Dustin's 4 door. - No Longer Bringing Down Housing Values Around it Edition

[thedguy]

I've been an off-again-on-again lurker since my brother put in the effort to get this place going.  Mostly drooling in the engine section

After spending 4 years riding shot gun in his iS, I decided I needed a daily that was more in line with my Miata in driving pleasure than my taurus.  My hunt began for a 4 door 318i.  These damn things are a pain to find, even in SoCal!

Anyhow, here is what I got.  The price was right and the motor seems like it's in damn fine condition.  Not a single bit of noise from the chain or the lifters.  After helping resurrect cars after the destruction on one I wanted to avoid that.  

I've already made a post about my single worry, the brake/abs noise, but otherwise it runs as great as a 173k mile car can be expected to run.









An excellent shot of how screwed the paint is, thank you San Diego sun.

[xwill112x]

4 dr 318's are win.

[thedguy]

Updates are in... New front suspension mount.  No more clunk.

Unfortunately for me, I ran into "GDPO syndrome" (God Damned Previous Owner) as this is what I found the moment I tried to crack the strut lock nut loose



Yes that is a (ground down) weld.  I had to cut the shock shaft in half (with a hack saw!) to get the spring and strut/hub assembly.

Bummer is, this was a semi-new shock that was ruined and had to be replaced all because of this shit to replace the bearing.

I didn't see anyone else talk about this so here is how I made a tool to hold the strut shaft while loosening/torquing down the center nut.  

8mm 1/4" drive socket, 1/4" drive extension through 1/2" drive 3/4" spark plug socket.  The spark plug socket was surprisingly hard to come by, but they are found at ACE hardware/True Value for about $10.  The rubber insert on the spark plug socket is nice for holding the assembly together as well.  
Just get a big ass crescent wrench  (I like to call them "nut strippers")or if you have a better tool set than I, 19mm combo wrench.





Important: do NOT use the 8mm as something to help turn the larger nut.  You WILL brake the socket.  I found this out at the junkyard.  When disassembling the unit you should be able to crack the large 19mm nut loose with just a torque wrench, you'll only need to hold the shaft when spinning the unit free or getting it mostly tight.  

BTW, this nut should be get a torque of 47lbs-ft if you can get it.  I'd also recheck the nut a few times after driving it, as it locks the whole assembly, probably 1 of the single most important nuts on the entire car.

Anyone got any tips on spring compressors and taking the spring on and off?  
I spent hours trying to get my spring re-compressed so I could install the top mount.  I still have the passenger side wheel to do.


*keywords: Strut shaft nut locknut lock shaft tool shafttool locktool tool

[thedguy]

Update-orama!

Well I'm a massive lurker, and yet with only 20posts I managed to get admin privildges

Anyhow the car has now gained some wheels, a paint job, volvo e-fan conversion, cloth sport seats, and I'm working on cleaning out my mustang injectors.

With the massive paint damage I figured I'd use the trunk and hood as an experiment for the rustoleum roller technique, nothing like bringing down a "posh" brand now is there

The Results were OK... for a beater, but not a car I own or for that matter love as much as I do both of mine.  

Trunk:
You can see weird shadows from the coat beneath.  For whatever reason I could not seem to get the paint to come out even, otherwise it might have been better.


Hood:



Got rid of those god awful vinyl "comfort" seats, which IMO there is nothing comfortable about them when it's 95+ outside, for these lovely Cloth sport seats.  Thanks Ben!


Volvo Lip:

[thedguy]

I've completely rebuilt the brakes.  I still can't quite fix my damn ABS problem, but I think I found that it's a broken connector on the chassis harness.

February 2010:
I did luck out at the junkyard this weekend and procured these: the basket weaves.  They looked like complete ass when I got them (first 2 or 3 pics) everything else is after cleaning.  They have SO much brake dust caked into them and spots of knarly curb rash that I'm going to fix and then respray.

[thedguy]

Here are the results of some wheel repair:
Damage/before sanding/jbwelding:






After some JB weld to fill the problem area's:


And finished:


This is now the worst looking part of the wheel:


Anyone got any tips on getting the caked in dirt/dust out of those corners?  I couldnt' seem to find anything capable of getting into those edges that was strong enough to scrub it out and not damage the wheel more.

[thedguy]

8 days later

I wanted to get it painted by a reputable shop, the miata/roadster crew I'm involved with (if you watch speed hunters you've seen several of our cars) but I couldn't justify the near $3k price tag.

So I stripped the car down as much as I could, drove it to 1 day, took out anything else I didn't want painted and had them do it, here it is just before I left after dropping it off.















And to keep me hydrated while doing all that damage

[thedguy]

While the car is out for paint, and I got the trim off (and bent the shit out of it, ended up pulling it off another 4 door at the stanton junkyard), I figure it was time for some refurbing





I always felt the chrome trim made my car look that extra bit more ghetto-fabulous so I took care of that problem



And here's what I'm using to do it all:
l]

While at the Stanton/beach blvd yard I got lucky and ran into Ed, who I've ran into once before with a Beautiful vert and gave me a heads up on a clean dash at the wilmington lot (god damn do I love this lot, found the wheels there too)!

Oh and to anyone who says a miata is a horrible car for daily use:


thats my new e30 dashboard in the car.  I got all my tools in the trunk as well.

[thedguy]

Here is how it looked after the 3rd day at 1day paint. I made it a point to go every day and take a look at the car and get pics.  I wanted to make it a point to show I was going to be giving a marginal damn about how it came out as well as get pictures of any work they had done before paint (which I have) in case they tried to give me some BS about the problem with the outcome wasn't their fault... and it was a damn good idea I did too.







The problems on the hood IN THE MIDDLE!  Bubbles... lots and lots of bubbles.  The guy at 1 day told me it's because of the bondo on the hood from before they painted it.  I then showed him the bondo that THEY had put on the hood I had taken a picture of and left on my phone.  Needless to say they agreed to fix it.





The other problem was poor sanding on the bumper that they re-aligned for me.  You can see all the claw marks from underneath.  Fixed that too.


Also I ordered up some new badges along with some other bits I needed for maintenance (TB heater plate removable and de-rats nesting the intake)

[thedguy]

How it looked once I finally accepted the car.  There are a couple of very small things still not right with it, but for what I paid I let it slide.  I can over look them considering how well it came out otherwise.








And this is about a week later after paint, I threw on the new wheels and got the trim all back into place.  Removing the trim took about 3 hours, putting it all back on was only about 2.5.  

One might also notice the tires magically don't have the over spray on them anymore.  The tires that were on the rims when I got them from the yard were bubbled and worn out so I had to toss some new ones on.









Current project is to get my mustang 19lb injectors cleaned out so I can take care of that little "mod" while I have the intake manifold all apart for the plumbing clean up.



Thats how she sits now.  I'm extremely happy with my 180k+ mile horrible idea for an investment that is now somewhere around $3500 total cost.

The car may have looked like shit when I got it, but MOST of the maintenance was done and done right.  Guibo/center bearing, many of the bushings and mounts.

And I completely forgot that one of my first mods was to do a volvo e-fan conversion as the factory fan was missing a blade.  I went a bit overboard with it and actually added in an entire power circuit to control the volvo relays complete with it's own fuse in the fuse box.

http://www.m42club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9865

[DesktopDave]

Your car is great!  I never thought of using JB Weld on the rims...and my basket weaves are in pretty bad condition.  Keep us updated, I love threads like this one.

[quinn11m20]

How much did the paint job cost?

[thedguy]

A hair over $900.