FuturisticConcept Art BMW E36 with a V8 on a bottom dollar budget

[Jdesign]

Bassboy3313 said:

The added touch of the graffiti tag on the side is awesome imo

YES!! I plan on doing this, as I would have to admit it wouldn't be my first time.

KaiserRolls said:

Bars on the windows!? I can barely see shit as is lolol

LOL but it would make very much epicness

straight6pwr said:

i've got the long battery cables from an e34 I would donate for your madness.

Yes. I will take all donations! Just provide me an addy and I will come by!

I also managed to spend more free time building the shift lever in SolidWorks today too. It has a drastic kick to it because the T5 trans is short and the base of the lever comes out from under the dash. 

[visian]

straight6pwr said:

i've got the long battery cables from an e34 I would donate for your madness.

That reminds me I have an extra e30 trunk mount cable laying around too.

[B C]

Is the entire shifter going to be machined? The center section could be a plate burnout with round stock welded around the perimeter, then made angular with a belt sander

[Jdesign]

visian said:

That reminds me I have an extra e30 trunk mount cable laying around too.

 I would love to use that on my E30. I hate that the battery is in the engine bay. 

Snap said:

Is the entire shifter going to be machined? The center section could be a plate burnout with round stock welded around the perimeter, then made angular with a belt sander

Yes it is. Do you have an example of what you mean? I'm not sure I am following you 100%.

[visian]

Jdesign said:

visian said:

That reminds me I have an extra e30 trunk mount cable laying around too.

 I would love to use that on my E30. I hate that the battery is in the engine bay. 

Snap said:

Is the entire shifter going to be machined? The center section could be a plate burnout with round stock welded around the perimeter, then made angular with a belt sander

Yes it is. Do you have an example of what you mean? I'm not sure I am following you 100%.

Let me know if you want it, I could find a way to get it to you. I spent 40 on it but after relisting on eBay a million times I want it out of my garage.

[Jdesign]

@visian  Where are you located? I am willing to drive a good 1 or 2 depending on where you are.

[visian]

Jdesign said:

@visian  Where are you located? I am willing to drive a good 1 or 2 depending on where you are.

I'll pm you and let's figure it out!

[Jdesign]

Replied to your PM!

[Jdesign]

Well, I placed another order for different red window tint since the first time was a complete disaster due to shipping it in a bag all the way from china. uggh. Well today, I remembered that I placed a second order for red window tint, from a different source. Since I ordered it on the 21st of November, I thought it seemed like it was taking a little longer than expected.  

Sure enough, the tracking number says it left Chicago and disappeared. Estimated delivery was on the 28th. I guess having red windows just doesn't want to pan out for me. Sheesh.

In other news, I will hopefully be making a bracket for the seat tonight as I already made a simple template with foam core and a tape measure. Hopefully this leads into some of the other small tasks I need to finish off as well. The biggest thing that I keep ignoring is the power steering bracket. After installing, and uninstalling the water pump 7 times, then realizing its the wrong one and I needed to add the PS pump, motivator started to wander elsewhere.

[Jdesign]

Well I fell short on making a seat bracket. I am having a hard time because I wanted to use scrap material, and I dont have any in the gauge or length that would be appropriate for the strength and weight of the seat. I went to look at buying some new material from the hardware store and it would have been close to half the price of a new bracket online. So any suggestions on a cheap seat bracket here would be helpful. 

What I did manage to do was pull the headlights apart and install the red LED halos I got for $8. They turned out better than I expected, and are extremetly bright. I have an extra pair they shipped me on accident as well that I have yet to come up with an interesting place to put them. I also removed the high beam from the passenger side and put soem mesh wire in  there for an air inlet. to top that off, I added just one HID to the drivers side to mix up the look. 

I also made brackets for mounting the V6 ford power steering pump and spent a good 6-7 trips to the parts store to get the right belt because of various reasons I care not to talk about. 

While all this was happening, I decided to remove one of the fenders because I wanted to see what it looked like underneath and I plan on making my own widened fenders up front. This is what it looks like underneath:

I also added a little patina to the licences plate because it looked "too nice" for the car. 

[B C]

Hardware store metal stock is highway buttrape. Try speedymetals.com, you can pick up what you need in New Berlin. Fwiw, if you know someone with a corporate account there, the price is half of what is shown on the website.

[Daggerty]

Just jb weld the seat in.

Check out Alro steel I think they have a store in mad town.

