What I did over my Xmas break! (Tons of Pics)

[SlimKlim]

When I bought the car back in July, the engine bay looked... pretty skeezy. It was missing the front air duct, caps for the engine cover, strut tower caps, and everything was caked in a good decade of grime. It's hard to see really how much it improved in the pictures, but in person it looks sooooo much better.



The first thing I did was replace the air duct on the top since it was so noticeable, and then I didn't bother with it until this break.



I started with the valve cover, new ones are way way out of my budget, so I figured a good deep cleaning and a few heat resistant rattle cans would help me out.







You can see how flaky this crap they coat the <1995 valve covers with. :tsk: The M/S52 ones hold up much much better.



Cams!! :yumyum:



^This is sad, but the underside of it is what's really gross.



So I took it off and took it to work to sit and think about what it did wrong for an hour or so in the parts washer.



And got the underside all cleaned out.



I let it dry from the parts washer and hit all the high and loose spots with sand paper. I wasn't able to spend much time on it, because I needed to sqeeze my prep work into a lunch break so I could paint all afternoon and get my car back so I could get to a new years party.

The rough spots on the front are some kind of ungodly stubborn, they weren't going anywhere without a very aggressive power sander, and I didn't have the time or the desire to mess up my valve cover to get into it.





Apparently I forgot to take pictures of it after I painted it. Whoops. Anyways, here's a pic of it on the car with the coils back in.



I took the opportunity to clean the grit off the valve cover bolts with a healthy dose of brake clean.





It's in the little things.

[SlimKlim]

This made a pretty noticeable improvement, but it still just looked sad. I spent a lot of the weekend more or less tinkering and beautifying.

I removed all the accessories from each side of the bay and actually polished the paint with a rubbing compound. Then I filled in the big damage spots with touch up paint. This is how it looked before I did anything.



I also remove a lot of broken and crumbled wire loom and clips and other stuff that was no longer serving its purpose.



I also reloomed a lot of wires and wrapped it where the old tape had fallen off.



I painted the ballast flat black to help them blend in better, since I didn't really feel like drilling another hole to remount them.





The horn thing is an aftermarket alarm added by one of the PO's and the wiring looks a little amateur.



So here is where I stood Sunday night, pretty good, but still lacking.

As for tonight... PARTS!!!







I'm pretty please with the outcome. It was a lot of work for an area most people don't see, but I like things being clean and the way they are supposed to be.



(The next post will detail my paint repair)

[SlimKlim]

Some of you might remember back in September when my wonderfully talented roommate plowed into my car on a bike at full speed.





You might also remember my dad owns a mobile autobody repair business, and since my roommate had absolutely no money to pay me even for my deductible, repairing it rested on me. My dads business partner, who manages the paintless dent repair side of the business, and does repairs himself, came by when I was at work and worked out almost all of the dents. Its pretty amazing watching him work, but I wasn't really able to go creep on him and take pictures while he did it.

Anyway, the following weekend, I got up close and personal trying to repair this thing. The fender needs to be refinished to fix it properly, however it is colder than sh!t this week, and my car has a pretty poor quality aftermarket paint job that I know is going to be a complete disaster when I start sanding on it. So repairing it 100% is getting delegated to spring break.

I got rear ended at about the same time this happened, so I just asked the body shop to throw a little touch up paint in the damage for me so it didn't rust. Which they did, poorly.









First thing I did was clean out the wound with some acetone.



Then made some paint.



I used a combination of paint pen and small specialty brushes to apply the paint. No one was hanging around to take pictures for me so I can't show you doing it in action. I can tell you to go very very very slow. I spent about 15 minutes on each application. Work from top to bottom so the paint works its way down. If you go from the bottom up, it will pool at the bottom of the repair and run or just be unsightly.

Here it is after two coats.



Its hard to see in the pictures, but you can see how it still dips down at the repair, the goal is to get it above the paint level.

Getting closer...



closer still...



Now we're talking.





I put about six "coats" on. The reason you want to get it higher than the paint level, is because after the paint has time to cure, you can wet sand it with a block (to keep even pressure) and smooth it back down to near the paint level. Then you can polish it (usually a 3 stage process) and the repair with almost disappear if you are lucky.

Doing that is my next step, because if I can get to the point where I'm happy with it without having to spray it, life will be a lot easier.

Even now its considerably less noticeable than it was without the dents and with a much better touch up in there.

Happy new year!

[fiveoh2go]

Where is the full exhaust I was promised. I feel cheated..






Looks good Joey. :thumbup:

[kcook]

you wanna do my engine bay now. I'll pay you

[ScottyB]

you didn't happen to be parked at Martin's around Christmas time did you? saw a yellow //M there are figured it was you but didn't have time to stop in and say hi.

[Ken]

Wow, having you around next year is gonna pay huge dividends lol. But seriously any chance you can help me with my scratches on my passenger door?

[Ole]

My 740i had that paint crap chip off the inside of the valve cover. A small piece of flaking junk ended up making its way through the entire system and actually partially clogged a passageway in the front of the right side of the block. There is a check ball valve that opens from oil pressure when the engine is running and closes when the engine is off, this keeps oil from drainin out of the head. The passageway would get clogged by that flake of paint when I drove the engine over 4k RPM for an extended period of time (120-130 MPH down I-95).....used to drive me nuts on my trips to FL.

[SlimKlim]

Kyle- I'll totally detail your engine bay for money. There's not a lot I won't do for money. *cough*

ScottyB- It was probably mine, I work there. Mine is the 1995 currently rocking DS1s. The other guy who owns a Dakar M3 in roanoke also happens to have his car in for service, but it has rice-tastic headlights and heavy as phuck 18" 2 piece rims, so you may have seen either one.

Ken- I might be able to help you, but I'd have to have your car at my house to do it. I wouldn't have anything at school to work on it with.