My name is Earl, and I have a Stainless Steel bolt fetish =)

[Earl]

I have a tiny update=P

 

No work has been done but my mirrors are on their way.

 

I also remembered last night that today is my Anniversary, tomorrow I have a wedding rehersal, and Friday I am in a wedding. Maybe tomorrow I can squeeze some time in to stop at the shop and get something dopne=)

[Earl]

Had just enough time yesterday to stop and drop my rent off at the shop. I am hoping I get my ass in gear Saturday and get something decent done=)

 

[johnprusinski]

earl, are you done with this project yet?

[KaiserRolls]

earl, are you done with this project yet?

 

well it's a winter project.

 

so he can't work on it during the summer.

 

because logic.

 

 

to be fair. he did do a shitload of awesome work

[Earl]

Thanks Mitch=) I could have it done if I wasnt such a lazy ass

[REKIII]

he has a gf.  thats what women do to a project.

[Rowleym]

he has a gf.  thats what women do to a project.

Its honestly my problem. Every night after work, its either girlfriend or project, and she lives with me, so its hard to say no sometimes haha. 

[Earl]

That does make sense=P I live with my gf too. It also doesnt help having the car 40 minutes away from my apartment=(

[johnprusinski]

earl, when ever i come to your shop barely anything gets done. remember when we were lighting stuff on fire and then we were kicking a piece of paper around? or when jake came over and we played frizbee for a good hour? or when you were getting upset cause your car wouldnt go any lower, so we spent the day trying to figure that out, and then we found out your car was already laying on the ground?

[Earl]

Yeah Im lazy and unmotivated. Lol

[mkoepp]

I just had the chance to read this thread, not in it's entirety but I got most of it. Great work and keep it up. Winter projects are great, no hurry, take your time and have a chance to really think things through. Enjoy! 

[Earl]

Thank you=)

[xgeetx]

HOLY SHIT. I was over here thinking "why does he just know how to change a suspension" and "why does this guy have a dedicated garage in milwauke" and now I see. This guy know how's to build a car! I am impressed. Passion at its finest. This is for an off road set up? (I didn't read the whole thread)

[Earl]

Haha well thank you=) This will be my daily driver for months without snow or salt. The setup is all for an all around aesthetically appealing simple car. I chose to go on air to keep my paint fresh once it is sprayed.

[Earl]

I am doing a horrible job of getting anything done on this=/

 

Literally all that happened Saturday is I cut my rear bumper with a box knife to start getting it to fit around the tire better and then Andy made a template for mounting my compressors, manifold, and anything else I may want to locate in my tool well.

 

Hopefully my mirrors arriving sparks something in my brain. Otherwise this thing will continue to sit and not get finished because my motivation is absolutely zero.

 

Before

 

After

 

Otherside doesn't fit as well. Both sides need to be heated and bent a little.

 

Tool well template

[Earl]

I didn't have a whole lot of time on Saturday but I got a tiny bit done.

 

I went to the junkyard Friday and cut the coil harness off of an M50 with a piece of glass.

 

I need four of them to make the harness for my COP kit. I grabbed the other two incase I mess up, or if someone else needs them to make a harness.

 

I decided that since my car won't be able to drive until after Winter, I will replace all of my front suspension. My thought is that then my car will be almost all new and I won't need to take it off the road next year to replace any wear parts.

 

I started the by removing my front swaybar.

 

You can see that compacts came with a pretty beefy 25mm swaybar (basically 1"). The Sport compacts came with a 26mm sway bar. The M3 came with only a 23mm swaybar. I know that my M3 endlinks work with my swaybar so you would think M3 guys would use these as upgrades.

 

I will be getting new bushings, brackets, and repainting the bar. The rest of my front suspension overhaul will consist of control arms, inner/outer tierods, and a set of Treehouse Racing eyeball arms.

 

After taking a look at all of that, I started to take my steering rack out to find where it is leaking since I couldn't tell with it on the car.

I got this far and then thought I couldn't get it off because I don't have the proper size wrenches for the inner or outer tie rods.

 

I realized when I got home that I could have just undone the tierods from the knuckles and took the whole assembly out. I will just do that when I get to the shop next time.

 

After all of that it was time to go to the Dubs Downtown show in downtown Milwaukee that my friends were putting on. The turnout was great and the meet was awesome overall besides the rain.

 

I finally got to see my friend Nick Feras 350 swapped 928 and was happy with the outcome.

 

There were a lot of other great cars there but I didn't take anymore pictures.

 

I did however end up picking my lip up from my friend that he was helping me repair. It is now structurally sound and needs some filler to smooth it out and reshape it. I threw it on for a test fit as soon as I got back to the shop.

 

I am not sure how I feel about it. I like it but it may be a bit too aggressive for the look I am going for. We will see once it is done being repaired and the whole car is painted. Maybe the floor not being flat at all has something to do with it too. The lip sits high off the floor, but Shaun Quills is on the ground and he is at the same height as me when I am aired out.

 

The last update is that my mirrors should be showing up this week=) I am hoping sooner than later. I cannot wait to see how they look installed.

[REKIII]

I like the lip!!

[B C]

I like the lip!!

[Earl]

I like the lip!!

 

 

I like the lip!!

 

Thanks sirs=) 

[Earl]

I just placed my order on Rockauto for my control arms and missing fog delete, ECS for tons of pending parts/swaybar bolts/brackets/bushings and tie rods, and Treehouse Racing eyeball arms. I was surprised that it all totals up to $639=) Not bad at all.

[KaiserRolls]

What's the over/under on this being operational before the snow flies?!?

 

I need to see this running, I am too emotionally invested in this thread/build to see it not come to life.

 

[Earl]

It most likely will not be done before snow flies, but will be completed before the snow melts. I am almost certain of that

[GunMetalGrey]

Hey I remember saying that! Wait....

[Earl]

Yesterday was Christmas in October=)

 

First off this all arrived shortly after I got home.

 

Of course I started with my box from Kitty since it was the best.

 

I open it to see this guy sitting in there

 

She never told me a birthday present was coming with the mirrors=)

 

I figured it would be the usual BMW shirt or maybe a cool picture. I was way wrong. This is probably one of the best gifts I have ever gotten in my life.

 

This is a super rare piece of 318ti history. I did not know the story behind it until she told me. Only 300 of these were given out to the public. This model was a limited Edition for an image movie that BMW wanted the TI-owners to create for an annual movie back in 1995. Everyone that registered to send in their film got this package as a reward. That's why the car came in a film case. Normally this model is only found wihout all the stuff (BMW pencil and filming tips), but finding the complete set is very rare. She got it from a collector just for my birthday=) I will take the best care possible for it.

 

After openening that it I knew nothing could be as cool. My mirrors came in at a close second. The glass is a little dirty around the edges, but they are mint otherwise.

 

I don't believe Madeira Schwarz was available in the US and I have never seen it before. What an amazingly beautiful color. It is right up there with Diamond Schwarz and Calypso in my mind.

 

The last two boxes were my missing fog delete and my Treehouse Racing Eyeball arms. I threw the eyeball arms on my control arms just so I didn't have to haul a ton of boxes to the shop. (not sure if I put them on the right sides, tried figuring it out from their website picture)

 

Today after work I will be fitting the mirrors to see how they look and I will tinker with a few other things. I will be out there tomorrow too as well.

[B C]