[Jdesign]

Snap said:

Hardware store metal stock is highway buttrape. Try speedymetals.com, you can pick up what you need in New Berlin. Fwiw, if you know someone with a corporate account there, the price is half of what is shown on the website.

Yes very much rapey butt. I have bought material from Speedy metals many many times before. I also have a few friends that work there, so material is fairly cheap for me. I just want all the things for free.

Daggerty said:

Just jb weld the seat in.

Check out Alro steel I think they have a store in mad town.

That's a lot of JB Weld, but don't think I won't do it if it's free. I haven't heard of Alro before, I will have to look into that. THANKS!

[Bassboy3313]

what size, gauge, material, etc are you looking for? I can always ask my brother to check around the shop he works at for scrap pieces.

[Jdesign]

Bassboy3313 said:

what size, gauge, material, etc are you looking for? I can always ask my brother to check around the shop he works at for scrap pieces.

This is the kind of response I like to see. You are speaking my language. I need (X2) 20" long 2" wide 3/16th flat stock steel, and (x2) 18" long x 2" wide 3/16ths flat stock steel. 

I also talked to the shop director at my work, and he suggested I go to a place called Dicks Metals. Its a mom and pop shop that sells small cuts for cheap. I am going to give them a jingle tomorrow. and see what they have laying around. They might even have material to make a harness bar while I'm at it!

[Jdesign]

Worked on the car again last night. @suspenceful posted in the WTB section looking for a set of rear coilover adjusters so I kindly offered him mine since I need to be closer to the ground anyhow. The sits alot lower, and I am glad i actually removed them because the shock housing were adjusted to two completely different heights. Ughhh. One was at 27mm the other was at 19mm. How do you even do that?!

I also FINALLY got a serpentine belt on and working. I might need to remake one of the brackets so that I capture a 4th bolt on the one of the heads to help support it from vibrating, but for now I am going to leave that headache alone until it causes a problem. What I do need to do next is make a high pressure PS line and figure out what I need to use for fittings on the pump side. The pump I used came with the car and there was two of them, so I figured it was the best solution. They are from a 2000 Ford Exploder v6 but based on the way this car is built, I am assuming that was a bad decision on my part to go with this pump. With that said I do have a OEM BMW PS reservoir that I removed from my E30 because I already have an aftermarket chrome one for that car. 

After I got as far as I could there, I changed my focus over to the aesthetics of the car for a bit, and reinstalled the rear quarter window. I did this, because I knew that if I did, randomly the missing package of red window tint would show up in the mail today. guess what just showed up in the mail today......

The other thing I did aesthetically was test my theory on using a clear red paint over some worn edges of the existing paint on the car where I exposed bare metal. This got me so excited because it worked out better than I expected. I was all giddy like a Little school girl. I plan on driving the whole car to my work so I can use my DA sander and go over the entire car without making my shop a mess. BUT man oh man its tempting to just continue sanding on it because it looks so awesome. Its really hard to capture in pictures, So I attached a good example of what I have in mind. I did something similar on the hood of my civic, so if you guys have seen that, you know what I am talking about.

The final thing I messed with was one of the front fenders. I started to lay out a pattern for the trapezoidal holes I plan on cutting into the top half. Just a quick sharpie sketch to try and figure out what I want to do. I also have to figure out how I am going to section the back half of the fender so that I can widen them.

And the final thing I did was today I ordered material from Dicks Metals. Crazyyy cheap. $20 for everything I need to make seat brackets, and Dick himself seemed like quite the metal worker. His shop was filled with handmade metal work, from the ducting for his welding table all the way to his chair that the base was made from the generator of a B-52 bomber. Pretty cool stuff IMO.

[straight6pwr]

i see red dots...be careful #baldessari

[Jdesign]

straight6pwr said:

i see red dots...be careful #baldessari

Yeah, that was me spraying Transparent red over the black fender first to see what would happen. Both of the front fenders are plasti-dipped over white, and it sucks soooooo bad. I hate that shit with a passion. So once I cut the fenders all to hell, I have to soak them in vinegar to get all the plastidip off and decide what to do from there.

[Jdesign]

Not much has happened in the last few days, work and an exhausting weekend left me very little time to mess with the car. I did manage to find some images with the red halos installed. I also added an HID to the drivers side headlight. I need to wire the halos into a separate switch as well, currently they are just part of the running / parking lights.

[visian]

Might I suggest footwear of choice for this vehicle?

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