Project 1998 M3

[Tyler.M]

Hi everyone,

On Monday, Jake was gracious enough to go down to Richmond with me and look at an M3. I was always kinda interested in them, but I always assumed they'd be out of my price range....but I got this one for a song. I had been texting the guy back and forth for a bit, and he didn't want me to take the car from him quite yet since he didn't have other transportation. But when I saw the m3, I loved it. So I told him I'll pay for a cab, and miraculously, he agreed.

I felt pretty bad about taking it off his hands... well initially anyways :lol: We got to his house to sign over the title and everything, and come to find out he was trading in the M3 to get a mini-van for the kids. He was a nice guy, but you could tell he was pretty distraught over the whole thing.
Most heartbreaking moment is when his 3 year old daughter and 9 month old son came out and hugged the bumper saying, "bye daddy's car!". I felt bad... for about five minutes. Then Jake and I pulled in to get dinner, I saw it parked and I quickly forgot about it

Anyways, on to the car.
Bmw m3 black with black leather interior, heated manual vaders upgraded head unit and some type of summer tread BF goodrich tire. He threw in a free set of all weathers, which I plan to get on pretty soon.


List of things I want to do;

Fix exterior cosmetic stuff such as:
Front emblem replacement
Right side trim repainted
right side skirt touched up
Left side of front bumper fixed (its hanging a little crooked and the wheel well sheeting is rubbing on the tire)
Dent under the right head light fixed/ touched up
New weather stripping for the windows and door handles
Left rear impact strip replaced
Front right impact strip replaced
Right rear wheel unbent (not bent much andholds air but might mess up bearings eventually)
restore the headlights, replace both bulbs

Fix interior cosmetic stuff such as:
glove box button assembly and front panel glued back on
New shift knob with m3 logo
Reinstall factory sound system (the upgraded one doesn't "talk" with the six cd changer)
Replace fuses for the backlighting on the dashboard (100-120 and temp gauge are pretty dark at night, could be bulbs too)
floor mat clips

DJ and joey will both say I need to upgrade the cooling system, which I will probably do around spring time. There's a sweet smell of coolant in the cabin with the heater on, so I'll go ahead and replace the heater core too whenever I upgrade the rest of the system.

I need to check the bushings/ guido/ control arms and center driveshaft flex for wear. The guy kept the maintenance records since 60k, and some notes suggest these things haven't been done yet. I might just go ahead and refresh the whole suspension while I'm at it, replacing bushings control arms, and maybe shocks too if it needs it.

Serious upgrades will come later.... much much later haha.



Note the tractor in the background :p