My 1997 M3 (That I'm not going to part out anymore)

[ChrisO]

Come along with me on this journey as I de-stance my very rough M3 and make it functional

With the help of you guys, I decided not to part out my M3 and continue to enjoy it until i'm out of school.

I've owned the car since I was 16 (5 years) and should have a build thread that is like 30 pages long. Better late then never, I don't wanna make a huge list of everything I've done (nothing crazy) so i'll start from where I'm at.

The car looked absolutely horrible when I first got it in 2013. Broken front bumper, missing front lip, blacked out corner lights and tail lights, pink wheels, purple peeling window tint, fake carbon fiber eBay emblems

Here is a few pics from the early years after undoing everything the previous owner did

[B C]

This car looks way better than you make it out to be.

[ChrisO]

Skip to the last year, the car sat in a garage for 8 months, I put my entire interior back in the car, I replaced a broken clutch master cylinder and return spring (the clutch return spring was the worst thing I've ever done on my car), I cut my rear arches, threw on Hard Motorsports flares and finally painted all of the primer spots on my car. My paint work doesn't look that great, but it's better then rust and I plan on vinyl wrapping the car so it looks like I have nice paint anyways.

Now I'm kinda caught up with the build thread...

[ChrisO]

snap said:

This car looks way better than you make it out to be.

I play the angles and keep my distance when taking pics of the car 

I'm on spring break so I have about a week here to do a few things with the car while I'm home from school. Today I pulled the car out of storage, took the Rays Gram Lights and adapters off and drove to Milwaukee to deliver them to the buyer as well as pick up something pretty rare for the M3... Although the exterior of the car always bummed me out, it actually has a very nice complete black interior. Nothing is broken, door panel are all intact and not falling apart, 99 steering wheel etc. The opportunity came up to buy a pair of seats from a LTW M3 for $500! The guy I bought the seats from (Might be on here?) built a track car out of a LTW that had wrecked at Road America a long time ago. He's had the seats for 15 years in his basement, and I don't think I'll ever come across another set not attached to a LTW for sale. I'm pretty excited, and tomorrow I'm going to take a trip to the junk yard to pick up some door sill trim and take my vaders out/ throw the new seats in!

[damnboy037]

I need seats like those

[YoungCR]

Nice score on the seats! Glad you are keeping the car too.

[straight6pwr]

"de-stance"

i like you.

[Jdesign]

Keeping it is a good idea

[jc43089]

Out of curiosity how heavy are those seats?  I'm wondering how manual seats compare to power seats for weight.

[ChrisO]

jc43089 said:

Out of curiosity how heavy are those seats?  I'm wondering how manual seats compare to power seats for weight.

Just weighed one, 58.6lbs

[ChrisO]

Kinda boring post but, I took a trip to Gibson's in Neenah today and picked up some parts

 It's pretty crazy, they have at least 20 E36's and tons of E34's, E39's and E46's

95% of the E36's have been picked over hard or rained/snowed in for a year so it's always kinda hard to find decent stuff

I managed to find:

• OEM gas cap with sticker still on it (to replace my junk steel Autozone one)
• Blinker harness plugs
• Seat nut covers 
• Seat belt nut covers (couldn't believe it)
• Really nice genuine floor mats out of a '94 318i with anchors to replace my universal floor mats
• A super nice genuine leather E-brake boot that looks new (broken rear tab on the one in my M3)
• A not blown hood strut so my hood doesn't fall and smash me in the skull again
• Tow hook
• Wiper nut covers
• Sport seat rear net (Turns out neither of my vaders are missing the net and I'm delusional)
• A 1997 Concours calendar card (oddly enough my M3 was sold new at Concours in 1997)

Everything listed only cost me $21!

Really all I did today was the junkyard run and wash the floor mats

Also saw a E34 touring and Supra Turbo in the yard

[YoungCR]

That Concours calendar is pretty neat! I need to check out Gibson's myself, always hear about the good deals up there.

[P_Roloff]

Off topic, but did you happen to spot any e30s or z3s up there?

[ChrisO]

P_Roloff said:

Off topic, but did you happen to spot any e30s or z3s up there?

They had a 4 door e30 right next to a e28! I didn't really look at them, but some guy was pulling stuff off the e28. They looked pretty complete from the outside.

[GunMetalGrey]

The e30 or two that is there is pretty picked over depending on what you're looking for. 
Source : It's 7 min from my shop, I get there frequentish

[SteelBlue]

YoungCR said:

That Concours calendar is pretty neat! I need to check out Gibson's myself, always hear about the good deals up there.

Don't know the BMW selection there currently, but it's always been good when I've gone.

[ChrisO]

For any e46 guys, this darker tan colored interior did catch my eye, I'm not really sure if it's rare for an e46

Edit: Looks like Natural Brown

[AsparagusMike]

GunMetalGrey said:

The e30 or two that is there is pretty picked over depending on what you're looking for. 
Source : It's 7 min from my shop, I get there frequentish

I can vouch for that, I get over there quite a bit as well and the e30's that are out there are pretty much just shells now. All though, the e36/e34 selection is very good indeed and I have seen a few fresh ones sitting out there (from auctions) with a tag dating from only a couple weeks ago hardly touched.

[ChrisO]

Got a decent amount done today

Took my vaders out and vacuumed the carpet/deep cleaned interior

New E-brake boot in

The little things

Unfortunately I came across some rust under the rear seat and a mouse nest behind the outer rear seat cushion

On the underside of the car, this is where the brake line bracket is mounted up by the gas tank, looks like a small crack was coming off the rusted area as well.

filled the hole and crack with welds

Mouse nest:

I cant find any signs of mice anywhere else in the car, and none of the nest was made of wire insulation. 

Cleaned up:

Took the mouse piss insulation out and the rest under the rear seat

about 10 lbs worth in weight savings

Took the  headliner and rear parcel shelf out. The rear shelf I re-wrapped a few years ago in black alcantara, and from the pictures you can see what it's become. The headliner has been sagging forever and when I had my windows down the airflow would make headliner glue blow all over the back of my interior. I cleaned up all of that glue/foam today too. Headliner and rear deck re-wrap later this week

Put the LTW seats in. I love them way more then my vaders already

And now I'm about to go out to the garage to deal with this from the previous owner:

I wanted to throw in a OEM radio, but I remembered I have my brothers new JVC radio that I pulled from his car before he scrapped it. It has Bluetooth and stuff, and doesn't look outrageous. It also weighs like 2 lbs less then the ugly pioneer super tuner that's been in the car since I got it.

[GunMetalGrey]

Those new seats look stellar! 
Sucks finding mouse nests in various places, I'm surprised they made it inside the cabin lol.