found the black trim on mine to be a big PIA. But I can understand your wanting to go back to it...just give it some thought.



On the front plate, enforcement varies and nobody can say how it'd work out for you. In my case, no problems and we go without one on most of our vehicles, have for decades.
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I do know about alot of the specific e36 m3 issues (brake light switch, drivers window regulator, vanos, rear shock mounts, etc) but I hadn't heard about the water pump deal, so definitely elaborate on that. If the paint on the trim was in better shape I'd probably leave it, but I think I'm getting new black stuff. That said, I'm not opti-coating this car like my daily drivers because I want to use it to play around with different lsps for fun, but the second I pull that new black trim out of the box its getting a dose of opti-coat before it goes on. I absolutely love that stuff on plastic trim.
 
Phishy4 said:
...I hadn't heard about the water pump deal, so definitely elaborate on that..
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IIRC, the OE waterpump had some plastic parts where it shoulda had metal. I had mine changed out along with doing the timing belt (a bit on the early side). Check around and verify that I'm not wrong on this, it's been quite a while since I had my e36 M3 sedan(s).
 
Accumulator said:
IIRC, the OE waterpump had some plastic parts where it shoulda had metal. I had mine changed out along with doing the timing belt (a bit on the early side). Check around and verify that I'm not wrong on this, it's been quite a while since I had my e36 M3 sedan(s).
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That sounds about right (plastic impeller on the water pump). I'll check it out, thanks for the heads up.
 
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